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Showing posts from October, 2017

When Good Theology Blocks Us From God

I made a point in a recent sermon  that sometimes we block ourselves from growing in our faith with good theology. I think some people thought it was a strange point and I’d like to explain why I think it is a point worth making. First, to make it clear, theology is not the problem. Having a sound theology is a good thing - it helps clarify our thinking about ourselves and about God. It gives us a framework for understanding who God is, what he has done, and how we take hold of his covenant promises. It gives us a scope of God’s awesome control and nature and our dignity and depravity. All good things. Sound theology is (to quote Paul) “holy and righteous and good,” but sometimes how we use it isn’t. Culturally, we have a very low tolerance for sorrow and negative feelings. We are like the character Joy in the movie Inside Out. We want to draw a little circle around our sad feelings and say, “This is your place, you stay in there. Don’t touch anything.” And the circle we draw is a