in this session we're going to be trying to answer the question what is systematic theology and i'm going to begin by just asking the question about the nature of theology itself one way that people often attempt to define theology is to study its etymology and of course theology draws its name from two greek words the word theos meaning god and the word lagos which means word reason or speech and of course we often times take that suffix ology and make it the study of something biology is the study of human life anthropology is the study of human culture bracketology is the study of human basketball schedules theology can be defined as the study of god but this is certainly not a complete definition there's certainly much more to defining theology than this another way that we could sort of define theology is to look at its various uses throughout history the earliest known sources that we have for the word theology come from plato and aristotle and they are using it to describe pagan mythologies and they do not speak very positively about these pagan mythologies because when you read their description of the pagan mythologies the gods were petty you know vindictive creatures or beings and they weren't exactly like the god described in the bible and aristotle talks about the word theology to describe how pagan gods uh explain natural phenomena other ancient philosophers used the term theology simply to describe their philosophy of religion what they believed about god or gods now there is a very broad sense of theology in which every single person holds to some kind of theology this is what arthur holmes called a world viewish theology in the sense that everybody has a set of theological beliefs whether they're atheist whether they're christians whether they're muslims whether they're jewish whether they're hindu everybody has a belief about the existence of god or gods and theology in the very broadest sense can describe that and you'll sometimes hear people say things like everyone is a theologian they're typically defining theology in this way when they make that particular statement another way that some people use the term theology is they use it to describe the doctrinal teaching of a church or a denomination like they will say that church has heretical theology or that televangelist has has has heretical theology that seminary has liberal theology so on and so forth what people are doing is they're they're understanding theology as the doctrinal teaching that a church or denomination has now i will in just a moment try to distinguish between theology and doctrine but some people will use those terms interchangeably then theology can also describe any academic discipline taught in a bible college seminary or divinity school and in this case theology is used more like an adjective you talk about a theological seminary i would often joke with my my theology students at the seminary that i taught the most important class they had in seminary because the seminary was named after my class it was a theological seminary i'm not sure that my colleagues in other disciplines really appreciated that particular joke but nevertheless theology in this broad sense again can describe anything that's in the family of seminary bible college or divinity school related disciplines but the way we specifically mean it when we're talking about systematic theology and some of the other categories of theology it is the critical study of doctrine it's the critical study of what the church teaches and preaches and believes so borrowing here from millard erickson let me sort of spread this out and sort of explain some of these categories for you again theological studies very broadly describes all the studies taught at a particular seminary or bible college like biblical studies doctrinal studies historical studies which include church history practical studies which can involve any number of different disciplines like pastoral ministry or or or counseling or you know a christian social work program those sorts of things would fit into the practical study category but because they're housed in a seminary or a christian college or or a bible school then strictly speaking they would be in the category of theological studies but the more narrow sense that we typically use this phrase is doctrinal studies and doctrinal studies can include biblical theology historical theology philosophical theology and of course what you're here to learn about is systematic theology and there's an even more narrow sense in which we use the term theology proper as a category in systematic theology to talk about the doctrine of god and we will talk about that in a later session but before i jump into a definition of systematic theology let me just sort of unpack some of these other categories like biblical theology and historical theology and philosophical theology so on and so forth to begin with biblical theology is an academic specialization in biblical studies at least the way that we use and practice that term in the academy so usually when people say i'm studying biblical theology they mean that they are studying theology in a in a in a field related to the old testament and they feel related to the new testament with some sort of biblical studies emphasis and some within this discipline think of it as purely descriptive this was certainly the most popular way that bible scholars thought of biblical theology in the mid 20th century this idea that biblical theology doesn't really tell us what to do in the present as much as it describes what biblical authors in the past believed and biblical theologians are proud to mention oftentimes that they don't use the categories of systematic theology they don't organize things the way that we organize theology by topic rather they seek to answer