The story behind the story
It's commonplace for us to only know a few things about people from the past. We know legends, good things and bad things about a great many historical figures. Others, we only know them by what they wrote. For those who are extremely famous figures from the past, we may only know them by what people say about them many years after the fact.
We know J.R.R. Tolkein by his Lord of the Rings stories and that's about it.
We know George Washington by stories of the U.S. struggle for Independence, the chopping of the cherry tree (which probably never happened) and so on.
But what about those stodgy, dead theologians we know of, but know so little of?
What about that guy Augustine from so long ago?
What about Aquinas?
What about Calvin, Luther, Beza, Wesley, Edwards and so on and so on?
What do we know about these guys?
The majority of Christians only know what they're heard from someone else, and a few Christians have read notable quotes, or maybe a book or two, but that's about it.
What happens?
Well, when we rely on information from someone else, this person from the past becomes a figure to us and we really don't understand them just as if someone only told three stories about our lives and we expected them to really "know" us.
Is there a remedy?
Well, for folks as contraversial as Calvin or Luther, I reccomend reading what they actually said. I actually reccomend that if you want to "understand" any figure really. This does two things, one, it opens a window to what the individual actually said, in their life, in their context; and two, by reading someone's own writings we see there is a human side to the painting in the museums. There is a human who actually lived, who thought these things they penned down for folks to read.
That's the story behind the story. Doctrines, theological systems, philosophies, movements and so on, are led or developed by human beings, and we should remember that, and maybe once in a while we should actually read what they said. It can make that stodgy theologian look like a sincere person who was committed to Scripture and believed their studies were an act of worship performed for Almighty God.
Book of the day, Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin.
We know J.R.R. Tolkein by his Lord of the Rings stories and that's about it.
We know George Washington by stories of the U.S. struggle for Independence, the chopping of the cherry tree (which probably never happened) and so on.
But what about those stodgy, dead theologians we know of, but know so little of?
What about that guy Augustine from so long ago?
What about Aquinas?
What about Calvin, Luther, Beza, Wesley, Edwards and so on and so on?
What do we know about these guys?
The majority of Christians only know what they're heard from someone else, and a few Christians have read notable quotes, or maybe a book or two, but that's about it.
What happens?
Well, when we rely on information from someone else, this person from the past becomes a figure to us and we really don't understand them just as if someone only told three stories about our lives and we expected them to really "know" us.
Is there a remedy?
Well, for folks as contraversial as Calvin or Luther, I reccomend reading what they actually said. I actually reccomend that if you want to "understand" any figure really. This does two things, one, it opens a window to what the individual actually said, in their life, in their context; and two, by reading someone's own writings we see there is a human side to the painting in the museums. There is a human who actually lived, who thought these things they penned down for folks to read.
That's the story behind the story. Doctrines, theological systems, philosophies, movements and so on, are led or developed by human beings, and we should remember that, and maybe once in a while we should actually read what they said. It can make that stodgy theologian look like a sincere person who was committed to Scripture and believed their studies were an act of worship performed for Almighty God.
Book of the day, Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin.
posted by Bobby's blog at 3:16 PM
1 Comments:
I'm reading your blog. Beware. ;)
-Melanie98
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