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Podcast 6 - Theology
0 Playsin 7 hours
Come join us as we discuss the fundamental topic of the study of God
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Transcript
Introducing the Hosts and Theological Foundations
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello, welcome back to the Grove Hill Church Podcast. We are down a man today. Lost him somewhere along the way. yeah right John's taking care of other stuff, so it's just Kyle and I hanging out, doing a little bit of chatting today.
00:00:23
Speaker
We decided we would, over the next several weeks, months, start mixing in some thoughts, some conversations about theological, biblical foundational stuff. It's a...
00:00:35
Speaker
ah assignment we gave ourselves as a staff and staff meeting that we would start talking through some of these things on a very basic level, making sure that we were all on the same page. One of the things we know to be true is that good theology directs our lives. It kind of teaches us where we're going, what our values are, how to live life the way God wants us to.
Why is Theology Intimidating Yet Essential?
00:00:54
Speaker
I think many of us get really, really intimidated by this idea of theology. So what's the first thing you think of when you hear that word theology? No, it sounds like school education, more like a classroom setting.
00:01:08
Speaker
But in reality, it's like absolutely necessary, like to understand um what we believe and why we believe it. And so um when you brought it up for our staff meeting discussion, I got excited about it because um I may not know all the big words, right but I kind of know the the basics behind everything. And so ah to clarify some of that, it's to be helpful.
00:01:30
Speaker
So just for your your well-being, your mental state of mind, we're not going to take this super deep. We want to keep it simple because we want to we kind of want to help you formulate your theology. Now, theology, very simply put, is just your ideas of God, your study of Study of God, yeah. um And that that could be true for anybody. All of us have a theology, whether we believe in God or not.
Dangers of Bad Theology
00:01:54
Speaker
Even atheists have a theology because of what they believe about God.
00:01:58
Speaker
um So what we're talking about is trying to um build a framework of your faith and knowing what to believe, who to believe, what to believe about it. Because what we know to be true from our culture is that when bad theology is a part of our lives, whether it's a bad church or a bad teacher or false profit, we can be led down some really, really dangerous roads.
00:02:21
Speaker
And so, um, again, don't want you get intimidated by the thought of these conversations. We're going to keep them on a pretty simple level because you're looking at some pretty simple dudes that having these conversations with you. I think sometimes it's easy to have bad theology because like say you grew up in the church and a pastor offhandedly said a comment at some point and we believe that to be true when it's not even biblical. And so, and then there's other people who didn't grow up in the church. So they have kind of like this society's perception of what God is and then they come to know Jesus.
00:02:49
Speaker
um So really it's good for everybody to put down opinions and really focus on what God's word, the truth of
Developing Personal Theology
00:02:56
Speaker
God's word says. Right. I grew up in the church my entire life, got saved at age eight, of course started a journey of growing, didn't grow up immediately, but went through a process of growing.
00:03:04
Speaker
Went to a ah Baptist college in Georgia where I graduated and then went on to Southwestern Baptist Seminary, which is a very conservative e evangelical seminary. And I remember when I walked into my first systematic theology class in seminary, just...
00:03:19
Speaker
uptight, very anxious, because I knew, i just knew in my heart I was going to overwhelmed because i I knew what I didn't know. And I was pleasantly surprised to go, oh, most of this I've heard in some form or fashion growing up from a Sunday school teacher, from my parents, from different people.
00:03:36
Speaker
So ah one of the one of the challenges we have with theology is getting people to buy into the need for them to have their theology developed. Kids like your students, how do we get them to understand?
00:03:50
Speaker
you You can't just write on mom and dad's theology. You have to understand it for yourself. ah Yeah, so if you were building a house, ah you wouldn't want to know what the plans were. You'd want to know what material was being used so that at the end, when you had your house built, you had a steady, solid house.
00:04:05
Speaker
And so it'd be foolish to just not care what materials are being used or what the plan is and have this just thing this collaboration of junk that you're calling your home. It's the same thing with our faith. We don't want to just bring in whatever. We want to know what the truth of God's word says and really come down to the foundation of who God is and and why we're here and why we need him.
00:04:26
Speaker
And so we want to know the truth in that. For our students, we did that last year. We had a truth series on Wednesday nights. And really we took what society says and then compared it against God's word. And oftentimes we took what the church says and compared it against God's
The Bible as Core Truth
00:04:40
Speaker
word.
