Good Theology Please

OK, I read a post on an old friend's blog that bothered me. It bothered me because it was so mean spirited. It bothered me because it never came around to offer hope to anyone. It never came around to offer anyone something practical to use to grow closer to God or more like Him. But most of all, it bothered me because this friend used bad theology.

So, for everyone's benefit, here are just a couple of basic rules of theological thinking.

1. Always use the Bible to interpret the Bible as your first and primary source.

a. Look for other passages that talk about the same subject and see how

those passages seem to interpret what you have read in another location.

b. Read the whole book from which your study passage is drawn. Jesus would

often tell us what he wanted us to do in response to a parable several verses

later.

2. Always use Jesus to understand the rest of the New Testament. We have often misunderstood Jesus because we have already studied Paul. When we should

start with Jesus and interpret Paul's writing by what we have already learned

directly from Jesus. It is an incredible gift to have Paul's #1 source available to

us in order to better understand Paul. To work in the other direction can be

disastrous.

I did send a private message to my old friend, sharing my opinion.