specific questions that are raised by the biblical text in the way that they are raised and sometimes what this means is they will pit one biblical author over and against another particularly in non-conservative or non-evangelical circles they might say that paul and james contradict one another or or that that jesus and paul contradicted one another or that the theology of of the gospel of john somehow contradicts the theology of the synoptic gospels matthew mark and luke but that's certainly not the way that evangelical biblical scholars typically practice biblical theology i tend to think about biblical theology in narrative terms i tend to think of it as the story of god's work in israel the story of christ so from genesis to revelation this is one big story this is god's work in christ and i want to put as a caveat here just because i i treat biblical theology in a narrative way doesn't mean that i think that every genre of the bible is narrative it's not i mean clearly you have uh poetry you have wisdom literature you have apocalyptic literature there's all sorts of other genres that are going on in scripture but what i would say is every piece of the bible fits in this larger whole this larger story that is the story of god's redemptive plan in christ from genesis to revelation so for the rest of this class typically when i refer to scripture i'm going to talk about scripture in terms of where it fits in the biblical story that's my way of doing biblical theology and segueing biblical theology to systematic theology historical theology is as greg allison from southern seminary has defined it the study of the interpretation of scripture and the formulation of doctrine by the church of the past and i think this is a beautiful simple eloquent definition for what it is that a historical theologian does we're not studying uh just facts about history or even just facts about the church we're really trying to understand the thought of the church throughout history the thought of groups of people within the church we're talking about like the church councils or we're talking about the thought of individuals in church history this is what we do we unpack the way that they interpreted scripture the way that they try to apply scripture and make sense of scripture for their context and there's a couple of different ways that you can do historical theology first there's what you call a diachronic approach and diacronic comes from the greek word kronos which means time and dia the preposition which means through and so what the diachronic approach does is it traces the history and development of a particular doctrine across time and this is really sort of the primary method that's used in dr allison's textbook what he will do is he will take a doctrinal topic like the doctrine the trinity picture here and he will talk about the way that patristic theologians like augustine talked about the doctrine of the trinity or talk about the way that medieval theologians like thomas aquinas talked about the trinity or reformation theologians like john calvin talked about the the trinity and then carl bart as a modern example and so it's just a way of taking one doctrine and tracing it throughout history which is an extremely useful approach for systematic theology another approach and typically the approach that i take when i teach a historical theology class is the synchronic approach and instead of tracing a single doctrine all the way throughout history what it does is it treats doctrines as a collective group in one particular moment in time or in the life of one particular individual and just sort of groups the way that these doctrines relate to one another in this way and so here i have pictured athanasius i have gregory of nazianzus i have basil of caesarea i have gregory the great the the so-called cappadocian fathers and the way in which they addressed the doctrine of the trinity which in the fourth century there was a whole lot going on that led to the development of trinitarian doctrine beginning with the council of nicaea in 325 and going uh through the council of the council of constantinople in 381 and so a synchronic approach would not take that doctrine all the way throughout history but be asking the question well what did they mean by the doctrine of the trinity how did it relate to their doctrine of jesus what was their developing doctrine of salvation what was their developing doctrine of the holy spirit and it sees those doctrines as more of a cluster than an individual isolated doctrine and then there's philosophical theology philosophical theology is in many ways the red-headed stepchild of the christian theological world and i say that as someone who has red hair and has redheaded children um but uh it's the branch of theology that employs the resources of philosophy to discuss christian doctrine and uh philosophy can do a number of things first and foremost it can provide some content for theology it can give us some categories of thought it can give us some concepts like uh the example that i will frequently give is the way that christians understand god's relationship to time the way that christians understand the concept of free will or or the fact that we are not truly free that all of our actions are determined those things are often shaped by philosophy philosophy can also help us defend christian truth claims it can help us defend the existence of god and there are a number of philosophical arguments for the existence of god it can help us defend the claim that god is omnipotent it can help us defend the claim that god is omniscient that god is good so on and so forth and then lastly this has become relatively popular in recent years philosophy can use the tools its tools to examine um arguments or concepts that come from systematic