Podcast: Does It Matter What I Believe? (Samuel James)

March 27, 2023 by: Crossway

This article is part of the The Crossway Podcast series.

Must Theology Be Boring and Impractical?

In today’s episode, Samuel James walks through a number of common misconceptions and fears that we often have when it comes to thinking about our theology, ultimately making the case that what you believe matters today and for eternity.

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Topics Addressed in This Interview:

00:58 - Is Theology Practical?

Matt Tully
Well, Samuel, thank you so much for joining me today on The Crossway Podcast.

Samuel James
Thanks, Matt. Glad to be here.

Matt Tully
Today we’re going to talk about a few common objections, or at least concerns, that I think sometimes Christians have when it comes to understanding the importance of theology, of doctrine, for our lives as believers. I’d love for you to respond in turn; I’ll sort of play devil’s advocate to you as we talk. The first question, or concern, that we’ve all heard is, What would you say to the person who says that theology just isn’t very practical? Why should we spend so much time on it?

Samuel James
It’s a good question. I think often that question comes from someone who is thinking of theology in very abstract terms. They think of theology as something that a scholar does when they’re doing research. They think of theology as something that a bookish person might get into—kind of like a recreational hobby.

Matt Tully
Isn’t that kind of true though? Oftentimes you think of the person in your church who loves theology as, for lack of a better word, the “nerd” who doesn’t like sports and who just loves to read all day long. It sort of is an abstract, ethereal type of thing.

Samuel James
There’s an element of that to it, and it’s important to understand that there is a discipline called theology and that theologians are people who are specifically trained in that discipline. But theology’s a little bit different in that theology is what we say about God, not only verbally in the things we say, but in the way we live. Theology is a way that we reflect what we believe God is like and what we believe God wants from us. So when we spend our money, we are doing theology because we’re spending money based on, Well, I think what my money is for is to make me happy here or to satisfy this person over there. And so we’re exercising our values. We do theology when we parent. If you have little children or big children, you do theology in the way that you disciple them or discipline them or encourage them. You’re reflecting what you believe is ultimate. We do theology when we date and marry. You’re holding this other person kind of up to this metric of values that you want to see reflected in your mate, and you’re making decisions—big decisions—based on the priorities that you think are most important. Some of this can sound very individualistic and just opinion-oriented, but one of the things I’ve noticed in the last few years is that people are not afraid in our culture anymore to air objective opinions about the things that really matter to them. For example, if you just log on to Facebook, you’re going to find a lot of people doing theology. Now, they might be doing political theology, they might be doing theology and education; but they are making value claims that are very absolute, and they’re getting into arguments with other people about them. So I think it’s a misconception to say, Well, theology is so abstract. It’s not knowable. So we’ll leave that to the scholars and then we’ll kind of focus on more practical things. Actually, theology seeps into everything that we do. And if we’re looking for that, we can kind of see evidences of that in the way that people are more vocal now, and more visibly vocal through social media, about the things they really believe.

Matt Tully
You said the word “values” quite a few times in unpacking that. What’s the connection between our values and this idea of theology?

Samuel James
That’s a good question. We form our values based on what we think is most important. For example, you might decide that your children are not going to have a smartphone when they’re eight years old. Let me give one example of that. It’s a very practical parenting decision, but when your child comes to you and says, Why don’t I have a smartphone? you’re not going to say, Because they annoy me or I don’t really have a reason. We’re just not going to do that right now. You’re going to try to explain to your child, Actually, I think a smartphone at your age is not a good idea, and here’s why. You’re going to lay out values such as the value of not being distracted, the value of not being addicted to too much screen time. Those are value judgments. And those value judgments come from your worldview somewhere. They come from what you think is the best life. And so theology is a way of understanding, What is really true? What is ultimate? What is the kind of person that I should be? What are the kinds of decisions that I should make? What are the kinds of things the world should be? What are the kinds of decisions that politicians should make? All of those come from a cohesive vision of the good life. What is best for you, for people? What should we be pursuing? And so theology is really just how we answer that question, specifically as it relates to God. Either your worldview is going to come from Scripture, come from a point of revelation, or it’s going to come from something else. But either way, there’s a theological explanation for why you’re valuing the things you do.

