“Many Christians assume that we can just experience God in a personal relationship apart from doctrine, but that’s impossible. You cannot experience God without knowing who he is, what he has done, and who you are in relation to him. Even our most basic Christian experiences and commitments are theological. “I just love Jesus,” some say. But who is Jesus? And why do you love him?”
― Michael S. Horton, Pilgrim Theology: Core Doctrines for Christian Disciples
Tag Archives: theology
Time for a Great Quote: Michael Horton on Doctrine!
What Are YOU Swallowing?
“I’m afraid we have no other choice than surgery!”, Dr. Knittel said to me.
“That’s the only solution, Doc?”
“Yep. We’ve got to find out what that object is that he swallowed and take it out. 
Otherwise, he will die.”
Our dog Scrabble hadn’t eaten or drunk for over two weeks. Each night we had to syringe water into his throat, which he promptly spit up.
A visit to our local big box pet clinic concluded that he had a case of pancreatitis and prescribed an antibiotic. X-rays were taken and showed a mass in his lower intestine.
Fortunately, my vet friend agreed to look at Scrabble. He called us after performing surgery on our dog and said, “I have good news. He’s going to be fine. I had to remove three large rubber objects in his lower intestine.”
My wife and I still don’t know what those objects are. The stupid dog swallowed them for some reason — and they would have eventually killed him.
We swallow things too, don’t we? Ideas that haven’t even a trace of truth to them. Beliefs that might be popular but are pernicious and deadly. And we become, uh, dogmatic about them!
Insight from a Blind Man (A Study of John 9) Part 21
From whence do you get your theology? I mean, the things that you really deep-down believe — where do those come from? Your own thinking? What your church or pastor says? Contemporary media or the musings of whatever “intelligentsia” happens to be holding court?
Would you take your theology from a SINNER? Someone that you KNEW was “steeped in sin at birth”? Probably not.
And it’s one thing when someone like that makes statements such as, “I kind of think that . . .” or “I’m coming to just about believe . . .” But what if their dogmatism is downright in your face? What if that steeped-in-sin-under-God’s-judgment person were to make theological declarations to you and framed them by the words “WE know”?
You’d be offended, right? You’re the religious expert and you’re being lectured to by a lifelong, wide-eyed beggar who’s got mud on his face.
But TRUTH has a funny way of not 
caring who the messenger happens to be. And the more offensive and unlikely the carrier, the more it seems TRUTH relishes the process. And in this situation, the carrier speaks the truth. Mostly. We say “mostly” because the man born blind declares a known fact that might be up for debate. He says, “We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will.”
Actually, God does listen to sinners. That’s the only category of human beings that’s left! And, boy, are we glad He does! (to be continued)
Insight from a Blind Man (A Study of John 9) Part 10
The Pharisees were in a pickle. They knew that the Sabbath was inviolable, but they also knew that Jesus had broken the Sabbath. He had worked by making mud on the Sabbath!
They logically deduced, from their premise that their view of Sabbath-keeping was the correct one, that Jesus could not be the Messiah promised of God. It just did not make sense! Why would the Messiah violate His own commandments about treating the Sabbath as holy?
As we learn in Jesus’ other fights with the Pharisees, they had replaced God’s Word with their own traditions. What they were defending was not always God’s truth, but their perspectives and additions and expansions of God’s truths. And Jesus seemed to not care a whit when He broke their Sabbath!
NOT KEEPING THE SABBATH = NOT BEING FROM GOD. Their logic was impeccable. The only problem was that they now had a healed tourist in their midst, a grown man who wanted to go SIGHT-seeing! He had been healed — by a Sabbath-breaker!
Their theological machinery was blowing a gasket! “How can a sinner perform such signs?” Of course, every miracle done by God through every human being in the Bible (apart from Jesus) was done through a sinner, was it not? Something was terribly wrong — either with the miracle itself or the details of the miracle or the Person of Jesus. Or their presupposition about the Sabbath?
I imagine that by this time the man born blind was becoming increasingly impatient. Fingers 
pointing at him. Accusations made. Questions hurled like poisonous darts. Looks of disgust, religious indignation, logical confusion reigning. He was probably done with talking. He wanted to go see some things. (to be continued)
Dr. Larry Dixon