“No Christian can avoid theology. Every Christian is a theologian. Perhaps not a theologian in the technical or professional sense, but a theologian nevertheless. The issue for Christians is not whether we are going to be theologians but whether we are going to be good theologians or bad ones.”
Despite what the esteemed Mr Sproul allegedly said/wrote, I didn’t really consider myself a theologian since I left my last ministry position back in 2016.
I, falsely, equated a theologian with teaching.
This year, that has changed.
Now that I’m teaching the senior Studies of Religion subject at my school, I feel like I’m doing theology again.
For example, today I taught on the Christian persecution of the early church in the first three centuries and then the significance of Emperor Constantine’s conversion.
Tomorrow, I’ll teach on the difference between the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant denominations.
This renewed feeling of theological depth is despite the fact that my bible reading has been as regular and consistent over the last two-and-a-half years as it has been over the last two decades.
This is despite the fact that I was regularly in a small group which studied the bible for the last five years.
This is despite the fact that I’ve been leading the ministry to the children, including delivering a talk in the service at the church I’ve been attending with my kids for the past three years.
This is despite the fact that I’ve been maintaining a thrice-weekly devotional on Facebook.
Nonetheless, from 2024 (and hopefully going forward for many years), I now have a reason to, again, delve into my theology textbooks so I can explain the basics of Christianity (which is one of my depth studies) as clearly as I can.
The irony is, even without my new theologically-rich subject, if Mr Sproul is correct, my feelings about being a theologian make no difference to my reality.
I was always a theologian.
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