Teach theology long enough and also you’ll face countless types of the identical basic query: What does this need to do with real life? Will it affect the best way we do ministry, how we share the gospel, or what we do each day? How is it relevant to the issues and challenges the common person faces? You know, is it practical?
And the deep suspicion lying behind such questions is that the majority theology is fairly impractical. Theologians spend all their time wrestling with things like what number of angels can dance on the top of a pin and whether we should always say that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son or from the Father alone. Unless we are able to explain why this stuff matter for the on a regular basis lives of normal people, we should always stop wasting our time and get on with more vital issues.
I’ll admit that a part of me resonates with such concerns. If we are able to’t explain why theology matters, we have now an issue. And it should matter for on a regular basis life. After all, that’s where we do all our living. So there’s a way wherein I would like to say a hearty “Yes!” to the query of whether theology ought to be practical, but provided that we fastidiously redefine what meaning.
4 Reasons that Theology is “Practical”
1. Theology as Worship: Theology is fundamentally about knowing God. After all, that’s what the term means: the study of God. But we err when we expect of this sort of knowing in purely cognitive terms, as if knowing God could possibly be limited to some set of right statements we make about God. Knowing God more deeply necessarily results in each love and worship. As beautiful and amazing as God is, how could we possibly come to know him higher without falling more deeply in love with him while at the identical time falling on our knees in awe before him? Knowledge, love, and worship are the inseparable triad of fine theology.
To some extent, I believe we worry about theology being impractical because deep down we also suspect that worship itself is impractical. It could also be vital and powerful, but ultimately worship is something you do on Sunday morning in isolation from the pressing realities of on a regular basis life. But such worries fail to grasp that worship is the business of humanity. We were created to glorify God by living as his image bearers on the earth, and that is something that ought to characterize every minute of each day. And when God’s people gather to worship him, they’re doing the very thing they were created for. Thus, if theology deepens worship, then theology is inherently practical—i.e. relevant to the on a regular basis reality of being human.
2. Theology as Transformation: There are some sorts of knowing that leave you relatively unchanged. For instance, I could look up the name of some random star on the web and accumulate a further fact concerning the universe without impacting my life in any meaningful way. Other sorts of knowing, nevertheless, are rather more transformative. For instance, I’ve spent the last 25 years of my life attending to know my wife higher. It has not left me unchanged. How could it? Is it possible to know someone deeply and never be altered by the experience? I doubt it. (Unfortunately for her, the effect goes each ways. I’m just hoping that God manages to repair anything that’s gotten twisted from 25 years of knowing me!) That’s the type of knowing we keep in mind after we speak about theology. If you truly know God and are known by God, you can not stay the identical. You will be shaped by that have.
So, once more, we see that theology is inherently practical within the sense that it affects who you might be and subsequently how you reside on the earth. Even if we are able to’t at all times see the direct connections between some specific belief (e.g. the procession of the Spirit) and a few specific practice (e.g. feeding hungry people), theology stays practical in that it shapes us because the ones performing the practice.
3. Theology as Service: At their best, questions on the sensible relevance of theology press us to keep in mind that theology plays the role of servant within the lifetime of the church. One of its fundamental jobs is to assist the church think twice about how best to grasp, articulate, and live out what it believes. Theology doesn’t exist for itself, just for the church. And in that sense, theology, so long as it stays faithful to its calling, should be practical (i.e. inseparably related to the practice of the church). Questions like these pull us away from the ever-present temptation to a type of theological complacency, that which stays content to wrestle with admittedly difficult theoretical problems in relative isolation from the messy realities of living and ministering in a broken world. Theology as servant will at all times be an eminently practical theology.
4. Theology as Inquiry: I’m wondering if scientists need to cope with the identical questions on practical relevance. If you’re studying some minute quantum particle that seems impossibly far faraway from anything resembling on a regular basis life, do people bug you about why your research really matters? They probably do. But I believe they’re also willing to chop you some slack because they understand that it’s simply one a part of a broader inquiry into the character of the universe. And that’s a very important process. So even when we are able to’t see how one part has direct relevance, we’re willing to present quantum physicists the advantage of the doubt.
We should do the identical with theology. If theology is an inquiry into who God is, and if God is as transcendent and mysterious as we consider him to be, we shouldn’t be surprised by the undeniable fact that theology wrestles, at times, with questions that don’t clearly relate to specific practices. But they’re still a part of the broader strategy of knowing God, which is eminently practical within the word’s best sense. Similarly, after I’m attending to know my wife, I don’t stop to ask if that is “practical,” as if I should stop learning about her unless I can explain how any specific piece of data pertains to specific things that I’ll do in consequence. That’s not how it really works. Knowing her is a fancy package, the totality of which shapes how I live my life even when I can’t explain how each individual piece of information does so.
So Is Theology Practical?
We return to where we began. Must theology be practical? If by “practical” we mean that theology should relate to the on a regular basis lives of normal people, then absolutely yes! If theology is the try to know God more deeply, and if because of this theology at its best results in deeper worship, greater personal transformation, and more practical ministry within the church, then theology is deeply practical even when wrestling with questions where its not entirely obvious how they connect with on a regular basis issues.
But people often mean something else by this query. They appear to have something like this: Can you draw a direct line between this particular theological issue and a few specific practice? And here the reply will often be no. But that’s only since it’s the improper query to ask in the primary place.
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