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Bible Study - The Key to Theology

Theology means "the study of God." But if we consider the Greek roots, theou logos at its simplest means "the word about God" or "the message about God." Theology is trying to know God.

But how can we know God? Rightly, we can look at the universe around us and at the structure of the human heart (especially the knowledge of right and wrong that all people have and the conscience which evaluates our day to day "walk" in the light of that knowledge) and we can deduce certain things about God. But by that procedure, we are no better off than any insightful individual of any time and place. The true God is the God of the Bible. The only way to know him is through revelation. God is hidden. No human can see him except when he himself "pulls back the veil" and shows himself to us.

How does God do that? Through the Bible. That makes Bible study the surest -- indeed the only -- guide to knowing the unknowable and holy God. In our time, many people point to other things -- your own heart, your works of love, your community of faith -- as ways to acheive theou logos. But none of them is a sure and certain guide. The Bible alone can reveal God to us.

The implications for Bible study are far reaching and obvious. Knowing the true God and his plan of salvation is the lifeblood of the church. That makes Bible study essential for the life of the church. No communion can long survive if it relegates Bible study to the pastor's study or the Sunday morning excesses of a few members of a "core group."

This is true even in church bodies that consider themselves to be "confessional." Confessions are statements of what a church believes and teachers. They explain how individual communions understand the Word of God. They are necessary, because God's revalation is so expansive and the human intellect is so limited that we can't just point to the Bible and say this is what I beleive. We may try and do that, but it leaves the listener uncertain and uninformed about the actual beliefs of the person making the statement. Confessions explain what we have read and what we have understood in the Scripture.

But no confession can spring into existence in a vacuum. A confession must be the fruit of dedicated, serious Bible study. Only when we have done that Bible study individually and as a community can we reach sound conclusions and say, "Thus saith the Lord." That is what every confession means to be.

Once we have determined that truth, then of course, the confessions do inform our ongoing study of the Scripture. We are seekers of God, that means we are seekers of truth. Once serious, prayerful Bible study identifies truth, that truth must stand for all eternity. So confessions help us to avoid known pitfalls and theological excesses, even while we study the Bible. No interpretation of Scripture which denies the truth can be an accurate statement of what the Bible says. But the most a confessional statement can do is drive us back to the Bible to discover what we have misunderstood. Bible study itself must correct our understanding.

Bible study, is therefore, the key to faith. We grow in knowledge and in faith when we grow in our understanding of the word of God. In every age, we need to study that Scriptures, because that is the only way that we will be able to apply the truths of the past to the sin of the present. God has given us an eternal word. That word applies to every man, woman and child who ever has lived or ever will live. But it is our task to study that word and apply it to each other.

Submitted by Geoffrey A. Kieta