theology and in chapter 9 of the method of christian theology i spend quite a bit of time unpacking each of these categories i'm going to encourage you to read that but it's uh it's it's simply a valuable tool for a theologian to have a significant knowledge of philosophy to be able to use and call these things uh to purpose in his or her studies related to but not identical with philosophical theology is christian apologetics now apologetics from the greek word apologia which means defense is an interdisciplinary discipline devoted to providing rational defenses of the christian faith and and i say it's interdisciplinary because it involves philosophy it involves history it involves biblical studies it involves theology it can involve the sciences so on and so forth and what it does is it tries to learn from as many different sources as it can the best ways to defend the truthfulness of christian claims like the existence of god the reliability of the bible the resurrection of jesus so on and so forth now let me just put this important caveat out there i do not believe apologetics is a replacement to evangelism certainly not a replacement to evangelism what apologetics does is it helps sort of remove obstacles that keep some people from coming to faith but it is certainly not a replacement for evangelism it is to aid us in evangelism and then there's the category of practical or pastoral theology and uh practical or pastoral theology is that area that sort of brings together theoretical discussion of christian teaching particularly christian teaching related to the doctrine of the church with its concrete application in the ministry of the local church and you know questions related to pastoral theology might be when should we require re-baptism should we re-baptize someone who comes from a church that that has a different set of beliefs entirely about baptism from us should we re-baptize or baptize biblically for the first time adults who were baptized as infants so on and so forth the sort of questions that sometimes people ask should a church have a single pastor a lead pastor or senior pastor or should there be a plurality of elders should uh we embrace the multi-site model for churches that's so popular today or should we reject it so these are the sort of questions that pastoral theologians often have to deal with then there's the area of christian ethics now christian ethics like systematic theology really is one of those areas which borrows widely from a number of different other disciplines like it can borrow from biblical studies it can borrow from philosophy it can borrow from theology and what it is in some is a distinctively christian way of thinking about what is right and what is wrong and christian ethics is rooted ultimately in biblical teaching and truth but there are three very broad ways that christian ethicists come to their conclusions first is what we call d ontological ethics and deontological ethics is a sort of approach to ethics that's focused on the duty that we have as christians to following god's divine commands what god has directly said in scripture we have to do and that is an important part of christian ethics but it's not the only part in christian ethics because there are questions that we have particularly as the world changes around us about what we should do especially when we don't have a direct instruction from scripture on how we are to address these sorts of questions the sort of dilemmas that we might face on a daily basis so to this end there are a couple of other ways that christian ethicists sort of address tricky ethical questions one way is what we call consequential ethics which focuses on the ends or the telos of the moral decision that you make and um you know when we we talk about consequentialist ethics i'm i'm trying to ask the question what sort of result will come about from making this particular moral choice and you know the way that a lot of non-christian ethicists deal with this is they will say things like so long as you don't hurt other people do what you want to do or they will say things like focus on the greater good of the community what is the greatest possible good or utility that you can achieve from carrying out this particular kind of action but for christian what we're really sort of concerned about is what will bring god the most glory how can we show love of god and love of neighbor in what we do so we're focusing on the ends and then there is another category that's equally important and that's called virtue ethics and virtue ethics focuses more on the character of the believer rather than the specific actions what is a person of integrity to do in this situation how do we become more like christ in our behaviors and in our actions so that's a very very broad view of christian ethics but one that summarizes the way that many evangelicals treat these issues so let's jump into systematic theology that's what you're here for and let me just sort of give you um my definition of systematic theology for what it's worth systematic theology is critical and organized reflection on god's self revelation for the purpose of christian disciple making it's critical and organized reflection on god's self-revelation for the purpose of christian disciple making and i think that i can sort of unpack this if i can walk through the various tasks of systematic theology so let me begin by saying this systematic theology is distinctively christian there's really no such thing as a mormon systematic theology or an islamic systematic theology or a jewish systematic theology i mean you can find some examples of these in history but you're not going to find these taught in any university on the planet today because this is distinctively christian while a lot of other religions do have scholars that study