When I say I like the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai across the 8th Dimension, almost all of you, except perhaps Sam and Lizzie, stare blankly into space. There really is no accounting for taste, and I can’t expect you to share my delight in Buckaroo or even something as respectable as War and Peace.
But what if I say I like theology? Is loving theology a matter of taste and personal preference, or is it a self-evidently good thing (because its subject is the Goodest Good, and all things in relation to him)? And if the latter, how could those who love God turn their nose up at disciplined reflection on their Beloved?
As alas-and-alack as it seems to me, there are of course many who love God, and love him with all their hearts, and live their lives for him, but have no relish for theology. How can that be?
As in most everything, the possible reasons are legion, but I suspect that in many cases it isn’t theology per se that puts them off; theologophiles like me often sour the doctrinal wine. We are now and again driven by less than a love to know God and all things in relation to him. We love theology because it’s our stage on which to shine—at least in our own minds. We love the praise of men (the display-of-knowledge thing).
In the gospels it’s precisely this love to be seen, honored, and adored by men that earns Jesus’s sharpest rebukes and his most thorough denunciation (think Matthew 23). So when theologians (either the real professionals or we wannabes) strike a theological pose or affect a snobbish disdain for the less theologically fortunate, they (we) not only give theology a bad name; we deserve the rebuke of our Lord.
That’s sobering. I don’t want to be the target of dominical poniards. So I’m eager to know the difference between the sharing of theological knowledge (teaching—a good thing), and the display of theological knowledge (Pharisaism—not a good thing). Which leads me to my question for you this month: What makes the essential difference between these two? How can you discern it in your own heart? Then please ask the Spirit to teach me such discernment.
As always, I’ll be glad to read your written replies.
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I’m glad to read your written replies to my questions because they are insightful and helpful to me. Last month, for example, I asked a complicated question about how we present the Good News to others—about how we make clear that although God offers many good things in the gospel, he himself is the Goodest Good. Here’s an excerpt from one reply:
What I’m trying to say is that one of the best ways to communicate God as the Greatest Good or make it clear that he is the Goodest Good is for Him to clearly be the Greatest Good to us. If it’s the case that we are enjoying Him then we are a different kind of message bearer altogether. When we prize HIM it seems clear that we are like a settled and secure weaned child that isn’t fretful or anxious, but rather content. If we want to communicate to anyone that God is the Goodest Good we have to enjoy Him ourselves and be blown away that He would call us His dear dear friends and that He would be committed to us. We have to keep in focus the obvious things that would make us marvel at Him, the things that are so often obscured to us in our disappointment or pain or busyness or whatever it is that prevents us from seeing Him rightly. If we want to communicate that HE is the Goodest Good we should be enjoying Him as that for ourselves.
See why I want to hear from you?
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This is not a retraction, but I need to qualify last month’s enthusiastic Ode to Zoom: Clearly, my ability to stay connected to our beloved Slovaks, to carry on mentoring and friendship and our Theological Reading Group, is a good thing. But because the affection, love, instruction, and praise that we share is, as I called it, “in-pixeled,” it is therefore disembodied and at best a stop-gap. And the metaverse is not the solution.
Along those lines, last week Slovakia imposed another lockdown. Please ask God to preserve the love among his people, and to quickly restore their body-ful fellowship and service.
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Remember Juraj Sabol, our Slovak pastoral intern/partner/friend. He is also a gifted blacksmith and maker of fine knives. (I can verify the fineness of his knives because I use a JS knife every day.) Just in time for Christmas (well, maybe) he’s making available some of his finest. These are knives that he and Roman made last year during low COVID times to support Roman’s ministry training. Roman is a believer from the Roma village where MTW has been working for years. Juraj has been discipling him and training him as a welder and blacksmith and for about four years now—and Roman is serving in a pastoral role in the village.
You can view the knives here. Please let me know (toute suite, s’il vous plait) if you are interested in any of them.
Full disclosure: I’m quoted in the catalog, but receive no royalties, commissions, or even kickbacks from Kreakov.
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Our church visits continue to refresh us, and we hope there is some mutuality to the refreshment. In November we were in New Braunfels (German) and Baton Rouge (French). In December we’re off to Beaumont for our 11th church since July. Our next is not till January (Midland).
During our trip to New Braunfels we had a one-hour delay on the highway because of an accident. On the way to Baton Rouge and back we were rerouted twice and sat on the highway for 30 minutes once because of three major accidents. Our inconvenience is a small thing compared to the losses felt by those in the wrecks. But we are reminded that our lives are in God’s hands. Therefore, please thank him for protecting us, and ask him to keep us safe on the road.
Also thank God with us for Friday’s gathering of all our Texas-based children and grandchildren, along with my parents and Katie’s parents. At Christmas we’ll get to add Kristian and Ivica to the mix, which will put Paula right over the top. I hope many of you had and will have similarly sweet holiday reunions.
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Now may the God who is worthy of all our best attention deepen and sharpen your knowledge of him, to the end that you might offer him the robust and glorifying praise that he—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—deserves.
MERRY THEOLOGICAL CHRISTMAS FROM AUGUSTINE
[AND US]
Luke 2:6-7: And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
The Word of the Father, by whom all time was created, was made flesh and was born at the right time for us. He, without whose divine permission no day completes its course, wished to have one day [set aside] for His human birth. In the bosom of His Father, He existed before all the cycles of ages; born of an earthly mother, He entered upon the course of the years on this day. The Maker of humans became Man that He, Ruler of the stars, might be nourished at His mother’s breast; that He, the Bread of Life, might be hungry; that He, the Eternal Fountain, might thirst; that He, the Light of the World, might sleep; that He, the Way, might be wearied by the journey; that He, the Truth, might be accused by false witnesses; that He, the Judge of the living and the dead, might be brought to trial by a mortal judge; that He, true Justice, might be condemned by the unjust; that He, the innocent, might be scourged with whips; that He, the King of kings, might be crowned with thorns; that He, our foundation, might be suspended upon a cross; that Strength might know weakness; that the Healer might be wounded; that the Giver of Life might die.
To endure these and like indignities for us, to free us, unworthy creatures, He who existed as the Son of God before all ages, without a beginning, humbled himself to become the Son of Man. He who submitted to such great evil for our sake had done no evil, and although we, who were the recipients of so much grace at His hand, had done nothing to merit these benefits. Begotten by the Father, He was not made by the Father; He was made human through a human mother, whom He himself had made, so that He might exist here for a while, for our sakes.
—AUGUSTINE OF HIPPO, Sermons on the Liturgical Seasons, ed. Hermigild Dressler, trans. Mary Sarah Muldowney, vol. 38, The Fathers of the Church (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1959), 28-29. [As quoted in Justin S. Holcomb, God with Us.]
