Why study theology?

As a part of my spiritual growth plan, I'm checking out sermons from various leaders. One guy I'm checking out is Matt Chandler, pastor of The Village Church.

In a message on January 4, 2009 Matt was encouraging his church to grow spiritually in 2009. He had some great thoughts about why it is important to participate in environments where you can learn the attributes and character of God; i.e., to study theology.

His thoughts from his sermon are below, edited slightly by me.

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Let’s say... my wife is at home and let’s say I’m shutting down my computer with a picture of her fine face right there on it. For whatever reason, I see it and get stirred up in my affection for her. Like, all of a sudden, I’m just so aware of my love for her that I’m almost hurting.

And so I get in my car; I bang through some traffic; and I get home. And I walk in and there she is, just as fine as she could be sitting on the couch. I walk up and get down on my knee in front of her, grab her hands and go, “Baby... after all these years I love you so much. When I see your black hair and those green eyes of yours, something just happens my soul.”

Right now some of you ladies are asking their husbands, “Why don’t you talk to me like that?”

Let me explain to you why that’s going to go bad for me. Despite the fact that that would be legitimate affection, let me explain why that’s going to go bad for me: My wife has blond hair and blue eyes.

So, correct affection applied wrongly is not a win.

Now, some of us have affection for God, but we have no idea what His attributes are, what the gospel is, what the Scriptures say He is and He isn’t, what He’s responsible for, and what He’s not responsible for. [We don't know theology.]

[Some of us view] theology and doctrine... as some sort of killjoy, some sort of love-robbing, man-made contraption to [lessen] your affection for God. What people do on this side of things is they like to look at theology and the Bible as some sort of cold, dead orthodoxy.

But let me tell you what you’re doing. It’s the same as me walking up to my wife going, “It’s your black hair and green eyes that stir up my affections.” To which my wife would respond, “I don’t have black hair or green eyes.” But then I go, “Don’t you tell me who you really are. I want you to be what I want you to be. Get contacts and dye your hair. That’s who I love.”

Now is that love? That’s a ridiculous version of love that those on the... nonintellectual side of things try [to use] as an excuse to [not study the nature and character of God].

Maybe you have genuine affection for God, but you don’t know anything about His attributes, you don’t know how He works. Maybe that’s where you are.

But He clearly says, “Love the Lord with all your heart and mind." Know... about God, about how He’s disclosed Himself to us in the Scriptures... If you don’t possess that [knowledge of God], then you’re running on a juvenile version of love [for God] that suffering or difficulty will eventually snuff out.

And I think a lot of us have that type of relationship with the Lord. We just don’t know anything about Him. So we’re constantly saying, “Well, God wouldn’t do this...This is who God is [to me].”

And God’s going, “[Hey, get to know Me. The real Me.] Because I don’t have black hair [and green eyes].”

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I like his argument for putting yourself in environments where you can learn some theology.

If you are at CVC, you really need to check out some of our classes like Truth Matters I and II. Get an ESV Study Bible and read the notes at the end entitled "Biblical doctrine: An overview." Get Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology and actually read it. If you want to study on your own, you can go to the Worldwide Classroom and take some theology courses.

Whatever you do, get to know God. That goes for me, too. Again, whatever you do, get to know God so you'll be loving the Real Deal.