“To love God is to know Him.”
I’ve had several conversations with girl friends over coffee, in Bible studies etc that claim that they don’t need to know theology, they just need to “know and love Jesus.” However, theology is unavoidable….its our attempt to understand what God has revealed to us. After all, how can you love what/who you do not know? Romans 12:2 tells us that we should love the Lord our God with our hearts and our minds. To love God is to know Him. So the question isn’t really will you study theology but is your theology sound?
We should be diligent students of the Word because God has given us the Bible. We have 66 books that teach us about God, about his attributes, about the Gospel. This book is to be read, not left to collect dust on your nightstand or bookshelf. It is meant to be searched, studied, read, and most importantly to be understood and obeyed.
Look at this text that Paul wrote in his second letter to Timothy, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work,”
2 Timothy 3:16-17
These two verses alone should put an end to the debate of whether or not we need doctrine. It should discredit the statement that says, “doctrine holds little to no value.” Let’s break this text down a bit.
There is great profit that comes from studying God’s Word. Because the Bible is a book that is inspired by the Lord, it gives us a precious gift – doctrine!
The Bible is also profitable for reproof. Oftentimes Scripture renders us the object rather than the subject for criticism. The Bible exposes our sin and we are reproved for our sin when we come and examine Scripture. Scripture is the ultimate mirror (James 1:22-ff). Listen to what God is saying in His Word and don’t you dare walk away unchanged because it is too painful.
Scripture is also profitable for correction from both false living and false belief. I recently was reading through several posts on social media and a few chapters in a book from a New York Times best selling “Christian” author. I was disgusted, angry and just so sad. The Gospel was misrepresented (Read: slandered), and it was just so sinful and heretical. It was heartbreaking. If we were diligent students of the Word and had a proper understanding of law and Gospel, we would be easily able to discern the lies from the Truth. This is why it is important to understand theology.
Lastly, we see that Scripture is profitable for “training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” Theology isn’t intended so that we may be puffed up with pride. Rather, it is there so that it may instruct us to follow in the pathway of God, so that we can grow in our sanctification.
This is why we study theology and engage with it. We must commit to be women of the Word. We need to be diligent that we are not only growing in our love for God but that we are also growing in our knowledge of God. In fact, as we grow in our knowledge of God we will grow in our love for God! We have to be vigilant, we must know what our Bibles say. We need to understand doctrine and theology. And we need to understand Scripture and obey it.