Matt Tully
Speak to the Christian listening right now who says, If that’s how you define theology, then yeah, I can see why that’s valuable. It’s an important, grand vision of what it means to do theology. But what if their experience in their church, perhaps, or in their conversations with their pastor or in a small group is that theology always feels so small, it feels so narrow, it feels so parochial even. How would you respond to that? Are there facets of theology that are more narrow but that are still important?

Samuel James
I think so. Let’s just think about the Bible. Every orthodox evangelical would say everything the Bible says is true. Everything the Bible says, according to 1 Timothy, is profitable for the Christian life, for faith and doctrine. But not every part of the Bible is equally central. There are some parts of the Bible that are very explicit about what you have to believe to be a Christian. You have to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he’s divine, that he came in the flesh, that he died an atoning death for our sins, and that he rose bodily on the third day. That’s clearly non-negotiable. So that kind of theology is just massively central. You can’t budge on it. There are other types of theology that matter, but that aren’t as central. For example, should we baptize infants, or should we only baptize believers who are past a certain age? What’s the way we should structure our church? Should there be one elder? Should there be multiple elders? Should there be a presbytery? Should every church be autonomous? Those are theological questions that matter quite a bit, but they’re not as central. I think what we have to do is we have to make peace with the idea that just because something is not central doesn’t mean it’s unimportant. And again, I go back to the example of social media. People intuitively understand this when they read the news. They don’t necessarily think every political news byte that comes down is the most important thing. But they also think it’s important, and they demonstrate that by the way that they share the news, the way that they understand it, the way that they read about it and talk to others about it. So I think my burden, really, is for helping people to see that what you believe about God and what you believe about Scripture is not less important than what you believe about politics or news. It’s actually way more important. But we also have things that aren’t quite as central. So we just need to understand that theology is not this dusty discipline that’s out there in the corner that just doesn’t affect the rest of our life. We need to see it as more relevant than that. And when we do that, I think we will be able to make those discerning judgments more accurately

09:21 - Is Theology Inherently Divisive?

Matt Tully
What would you say to the person who says that theology is, by definition (or at least almost by definition), inherently divisive? They would look around and say, Look at our society. Look at the church today. Man, we have division and conflict everywhere, so what we need right now is unity, not division. And so theology is really a force pushing us away from each other.

Samuel James
I would say that it’s not theology that’s divisive, but it’s people. It’s our fallenness that prohibits us from being completely right all the time.Our divisions are caused by our fallible nature. And that’s not to say that the reason we have denominations is a sin. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying we are all fallible people who read the Scripture and have to interpret it as best we can, with the light of the Holy Spirit. But that’s going to lead people to differing conclusions, and that’s okay. God has seen fit to give his church not an absolute, central organization that interprets everything for every church. Now, that’s one difference between us and the Roman Catholic Church. As Protestants, we believe in the priesthood of all believers and that the Word is objectively true; it’s absolutely correct; it stands in judgment over us, not we over it. But for the interpretive task, we believe that the Christian and the local church are capable, under the Lordship of Christ and his Holy Spirit, of interpreting things responsibly. Anyway, that’s a long way to answer that question and say it’s not really theology that’s divisive. It’s the fact that we’re fallen. The potential for divisiveness is not really an argument against doing theology. Everything is divisive. There’s no part of life that registers any significance that is incapable of causing division, whether it’s how to parent or who to marry or what stuff to buy or what team to cheer for. These are points of divisions in our culture, but we wouldn’t necessarily say, Oh, because there are people who disagree with me, I really shouldn’t just think about this. Often it’s the case that the most important things in life do cause this division. And so it’s not really a question of Do I want to cause division or do I not? It’s a question of, How do I love others who disagree? How do I put myself in a position to be like Jesus with those who disagree? Jesus experienced a lot of division. He experienced division from the Pharisees and even from the ordinary townsfolk in John 8 who don’t believe what he’s saying about himself. But Jesus was perfect in his response to that. And so that’s the goal that we, I think, as Christians have, not to smother all disagreement and make it impossible, because if we do that, we’re going to end up not saying anything about God and about Jesus. And we’re going to end up compromising on truth. But also to kind of approach those disagreements with a winsome, holy, godly spirit.