their belief systems there's no real uh area of scholarship that that works to create things for their religious bodies the way that systematic theologians work to create content for the life of the church it's distinctively christian what we do there's nothing quite like it in any other religious tradition it involves critical reflection on doctrine and let me just pause and say some people hear critical and they think negative or argumentative or combative but that's not what we mean by critical what we simply mean by critical is is the berean call when when when when paul and silas preached to the bereans they went home and they tested everything that paul said by the scriptures that's what we should do is systematically theologians we should test the spirits as john tells us to do in first john 4. we are simply critically evaluating and assessing what we hear what we her heard in churches what we read in books um and and what we what we believe ourselves so we critically reflect on those things uh systematic theology is focused on god's self-revelation and god's self-revelation includes his revelation uh in in nature but also his revelation in scripture the specific ways that he's revealed himself at various moments throughout human history and the primary subject of systematic theology is the triune god the father the son the holy spirit his nature his attributes and his acts of course systematic theology also relates back to god and his people it relates back to the world that he has created but it begins and ends with god god is himself the primary object and subject of systematic theology and what systematic theology does it's different from biblical theology and some of the other branches of theology is it organizes the content of the bible into categories or topics and there's a reason we do that obviously the bible doesn't do that the bible is a collection of 66 books written over a 15 to 2 000 year long period with different individuals writing to israel writing to the church with specific agendas but what a systematic theologian tries to do is a systematic theologian tries to answer the questions that christians have what happens to us when we die who is jesus who is the holy spirit what does it mean to be a human being these are the sort of questions that we wrestle with and we organize all of the content of scripture to sort of fit those sorts of descriptions in systematic theology we will often employ the resources of tradition of reason and experience to formulate doctrinal expressions now i do want to say that we do believe in the sufficiency of scripture we affirm soul of scripture that scripture is the supreme standard the only standard by which um we know anything about god but that doesn't mean that we can't learn from tradition and wrestle with the way that other people throughout church history have tried to understand the bible that we don't use reason to try to make sense of the bible that we don't use our experience to confirm what we believe to be true about the word of god but it is to say that we use all of these resources together into some sort of coherent whole now systematic theology must offer a contemporary and contextually relevant presentation of christian truth this is good no news for the theologian it means that that we are always with a job there's job security there's no perfect systematic theology textbook that can be written and say hey this job is done forever the task of theology is done because there's always a new need for the church to address in the first century paul was addressing legalism jewish legalism in in the church in the uh in the in the second century systematic theologians or at least the early apologists uh were were responding to gnosticism in the fourth century the denial of the deity of jesus and the in the 16th century uh roman catholic theology and the the doctrine of the indulgences there's always a need to give a contemporary and contextually relevant presentation of christian truth in the 21st century we have our own issues that we have to deal with this post-truth culture the continuing impact of post-modernism on everyday life and so there's always a need to formulate an answer to the sorts of questions that our culture is asking it's important to note that systematic theology shapes the worship the behavior and the ministry of the local church ultimately this is about connecting us to the life of the church ultimately theology should end in doxology we should worship the triune god that we are studying about that we're learning about this is ultimately all about him and theology helps us articulate a distinctly christian worldview which we're going to learn in a moment is key and vital for christian discipleship and again systematic theology engages with other disciplines and perspectives in order to help us provide a biblical outlook on god's world so those are ten tasks for systematic theology that are of vital importance for you to understand so the other thing that we should talk about at this moment is the nature of doctrine itself and again the bible doesn't use the word theology but in our contemporary translations we do see the word doctrine surface watch your life and your doctrine closely persevere in them because if you do you will save both yourself and your hearers and paul again to timothy says as i urged you when i went to macedonia remain in ephesus so that you may instruct certain people not to teach false doctrine if anyone teaches false doctrine and does not that does not agree with the sound teaching of our lord jesus christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness he is conceited and he understands nothing so scripture has a lot to say about the topic of doctrine but how exactly does theology relate to doctrine so this is an important question