00:04:40
Speaker
And we found out that, man, sometimes we're off on things um when we really go back to what scripture says. And so for a student, especially at that age when they're forming all their beliefs about who God is, they're getting that independence. So they're wanting to step out from underneath what their parents' care is, even in their religious kind of aspect.
00:04:59
Speaker
um it's important for them to have the truth, God's word, no one's opinion, and start their foundation there. We have said from the very beginning when we started this podcast that you, I, John, all three of us, as well as our church, we believe very strongly that this word is where we find that truth. Absolutely. So that naturally is where we start our our search for theology. Right?
00:05:23
Speaker
So it's ah it's a question of the authority of God's word in our lives. When you have wrong beliefs, you have wrong behaviors. Mm-hmm. And so when when you have a question about anything in life related to God and how to live a life that honors God, you and I would say, come back to this book. Just keep coming back to this book.
Cultural Influences on Theology
00:05:43
Speaker
The problem is we live in a world where all you got to do is this day and age, have a good podcast, a good group of followers on your feed, whether it's Twitter or Instagram or whatever it may be.
00:05:54
Speaker
And you can say things, and if you say them with enough confidence, people just buy in They believe it, right? Yep. So how do you tell your kids and the parents of these kids, how do you protect yourself in a world where theology is as plentiful as...
00:06:09
Speaker
Chewing gum. To know the Bible, um to read it yourself, not just listen to your pastor. One of those Wednesday nights during the truth series, I came in, I said, hey, did you know that McDonald's just created this meatless burger and they're going to start launching it next week? And all the students believe me. right I came in with confidence, I said a fat or ah a lie, but said it like a fact, and they believed me. And so the the lesson was that they're not just to to believe what I say when I'm standing up there with the Bible in my hand. They're supposed to read it, study it, and so when I'm speaking to them, it's confirming what the Holy Spirit's already doing through Scripture. yeah And so to know the Bible is... is
00:06:46
Speaker
I mean, we say it, right? It's a Sunday school answer. Read your Bible and pray. um Yes. Yes. Because society is throwing so much at us and sometimes very believable things said with very prominent people with confidence.
00:07:01
Speaker
um And if it doesn't match up with God's word, we throw that out. We throw it out. Yeah. Years ago, what you just said reminded me this. Years ago when I was a young, foolish minister, I did something, which i actually I think was pretty cool. But I used to do, I was a youth and children's minister at a church, and I used to do a children's sermon sometimes on a Sunday morning.
00:07:23
Speaker
And one particular Sunday morning I came in and I said, I'm going to get the adults to play along with me. The kids were sitting around me, of course. And I said, we're going play a little game. I'm going to read something. You're going to tell me if it comes from the Southern Baptist Bible or if it comes from the Bible.
00:07:34
Speaker
Okay? Okay. So I read probably seven different things. you know They would all raise their hand. I vote for the Bible. I vote for the hymn. They got most of them right. got to the last one. I read this one, and the church was evenly split. Hymnal versus the Bible.
00:07:48
Speaker
And I said, neither. This is from the Book of Mormon. yeah And, man, you could have heard a pin drop. yeah Because people realize, ooh, I don't know very well. And if it sounds good enough, it can convince me.
00:08:00
Speaker
Same thing with our students. I called it a Bible or Bieber and I took Justin Bieber lyrics ah for the Bible. yeah And it was kind of, some took me back, you know, like, Whoa, what is that? You know, um, just to know that, uh, there's a lot of good things that aren't necessarily true things. Um, and so we've got to be very aware of what culture noise is coming in compared to what we're reading
Defining Love: Society vs. Scripture
00:08:22
Speaker
from scripture. yeah You and I were talking earlier about this, this idea of the culture teaching us things and and holding up things to be true.
00:08:29
Speaker
ah You and I both talk about this a lot because, you know, I'm a news junkie and I'm throwing things at you all the time. but But what is one of the things, maybe two of them if they come to mind, where you go, i hear it all the time in the culture and it shows that people really don't know. They just yeah they state it like it's a fact. Yeah, they state there's some truth in it, and but then it's totally manipulative. And they say ah Jesus is love, and so he loves everything and everybody, right? And so the big agenda behind that is the LGBT2 plus community yeah is that they're saying, hey, Jesus loves us and we love, right? And so um there's a difference between loving and accepting. And so Jesus loves you, absolutely. If if if a gay couple walked into our church, we would love them. Absolutely.
