Total Church Theology

A quote from Total Church, regarding theology:

The main thing that prevents us from understanding the Bible alright is not lack of hermeneutical skills but our sin. Our sin warps our understanding because we all tend toward self-justification.

A significant part of the problem behind academic theology and biblical scholarship is the way in which it is, all too often, self-referential. Professional theologians often write about and for other professional theologians. In the New Testament, church leaders were responsible for guarding the flock from error (Acts 20:28-31). They were, if you like, theologians-in-residence within the congregation. We have often moved this function of guarding from error into the academy, but this is a dangerous place for it to reside.

If true theology is the fruit of engagement with the Bible set in the context of the local church [which he argued for previously], then much of what passes for theology is not theology at all. Why do we allow such people to set the agenda?

Please understand that this is not a plea for dumbing down the truth of God, nor for despising theology per se. It is a critique of professional theology removed from the furnace of life and not hammered into shape on the anvil of the local church. As Calvin says, doctrine is an affair "not of the tongue, but of life. It is not apprehended by the understanding and memory alone, as other disciplines are, but it is received only when it possesses the whole soul, and finds a seat and resting place in the inmost affection of the heart. . . . It must enter our heart and pass into our daily living, and so transform us into itself that it may not be unfruitful for us."