The worth of worthless sinners

"We love God centered theology!"
"Well me too, but that always involves people."

Let us love and sing and wonder

Been humming this way too much D= =D

Some thoughts on theological study

For the past while I was struggling a lot with what to do with theology. The thought of theology makes me feel disgusted because of bad experience. I hurt others out of pride and arrogance, using knowledge to judge and condemn, in turn being hurt by other arrogant people. Some brothers and sisters around me were also hurt, and thinking about these things made me very sad and disappointed.

I then realized my struggle is God's grace. By struggling and making mistakes God was teaching me the importance of having good character and being kind and patient with others. We can choose to use what we know to feed our ego, or we can choose to use it for self control and loving others.

Although tempted to do it many times, I realized throwing out knowledge is not an option. Peter tells us to add to our faith goodness and knowledge. But the chain doesn't end there. Love is at the end of the chain and we are to grow in everything described by Peter(Faith, virtue, knowledge, self control, perseverance, godliness, brotherly kindness and love). If we do not grow in these then we have forgotten that Christ has cleansed our sin and will not be good for works. But there are several things to keep in mind:

• The object of faith is the person of Jesus, not Calvinism or any other doctrine.
• Doctrine and truth help us to know who Jesus is and what he has done for humanity.
• Don't be too quick to believe in doctrines and systems people tell us, read the Bible and meditate on it, the Bereans were noble for doing so.
• Any good doctrine and truths can be abused. Paul warns us about this many times, (using freedom in Christ for evil; knowledge puffs up; if I understand mysteries of the faith but have not love, then I have nothing; the issue in 1 Corinthians of being considerate towards brothers who believe eating food from idol is a sin etc)
• Character and Christ-likeness is to be the goal of studying the Bible. Knowledge is important in being a footstool for self control, and ultimately, love.
• If we are kind with our words, and if our lives testify to the truth we proclaim to people, they are more likely to listen to what we say.
• If we meet God and drink deeper from His love for us in our learning process, we have done well.