9Marks Book Study Highlights: Chapter 2
Biblical Theology. The next mark of a healthy church according to Mark Dever is Biblical Theology. Why is this important you might ask? Well I think it is pretty obvious that biblical illiteracy is a huge problem in America and especially among Christians. Christians just don't read their Bible and when they do it's seldom that they come to a right understanding of the theology contained in pages they read. Part of the problem is very much related to the first mark, Expositional Preaching, or really the lack-there-of. Pastors just don't preach expositionally very often anymore and since very few of their church members actually read their Bible outside of Sunday morning it is no wonder that people have a screwed up understanding of Biblical Theology. So here are the points we learned from this chapter and hopefully you'll realize, like us, that Biblical Theology is very, very important:
- In society today, beliefs have been domesticated. People no longer fight for them and may not even care about them anymore.
- Today people believe to be true simply what they desire to be true.
- People need to have a "metanarrative" or meaning in their life.
- God is a creating, holy, faithful, loving and sovereign God.
- Sound teaching in our church must include a clear commitment to the teachings of the Bible, even if those teachings are often neglected.
- The Bible shows us very plainly that God is a creating God and the He is an electing God.
- God has a passion for holiness and is not unconcerned with His creation.
- The language of covenant is the language of personal relationship.
- The sacrifices of the OT showed that purification was needed, and that sin is so serious that death is needed to atone for it--that salvation and forgiveness are costly.
- If you think people are basically good, then a church is simply a place where we seek encouragement or perhaps the enhancement of our self-esteem.
- If you think that we are spiritually dead, then the church needs to present the Gospel clearly and tell people how to find forgiveness and new life.
- Jesus Christ was the faithful fulfillment of God's promise to redeem us into a restored relationship with Himself.
- God will continue to care for us and His continuing care is based not on our faithfulness but on His.
1 comment:
More and more we hear that theology is of little value, relevance and importance. Yet despite all of these objections everyone has a theology. Everyone has something they believe about Scripture, Jesus, sin, human nature, the Holy Spirit, salvation, hell, the church, etc. So the issue becomes a matter of whether or not your theology is biblically derived, gospel driven, and Christ-centered. It is not a matter of whether theology is important or not. Biblical theology is crucial to Christians; it is not some ivory tower discipline with no practical implications that is to be left for the theologians to debate about. Your theology affects how you think, how you live, how you relate to God, and how you relate to people. Most importantly theology is closely related to worship. In order to worship God faithfully and correctly you first have to have a correct understanding of him. If you have a distorted understanding of who God is you will worship him incompletely at best and in vain at worst. What you believe determines how you worship God, and the scary thing is the opposite can be just as true sometimes. How you worship determines what you believe about God. If you “believe” that God is creator, that Jesus became incarnate died and was resurrected, but you don’t worship and give God the praise, glory, and honor that is due him, then it might be a good test of whether or not you actually believe what you claim to believe.
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