00:09:14
Speaker
But... We love them enough to show them what the truth of God's word says in the fullness of what they could have compared to the counterfeit love that they do have. And so culture right now is screaming that we have to love everybody and that means accept everybody as they are. And that's not what scripture says.
00:09:31
Speaker
Scripture says love everybody, even love your enemy. And so that aspect of love is so true throughout scripture and Jesus is love, God is love. But love calls people out of darkness into light.
Transformation Through Scripture
00:09:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's true with the immigration issue. what we see in our country, they're throwing that, and you know, God is love, God is love. Yeah, God loves everybody. All over the world.
00:09:54
Speaker
um But the same God clearly throughout Scripture talks about the importance of a government protecting its people or against those influences and even warns when the people of Israel walk into the promised land for the first time, be careful of the people around you who influence you.
00:10:09
Speaker
So I think there's this element of truth in what they say. and And I think many times they really truly believe it. But you you can tell they haven't read the entire Scripture. And it really is obvious to me, but they're blinded by it for some reason, and I'm not sure why.
00:10:24
Speaker
um But if my son ah wanted to just freely play in the highway, um it's not loving of me to just allow him to choose what he wants to choose. It's loving for me to engage with him and say, hey, this is a place of safety. This is a place of darkness. Yeah. And so um if you are struggling with that and you think, man, Christians should love no matter what, you're right. Christians should love no matter what.
00:10:50
Speaker
But that means speaking truth to people and calling them out of that darkness. I want people to be in the light. And so I want to call people out of the darkness into the light. Paul talks about Ephesians when he says, speak the truth in love. For sure. Yeah, and the truth, as Jesus said, sets you free. So talk to me a little bit about that. How does the truth, good doctrine, good theology, how does it set us free?
00:11:12
Speaker
Man, if you've ever held a budget, a lot of people hate budgets because it feels restrictive. Right. people don't like it because if they don't have a budget, they could spend whatever they want. And that leads to demise. yeah You could lose your house. You could be end up in credit card debt.
00:11:27
Speaker
Um, but once you truly understand a budget and you live your life off a budget, yeah it's very freeing because you know how much you can spend in areas, you know what you have. And so is there rules and guidelines and all this stuff in scripture? Absolutely. But once you understand that God's approaching it with love in a, in a way that's benefiting you and bringing glory to him, um,
00:11:47
Speaker
That freedom is is given to you. One, you're freed from death and you've got life. And then two, you're being freed from things that are going to take you down and and drag you through the mud. yeah Now, one of the things we have to be careful about, and we talk about this a lot in sermons, Bible studies with our kids and our students.
00:12:04
Speaker
When you come to Scripture, if you're really seeking answers, then you have a have have to have a heart that's ready to respond. Scripture is not just for information. It's for transformation. So your life doesn't get changed just by reading it. It gets changed by letting your life be changed by it.
Pastoral Influence and False Teachings
00:12:21
Speaker
right And there's a big difference.
00:12:22
Speaker
James 1.22, I think it even says it on my hat. It says, it don't just be hearers of the word, yes but doers of the word. yeah um We're not always going to understand everything about scripture, but we are called to obey it. In Psalms, I believe it's Psalms.
00:12:37
Speaker
He says, my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. My ways are higher than your ways. And so there's some things we don't understand, but we're still called to obey. So when he says love our enemies, that doesn't make sense to me, but I'm still called to obey it.
00:12:50
Speaker
I'm going to go out on a limb and think it's Isaiah. Isaiah. That's but probably better. okay It's somewhere in between Genesis 1 and Revelation 22. We may find out it's Jeremiah. We don't know. oh So we've already talked about the fact that belief and behavior cannot be separated. So what that means is that healthy theology, good sound theology, is important for us as individuals. It's important for our families.
00:13:11
Speaker
And it's important for our churches. So what's more dangerous to you as a follower of Jesus Christ, maybe a young follower of Jesus Christ, what's more dangerous, a Hollywood cultural icon who gives you bad ideas and bad thoughts about God or a pastor who gives you bad ideas and bad thoughts about God? For right off the bat, a pastor.
