Theology, Schmology

What is theology? Right, let's throw away all the stuff that is extra scriptural. Church tradition and human wisdom that contradict scripture, are "other gospels" and I have not time for them, they claim that God is a flake, He says one thing one minute and changes His mind the next. The theological term for changing your mind is repentance and we are told God doesn't repent.

OK, in a very simply stroke I have narrowed it down to only that which is accepted as the authoritative inspired word of God. That's where we look to find out about God and what He wants. So what is theology? Jesus summed up the whole of the Old Testament, "The Law and the Prophets" as love. Love God and love your neighbour. So theology has to be the definition of love. It is the definition of God's love and the definition of how we are to love God and one another!

That doesn't mean that our theology should deny all of the truth within scripture. but that all of that truth is summed up in love. Any understanding of "truth" that cannot be included in the definition of love is a clear misreading of scripture. As it was Jesus Himself who said that all of it was summed up in love!

For the Christian there are three commands, Love God, love one another and love our neighbours (including our enemies!)

The first looks like this, We love God by,
Worship and discipleship.

We love one another by,
sharing our gifts and through our giving of ourselves (Including, money, talents and time)

We love our neighbours by,
Witness and good works.

So everything in scripture can be summed up in those six areas. We are either learning about,

worship
discipleship
ministry
self sacrifice
witness
or good works.

I really like the phrase "Greet one another with a holy kiss!" where Kiss is the acronym, Keep It Simple Stupid!!

Is that too simple! For example where does "Eschatology" the study of end times come in? Personally, I would put it under worship and no where else. It is worship to appreciate that God has a plan that He has revealed to us.