for us to try to answer doctrine is the authoritative teaching or instruction of a religious figure or belief system that is to say it's what someone stands up from behind the pulpit and says thus saith the lord this is the word of god that's given to you that we speak as being authoritative doctrines whether good or bad true or false are the expressions of beliefs communicated in an authoritative teaching system because doctrine means teaching all right so what i would like to do is make the distinction between theology as we study it critically and doctrine as we proclaim it from the pulpit so think of theology as the process of critically reflecting on god's self-revelation in scripture and doctrine as the product or the fruit of that study of course the end goal of all theological study is to know god and to make god known in certain respects it's to is to refine and shape the doctrine that we use in christian discipleship all right and uh and so i don't think theology exists for the sake of the academy i don't think theology exists just so we can keep seminaries in business we study theology because we're ultimately concerned about how we preach and teach doctrine in the local church which in turn makes disciples now not everyone agrees on the nature of doctrine itself and in 1984 george lindbeck who was a well-known theologian at yale university published this book called the nature of doctrine and in it he put forward what he called three theories of the nature of doctrine that christian theologians normally subscribe to the first is what he called doctrine as statements of fact cognitive propositional theory of doctrine the cognitive propositional theory of doctrine and basically he pigeonholed all conservative theologians as thinking this about doctrine that we all believe our doctrines are just the sort of black and white propositional statements that relate back that are either true or false and then on the other side of the theological spectrum he said that liberals tend to think about theology or doctrine as symbolic expressions of religious failing in other words doctrines tell us nothing about who god is as much as they tell us you know what we feel about god what we experience about god they're merely symbolic representations his own particular view was this notion of doctrine as grammatical rules and he said that doctrine really doesn't correspond to reality he he takes this approach which is pretty postmodern and says that doctrine really more than telling us what god is like really governs what we believe god is like and i i impact that in great detail in chapter 2 of the method of christian theology and i want you to read that pretty closely um but let me just before getting anywhere else talk about the purpose of doctrine doctrine is as we've already mentioned authoritative teaching in the ministry of the church doctrines are interpretations of the biblical message they are interpretations of what the bible means doctrines can speak truthfully about god they can tell us about who god is and i i want to say um in a way that contradicts george lindbeck that yes doctrines can be truthful statements about who god is doctrines can speak about god in multiple ways and and so you know there's this long-standing sort of debate in uh in christian theology about the language that we use about god is it univocal there's one-to-one correspondence is it equivocal there's no correspondence in the way that we talk about god and the way that god is or is it analogical is it correspondence by analogy and and so there's a couple of different examples that we could use in scripture for these things but again let me unpack these before i get to that universal means that there is a one-to-one correspondence that that that that when we say that god is powerful we mean the same thing that that we mean by a human being being powerful equivocal means there's absolutely no connection between what it means for a human to be powerful and for god to be powerful and analogical means that yes there is some resemblance between what it means for a human to be powerful and what god means for it to be powerful but it's merely an analogy that helps our little human brains understand what god is like but scripture uses i think at least two of these three categories look at psalm 18 2 the lord is my rock and my fortress my deliver my god my rock in whom i take refuge my shield the horn of my salvation my stronghold now is this equivocal language is it unifical language or is it analogical language obviously god is not literally a rock obviously god is not literally a fortress but of course these images of god being rock of god being a fortress testify to the strength that god gives us the sense of protection that god gives his people and psalm 91 4 he will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge his faithfulness will be your shield and your rampart let me just say again that god doesn't literally have feathers he's not a giant chicken who covers you with his wings um but the image of the mother bird or the foster bird covering a baby chick is a beautiful picture of the sort of protection that god has for us he covers us he protects us he shields us and and that is the image i think that scripture clearly wants to convey about the love that our father has for us first samuel 15 23 samuel did not see saul again until the day of his death for samuel grieved over saul and the lord regretted that he had made saul king over israel so does the lord literally regret or is this you know some sort of analogy that helps us understand god in his providence and and the the sort of sorrow that he feels for human sinfulness and then there's this one and i think this is a slightly different sort of scenario the lord knows the thoughts of man is this an equivocal