00:13:31
Speaker
They're expected to be standing on the truth of God's word. And unfortunately, there's times when they're not. They have personal agendas. not. Um, and what that does is it puts in the mind of a whole congregation who's looking at this guy that they're supposed to trust.
00:13:45
Speaker
And then he does something that, um, leads them astray. Uh, scripture says that we are held. And I think that's what you're turning to right now. Scripture says is that we are held to a higher standard as a pastor and we will be judged differently, uh, because we are messengers of what God's word says. Yeah. Yeah.
00:14:02
Speaker
I want to throw this passage of scripture out there, Titus 1, 9 through 16. We may not read the whole thing, but he says, holding to the faithful message as taught so that he will be able both to encourage with sound teaching and to refute those who contradict it.
00:14:17
Speaker
So it's not just about leading our lives. It's also about helping people around us to be protected from false teaching. He goes on and says, for there are many rebellious people full of empty talk and deception, especially those from the circumcision party, which was an issue they were dealing with back then. Thank God we don't have to deal with that now.
00:14:34
Speaker
It is necessary to silence them because they are ruining entire households by teaching what they shouldn't in order to get money dishonestly. um And the truth is, the Bible nailed it when it said the love of money is the root of all evil.
00:14:49
Speaker
I would argue that probably 75% of bad theology in um in our world is because of people who have an agenda and want you to follow a
Distinguishing Truth from Myths
00:14:57
Speaker
certain. Sure. Prosperity gospel yeah would be another one to where people have ah ah an agenda to it. um And money is that agenda.
00:15:05
Speaker
goes on and says, this testimony is true for this reason. Rebuke them sharply so that they may be sound in faith. There's that phrase again, sound in faith. So we understand that, again, the Bible's not just for information purposes. It's not just so we can win Bible trivia when we play games home or whatever. it is It is transformational for us. It is life-giving.
00:15:25
Speaker
And when you get to this idea of theology, it's not ah cold academic institutional kind of thing it's actually um it's actually being invited into this really cool relationship with god and the only way you can have that relationship is to have a right understanding of him uh it's like it's very much like dating you know it's one thing to fall in love with a picture of a girl in a magazine and go, man, she's really pretty. Uh, it's another thing to meet her face to face and maybe even have a first date with her.
00:15:58
Speaker
But man, it's something entirely different when you have a longterm relationship and you're able to go deeper and become more intimate, not in a physical sense, but in a spiritual, social, relational sense.
00:16:09
Speaker
Um, speak to that in your personal relationship with with God. How has having good sound theology changed your view of him? So taking on that same analogy of of a relationship, um when you know God and love God, it makes you want to protect His name at the same time. And so when people are saying false things about your God, it really starts to to get you, you know? And so to know Scripture and to know...
00:16:34
Speaker
who God is and what he is, it it makes you more attentive to someone who's trying to skew the gospel. yeah And the more and more you spend time with him and spend spend time with his word, the more quickly you could identify those false things. And so that doesn't just go for me or you as pastors. It goes for students in my ministry, children in the children's ministry, members in the church, our our deacons, our elders. Yes. We all need to be so proactive in knowing the truth because one day this might be outlawed and we're going have to go off of what God gives us here and what we've learned, um, in order to function in this world.
00:17:12
Speaker
Um,
00:17:14
Speaker
So i think I think some things that we need to state just as probably obvious, but just a reminder to people, how do we protect ourselves from bad theology? For me, first one is accountability with other people.
00:17:27
Speaker
yeah You've got to have people around you who are on the same journey you are and have the same confidence in the word that you have. um You have to be under sound teaching. Okay. If you ever stand in front of a preacher who says, um I've got something new I want to show you about the Bible. Be very, very wary because the Bible is an ancient truth. It has never changed. It's always been the same. The Bible says his word will never fade away. It doesn't change in its power and authority.
00:17:53
Speaker
And so a pastor who might be revealing new truth may and very well be revealing his truth.
Diverse Religious Backgrounds and Sound Theology
00:17:59
Speaker
So you should always be cautioned about that. Being in a strong church around other people, I'm not going to call her name, but you and I both have a friend today who was talking about three foundations of building a house.
