The-Ology: Why it Matters We are all theologians because we all have thoughts about God. Theology is simply defined as “words about God”, but the implications of what you know and how you live out your theology is very important. Without theology, we are left to navigate life driven by emotion and feeling, which leads to a moralistic view of life. That goes wrong every time. Creeds like the Nicene Creed or the Apostle’s Creed were written to give guardrails to the specific beliefs of our faith in order to keep people from developing counter-belief systems. In reality, there are creeds in the Bible, and the first one we see was stated by Moses in Deuteronomy 6:4-7 which reads, “Here O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. You shall love the Lord your God with all your hearts…” Our doctrine drives our “doing”, known as orthopraxy. The doctrine of Deut 6:4 is “the Lord is One.” That is the belief statement. We are to respond to that with “loving the Lord with all our hearts, all our minds, and all our strength”. Ultimately, doctrines and creeds imply a relationship. It’s a belief in Someone who is the object of our affection. With this relationship, we have a mission, which is informed by our theology. If your theology is bad, then your mission will be bad. A few quotes: C.S. Lewis-“If you do not listen to theology, that won’t mean that you have no ideas about God. It will mean that you have a lot of wrong ones. Francis Schaeffer-“Reformation is a return to the sound doctrine of the Bible. Revival is the practice of that sound doctrine under the power of the Holy Spirit.” Charles Spurgeon-“When a man believes wrongly, he will soon act wrongly. Those who do away with Christian doctrine are, whether they are aware of it or not, the worst enemies of Christian living…The coals of orthodoxy are necessary to the fire of piety (right living).” Steve Swartz -“We love theology because it informs our understanding of the Lord, but theology becomes just an intellectual exercise if it doesn’t impact how we worship and how we enjoy the Lord.” Peter Kraft-“Christianity is not a hypothesis but a marriage proposal.” Trevin Wax-“We love the details of doctrine (theology) because we love the God those doctrines describe.” Questions to Consider: We are all driven by our deep-rooted beliefs. Some of those are family “creeds” or “mottos” that your family lives by (spoken or unspoken). What are some of your family mottos? Why are those important to your family? If your theology informs your understanding of God, how do you personally get to know Him more? Why is that important? What is one thing from this message that encourages you in your faith? Which one of the quotes above helps you most in understanding the importance of theology? Why?