In the summer of 2020, I led an online theology class for people in the church I pastor. I was blown away that over 1,000 people engaged in the class studying theology, asking thoughtful questions, and walking through the material each week. We used a theological text book as our reading, and explored a different “ology” each week: Bibliology (study of the Bible), Christology (study of Christ), Soteriology (study of salvation), Pneumatology (study of the Spirit), and so on. There were four overarching comments I heard from people in our church after studying theology for eight weeks.
4 Effects of Studying Theology
1. Studying Theology impacts me every day.
Some have wrongly thought that our theology does not impact our daily lives. But theology simply means “thinking about God,” and our thinking about God impact everything about us. A.W. Tozer famously wrote, “the thing that we think when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
- Salvation accomplished for us in Christ impacts our striving and accomplishing.
- The triune God existing in community shapes our view of relationships.
- Jesus being fully God and fully human impacts our prayers.
- Christ emptying Himself to serve us motivates us to serve others.
- God as Father impacts our parenting.
- Work existing before the fall of humanity helps us see how our work can be holy.
- The Church being the family of God impacts how we engage in our church.
- The Spirit within us impacts our view of overcoming temptation and sin.
2. After studying theology I have a better and deeper understanding of what I believe.
C.S. Lewis said, “If you do not listen to theology that will not mean you have no ideas about God, rather it will mean you have a lot of wrong ones.” We want the right thoughts about God. By studying theology, people see how all the different things they believe interact with one another. They see how the person of Jesus cannot be separated from the work of Jesus. How the work of Jesus impacts their salvation being secure. How their salvation being secure impacts their motivation for living. How their motivation for living is connected to Christ returning.
