More on speculative theology

by Editor / Wednesday, 09 March 2005 / Published in Commentary

I appreciate the sentiments expressed by Rey over at Bible Archive on God and the subjugated role of our opinions about Him. After writing a great parody piece on the need to worship God on the mountains, he followed up with a post about the Syrian assumption that the God of Israel was the God of the plains. God, of course, made it clear to the Syrian army that He was not merely the God of the plains.

As Rey pointed out:

He would prove His might and power and that He is not limited by men’s conceptions of who He is for He is the Lord.

I take great comfort in this knowing that although I see many things in the Scriptures about my God, the Living God, I know that other devout believers see other things as well. And though I have deep convictions of what I see the Living God to be, I know that He is so much greater than any theological box I may put around Him.

Read the full post…

What’s great about recognizing the lesser roles of opinion and intellectualized “theology” is that I don’t have to put myself in the judgment seat to figure out precisely who else God is the God of. My primary job is to make sure that He is my Lord and my God and that my family seeks after Him.

Tagged under: speculative theology

About Editor

Newshound, writer, digital marketer, passionate about Jesus, unity, liberty, family, foster care & adoption.

1 Comment to “More on speculative theology”

Rey says :

March 10, 2005 at 4:26 am

Praise the Lord, brother.

Barton Stone - "I blush for my fellows who hold up the Bible as the bond of union, yet make their opinions of it a test of fellowship; who plead for union of all Christians, yet refuse to fellowship with such as dissent from their notions. Vain men! Their zeal is not according to knowledge, nor is their spirit that of Christ. Such antisectarian-sectarians are doing more mischief to the cause and advancement of truth, the unity of Christians, and the salvation of the world, than all the skeptics in the world. In fact, they create skeptics."

Alexander Campbell - "We will not hearken to those questions which gender strife, nor discuss them at all. If a person says such is his private opinion, let him have it as his private opinion; but lay no stress upon it; and if it be a wrong private opinion, it will die a natural death much sooner than if you attempt to kill it."

Alexander Campbell - "But men cannot give up their opinions, and therefore, they can never unite, says one. We do not ask them to give up their opinions--we ask them only not to impose them upon others. Let them hold their opinions, but let them hold them as private property. The faith is public property; opinions are, and always have been private property. Men have foolishly attempted to make the deductions of some great minds the common measure of all Christians. Hence the deductions of a Luther, and a Calvin, and a Wesley, have been the rule and measure of all who coalesce under the names of these leaders. It is cruel to excommunicate a man because of the imbecility of his intellect."

Alexander Campbell - "Dear sir, this plan of making our own nest, and fluttering over our own brood; of building our own tent, and of confining all goodness and grace to our noble selves and the "elect few" who are like us, is the quintessence of sublimated pharisaism. The old Pharisees were but babes in comparison to the modern: and the longer I live, and the more I reflect upon God and man--heaven and earth--the Bible and the world--the Redeemer and his church--the more I am assured that all sectarianism is the offspring of hell; and that all differences about words, and names, and opinions, hatched in Egypt, or Rome, or Edinburgh, are like the frolics of drunken men; and that where there is a new creature, or a society of them, with all their imperfections and frailties, and errors in sentiment, in views, and opinions, they ought to receive one another, and the strong to support the weak, and not to please themselves. To lock ourselves up in the bandbox of our own little circle; to associate with a few units, tens, or hundreds, as the pure church, as the elect, is real Protestant monkery, it is evangelical pharisaism."

Alexander Campbell - "I have tried the pharisaic plan, and the monastic. I was once so straight, that, like the Indian's tree, I leaned a little the other way. And however much I may be slandered now as seeking "popularity" or a popular course, I have to rejoice that to my own satisfaction, as well as to others, I proved that truth, and not popularity, was my object; for I was once so strict a Separatist that I would neither pray nor sing praises with any one who was not as perfect as I supposed myself. In this most unpopular course I persisted until I discovered the mistake, and saw that on the principle embraced in my conduct, there never could be a congregation or church upon the earth."

Alexander Campbell - "I have no idea of adding to the catalogue of new sects. I labor to see sectarianism abolished and all Christians of every name united upon the one foundation upon which the apostolic church was founded."

More on speculative theology

About Editor

What you can read next

A toothless watchdog

Going off the deep end

Christian friendly fire

1 Comment to “More on speculative theology”

Leave a Reply