Theology

If one’s internet searches illuminate our hidden desires, then the Bible serves (in the words of Catherine Dunlap Carter) as a kind of “incomparable record of human desire.”

The cross is the axis upon which the biblical story turns. Who is God? God is the one who was crucified between two criminals on Good Friday.

Overlaying the maps of these two intellectual worlds—the Bible’s and evolutionary science’s—will show us the various routes they each forge to conceptualize the world we know today.

When we do theology, our task is not to add to what God has revealed in the Scriptures, but to order it. Theology is a way to organize and better know and understand what God has gifted us in special revelation.

In light of the unique role that written texts have played in Christianity for two millennia, it will be helpful to briefly consider what may be determined regarding the manner in which the biblical authors composed and distributed their works.

Even a basic understanding of such literary devices as inclusios, chiasms and key word repetition can go a long way in enhancing a reader’s pleasure factor.

On this side of heaven, theological disagreement is part of life. The apostles who wrote the New Testament settled such disputes in the first century. Today, we have a clear word from God preserved in Scripture but no magisterium to settle our disagreements over how to interpret it.

We all have limited perspectives. We live in particular cultures and historical periods. No one studies the Bible in a vacuum. Our cultural, historical, and personal contexts influence how we interpret the Bible. In this sense, all theology is contextualized.