Jojo Agot

Too Much Systematic Theology

I just had a random conversation with one of our pastors this morning when he jokingly commented that I spent too much time on systematic theology. He reasoned that the original apostles were unschooled and they didn’t have complicated theology in their ministries. Our conversation was more of a light banter but the idea got me really thinking afterwards.

If God used unschooled apostles to turn this world upside down with a simple gospel message, can’t we just imitate them and keep things as simple as they are? Why learn too much technical stuff when many people think it’s not that necessary? Continue reading Too Much Systematic Theology

Your Story Is No Longer Enough

Leslie Keeney wrote this insightful piece about why sharing our personal testimonies is no longer the best way to share the gospel:

The problem with this method is that it doesn’t work anymore. It might have worked 20 or 30 years ago, but in 2013 any post-modern worth his salt will respond “that may be true for you, but it’s not true for me.” And well he should. If the person sharing his faith is saying that you should try this because it worked for him—if he is basing his argument for following Christ on his own experience—then it’s only fair that the person responding should be able to say that his experience is just as valid.

In a way, the Christian who uses only his own experience to tell non-Christians about Jesus is giving the post-modern the home-field advantage. He is implicitly agreeing that what matters most is personal experience, not truth.

You can read the whole thing here.

Burning Ourselves with Anxiety

Our problem isn’t that we are too active. Rather, it is that we have been prone to successive sprints instead of the long-distance run. There’s nothing wrong with energy. The danger is that we’re burning out ourselves—and each other—on restless anxieties and unrealistic expectations.

—Michael Horton

Readers No more

We live in a generation of lookers, not readers. That is one of our great problems as Christians. We are book people in a non-book world.

— Alec Motyer

All Grace

It is grace at the beginning, and grace at the end. So that when you and I come to lie upon our death beds, the one thing that should comfort and help and strengthen us there is the thing that helped us in the beginning. Not what we have been, not what we have done, but the Grace of God in Jesus Christ our Lord. The Christian life starts with grace, it must continue with grace, it ends with grace. Grace wondrous grace. By the grace of God I am what I am. Yet not I, but the Grace of God which was with me. …The ultimate test of our spirituality is the measure of our amazement at the grace of God.

–D. Martyn Lloyrd Jones

Dumbed Down Gospel

Many Christians try very hard to be relevant to the culture around them that they avoid using Bible words for fear of being considered out of step with the latest trends. Their vocabulary is very limited to phrases like “blessings of God, unconditional love, inner peace, enjoying God’s best, happiness, getting over with something, and moving on.” They systematically reject heavy (read: religious) words like providence, atonement, substitutionary death, repentance, forgiveness, and justification. The mere mention of the word theology makes their ears bleed.

As far as I know, their reasons are simple: keep the gospel easy to understand for new believers; don’t burden them with theology; talk to them at their level and keep to the cool stuff so you won’t scare them away with too much religion. Continue reading Dumbed Down Gospel