{"id":3020,"date":"2014-10-30T13:48:44","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T13:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dminlgp\/?p=3020"},"modified":"2014-10-30T13:48:44","modified_gmt":"2014-10-30T13:48:44","slug":"many-have-gone-before-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/many-have-gone-before-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Have Gone Before Us"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who Needs Theology<\/em>, followed by, A Very Short Introduction<\/em> to Theology, followed by a 500+ page student textbook on theology is enough to make me cry for mercy!<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure where to even start with Alister McGrath\u2019s Christian Theology: An Introduction<\/em>. While yes, this is an introduction to theology, McGrath chose the comprehensive approach compared to Ford\u2019s, A Very Short Introduction<\/em>. The gift of McGrath\u2019s book is how clearly it is written and the great job McGrath did in outlining the sections and chapters. This book will serve as a great resource in years to come because the chapters so easily can stand on their own.<\/p>\n

I greatly appreciate McGrath taking the first hundred+ pages walking us through the history of theology. McGrath reminds us that theological conversation has been going on for hundreds and hundreds of years. We aren\u2019t the first people to ask the questions we are asking and that truth brings me great comfort. I am not on my own in my wrestling. While I might have new thoughts, those new thoughts just join the conversation of the people and traditions that have come before us.<\/p>\n

A few days ago I took my 6-year-old daughter and her friend out for ice cream. Her friend\u2019s mom asked me to because her daughter had a lot of questions about God and needed someone to ask. Why do we always assume the pastor has all the answers? (-: After ordering ice cream we sat down and I was drilled with questions. \u201cWhy does God allow people to die?\u201d \u201cHow can God hear me talk yet I can never see Him?\u201d \u201cWhy did God have to kill His son on the cross?\u201d 6-year-olds know more about God then I give them credit for. My daughter and her friend enjoyed asking the questions more then they actually wanted answers. Sitting with my daughter and her friend I couldn\u2019t help but be reminded by McGrath that these 6-year-olds are asking questions that have been asked for hundreds and hundreds of years. That should be enough of a reminder to us that it\u2019s not about obtaining the answers but entering into a relationship with God.<\/p>\n

I can get easily overwhelmed when I feel the pressure to know all the answers. As a pastor I always feel inadequate so I was really thankful for McGrath giving us a lens in which to read his book. Theology is not something to be mastered but it is about Jesus. McGrath says one of the landmarks is the fact that, \u201cthe validity of the church\u2019s ministry and preaching did not come to depend upon the holiness of its ministers, but upon the person of Jesus Christ. The personal unworthiness of a minister did not compromise the validity of the sacraments.[1]<\/a>\u201d Thank goodness! This theological journey doesn\u2019t just rest upon my shoulders. I join others, those living and those already dead, that have wrestled with difficult truths about God. I join with others that our pursuit of holiness, or lack there of, does not get in the way of Jesus. I am thankful I get to learn from people and traditions that have come before me and I am most grateful that this is something I am not called to master but I am called to Jesus.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Alister McGrath,\u00a0Christian Theology: An Introduction<\/em>\u00a0(Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2011), 18<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Who Needs Theology, followed by, A Very Short Introduction to Theology, followed by a 500+ page student textbook on theology is enough to make me cry for mercy! I\u2019m not sure where to even start with Alister McGrath\u2019s Christian Theology: An Introduction. While yes, this is an introduction to theology, McGrath chose the comprehensive approach […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[199],"class_list":["post-3020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-mcgrath","cohort-lgp5"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3020"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3022,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3020\/revisions\/3022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}