universal or analogical uh sort of statement i tend to think that it's unifical that god knows the thoughts of man the same way that we might know our own thoughts or just in the sense that he knows what human beings are thinking all right and that seems to be a literal straightforward sort of statement first john 4 8 whoever does not love does not know god because god is love of course this is a classic example of a kind of analytic analogical statement about god and his love god's love is not like human love but we have some way of conceiving about god's love for us the way that we love and relate to one another i also want to say that doctrine is necessary for obedience notice the explicit connection that the apostle paul makes between doctrine and obedience particularly when he's talking about scripture he says that scripture is profitable for teaching for rebuking for correcting for training in righteousness so that the man or woman of god may be complete equipped for every good work it's profitable for teaching it's profitable for doctor it's profitable for correcting it's profitable for training in righteousness so i want to say that christian doctrines are faithful and true messages derived from scripture and used to grow god's people in knowledge spiritual maturity and obedience so again let me stress that christian theology is the critical and organized reflection on god's self-revelation for the purpose of christian disciple making but christian doctrines are true and faithful messages derived from scripture and used to grow god's people in knowledge spiritual maturity and obedience christian theology is the way that we critically reflect on christian doctrine christian doctrine is the product that we bring to the church that we bring to the disciple making process all right so theology and doctrine are closely related but they're not one and the same thing there's a few other important things that you need to know about doctrine first and foremost doctrine can be developed that is to say that doctrine can grow over time it's not to say that the message of the bible changes but the understanding of doctrine throughout history can and does grover time we see this repeatedly like with things like the doctrine of the trinity we see that there are occasions sometimes to make explicit what is only implicit in scripture and we'll have several examples of that throughout the remainder of this course doctrine can be corrected particularly if an individual misinterprets scripture it can be corrected and should be corrected in that way doctrine can find new expressions in new settings and new situations all right so let's get to the meat of doctrine and disciple making which i believe to be in world view formation now the term world view as you could probably guess means the way that you see the world this is the way nt wright unpacks it world views are the basic stuff of human existence the lens through which the world is seen the blueprint for how one should live in it and above all the sense of identity and place which enables human beings to be what they are it's the way you see the world and the way you see the world is shaped by your interaction with what you believe and of course in the case of christian doctrine we are teaching what scripture says in an authoritative way to change the way people see the world here's the way the late james sire defined world view a world view is a commitment a fundamental orientation of the heart that can be expressed as a story or a set of propositions assumptions which may be true partially true or entirely false which we hold consciously or subconsciously consistently or inconsistently about the basic constitution of reality and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being so what sire says here is that world view is not merely an intellectual thing it's the way your heart is directed it's the way your heart is focused in some ways a world view is very similar to what the bible means when it talks about the heart the the seat of the person the way that a person interacts with the world the way that a person makes decisions in his or her heart so how do worldviews work there's a number of different approaches that people take to this but here's what i'm going to do in this course i am going to talk about world views in four ways four elements and i'm borrowing here for mentee wright and james k smith sort of kind of doing a composite of the two things that they are doing in their respective projects the first is the grand narrative or the story everybody has a way that they understand everything they tend to frame everything through one big overarching story and then everyone deals with what nt wright calls ultimate questions these ultimate questions are relatively simple who am i this is the question about human identity the question about human existence human origins where am i this is the question about the kind of world that we live in what makes this world tick is this a world that's here by design by providence or is this a world that's here by random chance what's wrong with the world and and of course people will sometimes use different ways to approach this question maybe what's wrong with the world is is the political party at the moment that's in control what's really wrong with the world is there's not enough money to go around what's really wrong with the world is there's not enough education but for christians ultimately of course that answer is sin what's the solution to what's going on in the world maybe for some people it's uh it's removing religion from the world that will solve all of our problems or or maybe it's electing the right politician maybe it's the right kind of education but again in the christian world view the solution is ultimately in the person of jesus christ and