Jim Halpert Explains

All of these things does seem to be a daunting work & I'm sure some of you are wondering why. While the studying the Bible is somewhat of a given, the other two are of questionable worth.

Theology conjures up lofty higher learning only for aspiring scholars to Pastors while Church History are only for lovers of history. The thing is, the importance of the two latter studies have been forgotten for the sake of Gospel unity & Non-denominationalism.

While unity & Non-Denominationalism are admirable as we first should not fight over teachings that are not important as, & divide ourselves by names & affiliations, the avoidance of theology caused us to remain ignorant to the deeper truths of scripture.

While some of us can learn it through further bible reading, others would not get it. Not all of us can describe what we've read, & not all of us can defend them as well as should or could have had we bothered with theology & know the background of each one.

Like it or not, we are al evangelists & defenders of the faith because we live in an unbelieving world (true believers should already know this). We not only see them around us but we interact with them & they have questions.

Since we are the light of the world (Matthew 5:16) & Satan comes to kill & destroy (John 10:10 & 2 Corinthians 11:13-15) it therefore necessitates the learning of the three disciplines.

What most Christian do not know is that our Christian theology has a long developmental history spanning centuries with men at great cost to them studied, developed, & promoted & defended the truths of the Bible against the lies of Satan.

While through theology we get to know the teachings of scripture with greater depth, it is through history we see how the Christian theology was developed.

We get to learn those who have formulated the doctrines, why they have formulated them, & the result of which in thanks to them have given us the definitional language & explanations we can now use to teach & defend those truths.

We also get to learn what they were up against, which further drove them in their studies.

Finally, we get to understand why movements sprung up & the mistakes that were made by the church so we could learn from & not repeat those same mistakes.

If you're on the same, "BIBLE ONLY!" camp, have & already read through the New Testament, then guess what: you have already read church history, only that the Bible contained only the 1st century of the church. Not only that you're reading from Primary Sources, that is, reading sources from the historical figures themselves.

EXAMPLES IN CHURCH HISTORY

As an example of what I am talking about, the Nicene (325 & 381 AD) were formulated by the Bishops at the request of Emperor Constantine to meet & put together correct doctrines in order to be unified under one declaration of faith in order to protect congregations against heretical movements

At the time, the Arians were rampant who denied the deity of Christ & the Gnostics who expounds heresies not found in scripture.

The Nicene Creed was a simple & short declaration of faith which directly alludes the basic doctrines of the scriptures such as the Trinity, the Gospel, & the 2nd coming of Christ. Believers were to recite this as a reminder of what they believe & differentiate themselves from the aforementioned heretical movements (we call Cults today).

Later on in the 5th century, St. Augustine developed the concept of God's sovereignty & man's depravity. At the same time,. there was a heresy that also existed called Pelagianism which denies man's inability & sinfulness but can in fact, earn one's way to heaven. The church in hearing both Augustine & Pelagius thankfully declared the latter as a heretic.

The Augustinian notion of salvation would in the 15th century drove Martin Luther to commence the Reformation.

If you are new to the faith (curious or newly converted), the Bible is the bedrock & foundation of our faith. Of the three, the Bible is the most important thing to study.

The Bible (biblia: collection of writings) is an inspired & therefore infallible source for our every need & necessary learning from the way we should live & treat others to knowing who God is & the truth about Him & reality of the physical & spiritual world.

Notice however, that I've used the word, "Study" in the first paragraph: studying involves more than just reading it. Study involves reading it carefully in order to know the context, the actors involved, the history behind the given circumstances, what was taught, & interpreting what you've read only from what you've read.

Interpreting the scriptures only from what you read from it is called Exegesis, it is interpreting the scriptures from the scriptures themselves. Exegesis is the opposite of what you should never do, that is, Eisegesis

Eisegesis means to insert into scripture a meaning that does not originally belong either through spiritualizing it (watering down the literal rendering of in order to give it some spiritual application to your life) or to redefine its meaning. Either way, it is twisting the word of God to suit your own needs.

By studying the Bible you get to learn more & more about God Himself, the truths He strands for, & the worlds that exists

Now, that's nice, but is it really necessary? Studying the Bible, I mean.

While we can get by with scripture alone, it is through the study of theology we can gain a better understanding of what we've read in the Bible how we can articulate those truths.

The definition of Theology is the study of God, that is, God (theo) & study of (ology). The prejudicial notion of this being only a discipline of those more gifted intellectually than we are is the farthest from the truth as when we study it, we know God with much greater clarity.

Now of course there are terms, doctrines, & theologies used are foreign to us, but terminologies & concepts are often the result of in-depth studies.

Terms such as Parousia, Regeneration, & Ecclesiology are not in scripture & yet when you them up your eyes will be opened for each one reveals deeper truths of Jesus, salvation, & the church we do not see at first reading.

Now, doctrine simply another word for - teaching. When you read the bible, you are not just reading history & morals but doctrines as well (you're just not seeing the official names of). For example, the Doctrine of the Trinity is a teaching of what God is; the Doctrine of Justification, that is, the teaching on what & how we're saved; finally,

Finally, theologies are bodies of knowledges that is on a concept. for example is Theophany (the appearance of God in scripture), Angelology (the study of Angels), Christology (the study of Christ), & Eschatology (the study of the end times).

"NO - BIBLE ONLY!"

For those of you who believe that we should study the Bible alone for the sake of simplicity & humility (as knowledge puffeth up - 1 Corinthians 8:1), if you truly have studied scripture then it should drive you to learn theology. When you read Matthew 24 wouldn't that create in you a thirst to know more about it? Wouldn't that drive you to learn about Eschatology?

Not necessary. But you said must.

The word must makes this wrong.
Jesus sets us free. He promises us heaven and long life if we just believe in him. So we 'must' believe in Jesus. If you don't even believe in Christ and you say you're a Christian, it's like being a boy and pretending to be a girl. Perhaps someone read their Bible, studied theology, and knew church history. He/she wouldn't be a Christian. Let's say another person doesn't pray at all and doesn't read his Bible. This fool is going to heaven.
If you want to grow, read your Bible and pray. If you want to understand, read theology. And if you want to study church history, study church history. If you want to be a Christian, believe in Jesus.
But the word must makes this wrong.