00:18:10
Speaker
And she talked about the sand. She talked about the stone and the stone, excuse me, stone. And then she talked about the straw. right And I think you and I both looked at each other with this real curious look. And I said, I think you're crossing ah the story of three little pigs with scripture.
00:18:23
Speaker
Because if you know your scripture, you know that it was just the the sand and the stone that Jesus was talking about. But that's a great example of where she would, you know, she'd harmlessly. ah conversation. Yeah. We were able to identify that and say, right. Oh, there's two foundations, right? There's just two foundations.
00:18:39
Speaker
and And again, that one's not a big deal, but it's a perfect example of how sometimes we can get so crossed up, especially this day and age in our culture. where We have a lot of people who have come from a, a,
00:18:51
Speaker
I don't know what you call it, a crossbreed histories. Sure. Other denominations, religions. Oh, yeah. You know, our little church, well, we're not little anymore, but our church in its history, our seven years in this small town here in Middle Tennessee has had people from Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, yeah Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons. I mean, they have come from all walks of life into our church.
00:19:12
Speaker
And so you and I and the guys who have responsibility in this church, the elders of our congregation, We have a huge task to make sure that everything that goes out from this church, this podcast, our sermons, everything, that it is sound
Book Recommendation: 'Not My Jesus'
00:19:26
Speaker
theology. And I've sat down with no less than 10 who come from a very different religion and now are following Christ and sat down with them. And it's amazing that we could just sit down and have a conversation and just confirm that they're standing on the truth of God's word.
00:19:40
Speaker
um And so that's like the atmosphere of our church is to be able to have those communication conversations and sort out the stuff that's of the world yeah and come straight back to biblical foundation. So last thing I'll say, and I'm sure you probably have a comment on it, and then we'll wrap this up.
00:19:57
Speaker
The thing that I hear in our culture so much that scares me is the people that buy into this thing. You have your truth. I have my truth. Well, then it's not really true. There's only one truth. There's only one thing that can be true. You're sitting in that chair. At the same time, you can't be sitting in a different place. That's the truth. That's right.
00:20:14
Speaker
So your kids battle that. You're trying to reinforce those messages of man keep coming back to the one truth that has never changed, those kinds of things. Speak to me as a dad.
00:20:24
Speaker
What are you doing for your kids and your family? Yeah, so um the opinion of man doesn't mean much in our house. And that's we say there's there's voices coming through the TV. There's voices coming through other people, good-hearted people.
00:20:36
Speaker
But what comes from Scripture is is main. And so we are bringing our kids up in a way that we help them identify when someone says something, yeah I'll say, does that match up with scripture? And my kids typically can say no or yes, right? And so we do watch TV some and we watch commercials and then we'll pause that commercial and say, does that line up with scripture? And so we're actively trying to train them to identify what's biblical and what's not.
00:21:00
Speaker
um If you're struggling with like your kids and you don't know guidance on theology or anything like that, Shane Pruitt just put out a book that's called Not My Jesus. yeah And there's this whole culture of who people think Jesus is.
00:21:12
Speaker
And he cuts it down to what the but the Bible says who Jesus is. And so um if you're looking for a resource, Not My Jesus by Shane Pruitt. Great recommendation. All right. So over the next few weeks, we hope to be including some things about the authority of scripture, understanding what the Trinitarian God looks like and why that's important.
00:21:33
Speaker
The role it plays in our lives. We'll be digging into creation and the fall and stories of scripture, those kinds of things. So as we do that, I hope you will interact with us that you'll give us comments, thoughts, questions. If you'll,
00:21:47
Speaker
Let us know if we skip over something that you feel like is important and you want us to come back to. But we invite you along in this journey. We'll be doing it in intermingled with some other topics along the way. We're to have some guests coming in the next few weeks. and just goingnna speak to some other subjects.
00:22:00
Speaker
We like to keep it mixed up around here. So um we we pray that you're on this journey with us. And and I mean that seriously. Kyle and as prominent a leader as we are in the christian church we are not there yet won't be until the day we step into heaven alongside of you so we invite you along for this journey to to learn with us and uncover what god wants to teach us thanks for following us thanks for liking us and sharing this podcast thanks for being a faithful follower and watching what's going on here and we look forward to having you back next time yes sir