Does It Matter What You Know?
“I don’t like all that theology. I just want to hear practical preaching."
I still remember a woman saying that to me in mixed company. At the time, she appeared to be a Christian. She said she was. She went to church every weekend along with her husband and kids and was involved in a lot of church events. And she hung out with other church women. But in the years since, she cheated on her husband a few times, divorced him. Her grown kids have rejected the hypocritical faith they saw her pretending to practice. And her life is anything but Christian. I think she was more interested in being entertained in church than she was in learning and applying God’s truth.
It does matter what you know and believe. Knowledge, at least to a certain extent, matters. Doctrine (which simply means teaching) drives decisions. We live like we believe. You know what a person actually believes by the way they behave. Anyone can say they believe something, but it’s what they do that bears witness of what they believe.
Doesn’t it matter what the hundreds of thousands of Muslims who have flocked to join ISIS believe? It’s what they believe that has driven their alliance and barbaric behavior.
So while I despise boring preaching, and I like to hear a preacher bring the text home and apply what is being taught so that it’s pertinent to my life, it’s the doctrine behind the application that serves as the foundation. You have to know the right things before you can do the right things.
That’s why we are doing this Sunday School Remix series. The stories of the Old Testament are not only interesting, they serve as the foundation to the New Testament. These stories help us to understand where Judaism (of Jesus’ day) and Christianity come from. The people of faith in the Old Testament are witnesses to God’s working through history and their lives and lessons speak to us today.
As Christians, we need to know these stories. And we need to hear them through adult ears in a grown-up way for grown-up applications.
That’s what we’ll be getting all summer. Show up every week you can and stay caught up on our church app or online when you can’t.
Because... what you know, understand and believe, matters.
“For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope” (Romans 15:4 NIV).