then there's the issue of practices every world view has a set of behaviors every world view has a set of ethics and so our our practice of christian ethics will be closely related to what we believe about the world and every worldview deals with affections affections that is what do you love most in the world and uh james k smith very helpfully points out that these are not uh the sort of loves that are minor or insignificant loves like my love for for crawfish or my love for charbroiled oysters that's not going to shake my world view but what will shape my world view is ultimately what do i worship what do i value above everything else and that ultimately is hopefully my relationship with jesus christ and hopefully that's the answer to the question for you as well so how does doctrine relate to these categories in world view well doctrine rehearses the big story of scripture in fact uh the way uh nt wright talks about the apostles creed he he describes it as carrying the whole story of the bible around in a briefcase there is value for carrying around the story and just very briefly very concisely telling someone what the story of the bible is from genesis to revelation of course that doesn't replace sitting down and reading the bible for yourself but doctrine has a way of sort of summarizing the story doctrine has a way of helping believers find their place in the story of god and we can think about the various levels that the story plays out in scripture and so when you look at a story in the bible say for instance the story of of abraham and isaac there's the individual story that first level that's going on the details of abraham's life the details of isaac's life but know that it also fits into this larger story of the abrahamic covenant or the old covenant the old testament and that ultimately relates to the grand narrative how does the story of abraham ultimately point to jesus how does the story of isaac ultimately point to jesus and so all three of these levels are going on every time we read a story but one thing that several new testament scholars and theologians have done over the last couple of years that i i tend to find to be very helpful is to summarize the bible as a story in five acts there there's some variation as to uh what theologian or what biblical scholar puts what where and i i know of at least a few biblical scholars like craig bartholomew who will put this in six acts but for the purpose of simplicity here i'm just going to do five acts act one is the story of creation god creates human beings in his image and human beings rebel against their creator act two is the story of israel the story of abraham of isaac of jacob the sons of jacob the covenants the kingdom the prophets act three is the sort of dramatic climax the turnaround event and the whole story and that is the incarnation of the son of god in jesus his birth his life his death his burial and his resurrection act four is the age between the first and second coming of jesus it is the age of the church the age in which we presently find ourselves act five is the end it is the second coming it is the resurrection it is the final judgment is the new heavens and the new earth and by faith in christ we recognize that we are part of this story this is not just a story in a book we are here we are living this moment out act in acts 4 which is the church and uh and so what uh what you know n.t wright and kevin van hooser and others have done is they have argued that um the the bible is like in like this five act play imagine finding a five act play from shakespeare but uh but part of the fourth act is missing and what we have to do is we have to improvise um to try to make the connections between what was going on at the beginning of the fourth act and what is going on in the fifth act and that's exactly what we're doing we are living out the same story we are the church we're the same characters that were there in the first century but we are trying to find our place in the story and to try to faithfully get from act four to act five when it all comes to an end so i would recommend several different books when you're when you're trying to do discipleship in the area story and the first one might sound um sort of juvenile or simple but i think it's an incredibly powerful book sally lloyd jones is the jesus storybook bible which i read to my children all the time i love this book i mean the subtitle this book describes exactly what i love about it every story whispers his name and every story in the bible and uh from genesis to revelation um really ultimately points to jesus jesus is the hero of every single story and then i use this in the undergraduate level with my students michael goheen and craig bartholomew the true story of the whole world finding your place in the biblical drama now i mentioned craig bartholomew and goheen are one of those who uh use the bible in six acts as opposed to five but the same basic principles are here and uh this was previously published under the title the drama of scripture and then um there is the drama of doctrine by kevin van hooser and this is the most technical of these books one was written for for small children one is written for college students and this one is written for people who are pursuing phds and i think it's an incredibly detailed but incredibly important book that helps us flesh out some of these details so if you ever plan to do advanced studies on this topic or you want to explore more i say kevin van hooser's big orange book is a good place to go so christian doctrine also helps us answer life's big questions who am i the doctrine of humanity addresses that the doctrine of creation explains where am i where am i in the world what's wrong can be answered by the doctrine of sin what's the solution could be answered