Matt Tully
What would you say to the person whose experience of interacting with other Christians in the church is that often it can seem like those who are most passionate about theology tend to also be the most divisive. They get stuck on these little details and little minutiae, and then they make them into these huge deals and spark conflict. Is there truth in that kind of critique of at least those who love doctrine, maybe not the doctrine itself? And what should we make of that when it comes to this issue?

Samuel James
That’s such a good question. I seem to remember John Piper being asked this very same question, and Piper gave a really transparent response about how Reformed theology, for example, tends to attract a certain kind of intellectual temperament. And people tend to be attracted to Reformed theology for its robustness, for its philosophical rigor. And the people who are attracted to that tend to enjoy dialogue and even argument and—

Matt Tully
Debate.

Samuel James
Debate, yeah. So, part of it is that. Part of it is that theology does kind of have a little bit of a polemical flavor, in some ways, that people who enjoy clashing over ideas will be drawn to. And that’s why I think it’s important that we do theology not just individually, but as a church. God gives the task of theology not just to individual Christians, but to local churches. And that does a couple things. One of the things it does is it makes us learn how to do theology with each other, not always just against each other. It’s not just your theology against my theology—let’s compare notes and let’s see who’s right. But it’s also that a central part of New Testament theology is the “one anothers.” Love one another, serve one another, prefer one another, just as Christ love the church. Sacrifice, prefer this other person to yourself. And as we do that, theology becomes sharpened; it doesn’t become diminished. That’s part of what it means to be orthodox is to carry out what the Bible teaches in everything, not just the philosophical elements that make us feel good as we’re arguing, but also the very practical things of how do I love this person who disagrees with me? Well, I pray for them. I pray for their family. I pray for their wellbeing. How do I come alongside people who I kind of instinctively dislike because of their personality? I wouldn’t hang out with them except for Jesus. Because of Jesus, I’m serving them. I’m trying to help them as much as I can. That’s the beauty of the local church and the way that the Lord gave his Scripture, his revelation, to the local church to do together. That’s a huge part of that.

15:17 - Isn’t Christianity All about My Personal Relationship with Jesus?

Matt Tully
Another objection that people maybe often would bring out when it comes to how we prioritize doctrine and theology in the church is they would say Christianity is ultimately about a personal relationship with Jesus. The nuances of doctrine are really secondary to Am I experiencing, am I enjoying, am I investing in this personal, real, vibrant relationship with Jesus? How would you respond to that?

Samuel James
I would say, first of all, yes, that’s right. It is about a personal relationship with Jesus. But the question is, Who is Jesus? Who is your personal relationship with? And so the task of theology is to understand who this person is, in all of his fullness and in all of his righteousness and all of his wisdom. So it would be a little bit like saying, My marriage is about me having a personal relationship with my wife. But I don’t really care how much I get to know her. I don’t really care about the things she loves, the things she hates. I don’t really care about her history or her beliefs, what she thinks.

Matt Tully
Or what she said to you.

Samuel James
Or what she said to me. That’s all well and good for anyone who wants to listen, but I’m just going to focus on my relationship with my wife. Well, you would laugh at me.

Matt Tully
It’s inherently absurd.

Samuel James
It’s inherently absurd. You would, first of all, send me to crisis marriage counseling.

Matt Tully
It’s also just unwise.

