“OK Arms, I just read your last post. You seminary guys are all alike. You think everything is about doctrine. Can’t we just love Jesus and forget about all this theology stuff?”
Well, I’m glad you read my last blog but no, we can’t just forget about theology. In fact, in making the claim that we should just love Jesus you are knee deep in theology! Take the word “love.” This is a theological concept. In our culture “love” is a word that is used to describe feelings. It is never used that way in the Bible. There, “love” (agape) is a word that describes what we DO, not what we feel.
The name “Jesus” is, of course, an important name theologically. Jesus is the King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Lion of Judah, the Alpha and Omega. He is the One in Whom we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). Because He is our Lord and King He is the One Who decides how He will be loved. So, how we “love Jesus” is a theological question that must be answered theologically.
Calvary is a church of Jesus Christ. It is His church, not ours. He decides what is done here, how we organize and conduct ourselves, what is taught here, and who can be a member. We do not get to make these decisions ourselves. So to arrive at the answer as to how we are to do these things, we must be theologians.
“But there you go again, Arms, I am not a theologian . . . ”
Whoa, stop right there. I’ll have no more of this. If you are a believer, if you have made a decision to trust Christ’s work on the cross as payment for your sin, if you have done any thinking about God at all, you are a theologian. We are all theologians. An atheist who has concluded there is no God is a theologian—a bad theologian, but a theologian non the less.
So, the question for us at Calvary is not if we are theologians but rather, what KIND of theologians are we. With that in mind, let’s go back to your plea that we should just “love Jesus.” As good theologians we have to ask “how do we do that, how do we love Jesus?” Happily, Jesus answered that very clearly—
If you love Me, keep My commandments. (John 14:15)
You see, loving Jesus has nothing to do with how we feel about Jesus. Loving Jesus means keeping His commandments. Here is where sound doctrine intersects with life on the ground at Calvary. Are we obeying Jesus in all that is done in our church? Will we be willing to obey Christ when our new pastor arrives and shows us areas in which we have not been keeping His commandments? Will we be willing to begin doing things He has commanded that we have been neglecting to do? We will soon learn if we really do “love Jesus.”