by the doctrines of christ the doctrines of salvation eschatology so on and so forth but it's important that we know that doctrine does not end simply with statements of fact but it results in practice it results in practice this is what james says in his letter but be doers of the words and not hearers only deceiving yourselves because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror for he looks at himself he goes away and he immediately forgets what kind of person he was this might sound like a like a strange illustration but i've actually met a person who suffered from something called prosoponignosia which means you are a face forgetter and uh and what he would do is i would have to reintroduce myself um every time i met him because he literally would forget my face he might be able to recognize my voice but that part of the brain that helps a person visualize other people was not functioning with him and so we would go and have conversations we would pick up where we left off but it would always begin with uh reintroduction and it is interesting that this illustration is used because that's exactly what people do when they they take in this sort of propositional truth from scripture but they don't live it out they don't practice it so doctrine is closely related to christian practice it should teach us proper worship proper worship should teach us about doctrine doctrine teaches us how we are to live together as a community of saints it talks about the nature of the body of christ it should align with holy living and of course it gives us plain guidance on ethical matters directly addressed by scripture but it also gives us wisdom for discerning what to do in matters that aren't directly addressed by scripture so at this point we've talked about story we've talked about truth we've talked about practice now let's talk about affections doctrine stirs our affections and jesus makes this connection when he tells us to love god with our thoughts about him love the lord your god with all of your heart with all of your soul and jesus adds this in the new testament with all of your mind with all of your strength we are to love the lord our god with our minds and by the way you can't really and truly love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength if you're not loving him with all your mind and vice versa we're not truncated people we can't compartmentalize that way you have to love the lord your god with the whole of your person so how do we do this we meditate on god's instructions we must mine put our minds on things above not on earthly things we must set our minds on the things of the spirit and of course meditation on theological truth will result in praise and adoration and again i love to read romans 11 when paul has been through this long theological uh sort of you know composition between romans 9 and romans 11 when he's talked about the election of israel when he's talked about the call to salvation and he's talking about the grafting end of the gentiles and he ends with this doxology this song of praise to god and i think theology well done will always result in doc solids you will always result in worship and it will stir our affections doctrine of course can retrain our sinful and unhealthy passions and emotions when we think negatively about the world we think negatively about others when we think negatively about the things that god is called good when we study christian theology either as individuals or together as a body of believers it can retrain our emotions it can retrain our passions and stir our affections to again provoke us to the love of god and the love of other people so how can we use this content what i've talked about in christian disciple making in the local church well what i would say is we can talk about world view specifically for matthew 28 18-20 the great commission romans 12 2 and talk about the ways in which we are simply called to view the world in a new and different way because of our faith in jesus and i would consider a discipleship strategy in your local church or in your curriculum material that moves between story truth practice and affections now we did this at first baptist kenner when i was pastor there and um i believe that this was this was a was a very helpful thing to do we we offered you know on our wednesday night bible studies options for people to have they had story where they could focus in on biblical studies they had they had opportunities to study from books there was truth which was you know sort of systematic theology that we practice in the local church or or apologetics we had practical studies you know these are the sort of things that were related to ethics or parenting or finances but again ultimately shaped by the christian worldview and we had affections affections were focused on spiritual and emotional health we often talked about this discipleship we talked about devotion we talked about um things that ultimately resulted in people's spiritual and emotional well-being and uh i think that what you should do is in the local church maybe sort of go back and forth between these different categories because we're not just trying to create experts in theology or experts in the bible or experts on practical matters but we want holistic disciples that understand the content and the story of the bible well but also understand doctrinal truth but also understand how to live it out and it stirs their hearts and their affections and their feelings and points them ultimately to jesus so that in some is my take on systematic theology and you can read this stuff in much greater detail in chapters one through three of the method of christian theology and i hope you will do that in preparation for the test and the particular questions that you have coming your way soon