Theology, doxology, and godly living
I don’t know who said it first, but several have repeated it: “Theology leads to doxology.” Learning about God leads us to praise God (or at least it should). A theology that doesn’t cause us to worship is an incomplete theology. Theology is an organized exploration of how various teachings connect with one another, so it should include teaching about worship. But it should be more than a dry fact that we are supposed to respond to what we learn about God – it should also lead us or exhort us into a worshipful response.
I have been to several theology conferences, and few of the presentations seemed to have this response in mind. Theology was an object to dissect, a debate to be won, a way for presenters to make their name known. It seems as if academic theology is supposed to be dispassionate discussions about ideas, and presenters should not get too enthusiastic about their topic. The response they want from the audience is that people will praise the presentation!
Some churches have become a theology discussion club. People gather, discuss some point of the Bible or theology, go home, and it does not seem to affect their life. Their theology is irrelevant to life, and I might say irreverent as well. God is not looking for armchair theologians who talk about him but don’t do what he says (Luke 6:46).
Some people learn Trinitarian theology and come away with this message: God loves everyone, Jesus died for everyone, he’s got everything covered. God is already working in the world, and he does everything a lot better than we do, so we don’t really need to do anything. We are invited to participate with him, and it’s nice to be invited, but not much hinges on whether we do anything. If we don’t feel compelled, then it doesn’t matter much. It’s easier to just get together with friends to sing a few songs on Sunday, to be happy that we have been given the message of grace, and we go home, and wonder why our church is getting smaller.
Something is missing in our theology if we forget that God is “the One who commands.” Pagan deities required worship, but they didn’t have many commands for everyday life. They didn’t care whether you were good or bad – that was left to the decrees of kings and governors. But the God of Israel had a lot to say about the way people live, and so did Jesus, Paul, and other New Testament writers.
God gives commands because he loves us and cares about the way we treat one another. He also wants to live with us, and he cares about the way that we treat him, too. Some attitudes and actions are going to foster a good relationship, and others reflect and reinforce a bad one. So our theology needs to include this: God’s nature is that he is the sort of being who wants us to love and honor others. He is the sort of being who wants us to be involved in his project for the world.
The “invitation” is actually a command, commonly called the Great Commission. If our theology doesn’t lead us to this, it’s falling short. If our theological chain of reasoning leads to the idea that “we don’t really need to do anything,” then we have taken a wrong turn. We have tried to opt out of God’s plan for our own growth and development; we have snubbed our nose at what he wants for us. Even if we get the hypostasis, perichoresis and kenosis right, it’s just a language game unless we also get life right. Theology should lead to worship, and worship includes obedience.
If we take a hint from Titus 2:12, we could also say that theology leads to eusebia, to godliness, to right living, and our theology is not complete until it tells us what “right living” includes. Good theology includes ethics. Here again, the academic conferences seem to obscure the connection – theology is in one room, and ethics is discussed in another. People might discuss the doctrine of the church without any reference to what the church is supposed to do. It’s as if they are watching a movie, analyzing the lines, gestures, backgrounds, etc., without realizing that they are actually in the movie, but not playing the role they are supposed to.
A good doctrine of the church includes its mission – not just a dry exploration of what that mission is, but it should lead us so that we want to engage in it.
Michael Morrison, GCS News, Summer 2024