Samuel James
Unwise and selfish. It’s selfish to talk that way. I’m basically saying, I’m okay to define my wife on my terms exclusively. And that is what we’re doing when we say doctrine doesn’t matter; just focus on Jesus. What we’re saying is, I can define Jesus how I want to, and I don’t care what Jesus says about Jesus. So theology is about what the Lord says about himself. He reveals his character. He reveals his truth on every page of Scripture. And that’s why it matters. To say, I have a personal relationship with Jesus but doctrine doesn’t matter is just as wrong and just as offensive as to say, I have a personal relationship with my wife, but I don’t really care what she’s like.

Matt Tully
And that’s why I think it’s so helpful to define theology as thinking, reflecting on, putting together what God has told us, what God himself has said to us in his word. Then that really does frame it correctly, where we are responding to something God has revealed. And so again, it’s incumbent upon us to actually think about what he is and what he has told us. Maybe a related question to this is some might say, Yes, but an over-emphasis on theology or doctrine can actually sometimes serve to hurt our relationship with Jesus because we can maybe fall into the temptation or trap of trying to analyze God or trying to define God. He becomes something to be studied rather than a person to know. Is there truth to that, or at least danger, for those who love theology?

Samuel James
I think there is that danger. I think one of the things that can happen, especially if we’re talking about a more analytical, studious personality, I think sometimes knowing a lot about Scripture can almost be a way of keeping the author of Scripture at bay a little bit. I can fill my mind with so much analytical and philosophical knowledge about Scripture, and part of the reason I’m doing that is so that I don’t have to get on my knees; so that I don’t have to confess my sin; so that I don’t have to confess my need for Jesus. That’s definitely a risk. On the other side, there are folks who go the opposite way, and they’re all about experience. It’s all experience for them. When they go into church, the question is, How intensely am I going to feel today? And then they go home and they’re kind of waiting for a mysterious voice from on high to kind of fill their heart with this emotion, but it’s totally untethered from truth. And what happens a lot of times with those people is that they’re deceived. They get fooled into bad doctrine. They have a bad image of what Jesus is like; an unreal image. Twin dangers are always threatening us. I think one thing that helps is, again, to prioritize the local community in the church, because I think as a church is pursuing Jesus and discipling one another in his image and really getting into the Scriptures to know what it says, I think we can help each other off of each ledge. So I might have a personality that tends to be more analytical, and you might see that in me and say, Hey, I really appreciate all your comments about what this means, but what’s the Lord been teaching you in your life and in your marriage? And that forces me to back up and say, You know what? You’re right. I’m not really applying this to myself the way I should be. There might be another person who tends to be more experiential, and they’re kind of always searching for that spiritual high without that really robust truth underneath it. And maybe someone can come up to them and say, Hey, I love that you are so on fire for the things of God, and you really want to be faithful. But have you looked at the Scripture a little more closely? Are you sure you’re really capturing what the Bible says about Jesus here? So that way, two dueling personalities can kind of pull on each other and stay off the ledges that are close to each.

20:49 - How Do I Cultivate Theological Discussion at Church?

Matt Tully
That’s such an amazing thing. You’ve brought this up a couple times, just the way that God has designed the church—with different kinds of people who have different interests and different natural abilities and predispositions—that together, we are greater than we are individually. We can help and serve each other. How do you actually do that in a church context? It seems like a lot of this requires conversation. It requires discussing these doctrines themselves and the things of God together. So what are some ways that maybe churches could consider doing that?

Samuel James
The first thing you have to do is you have to show up. And particularly in a digital age, the temptation is to not show up and to say, Well, I’ll stream it for the next few weeks. I’m looking forward to watching the sermon and watching the music. And there may be seasons where people have to stay for whatever reason (health). I’m not trying to bind a conscience in every situation, but I really don’t think you can do what we’re talking about right here unless you’re there. You can’t really pull each other from the ledge, sharpen each other, warn each other, or encourage one another unless you’re there. So that’s really the first thing—to be there. Do you know the people in your church? Are you sliding in the back pew every Sunday, last one in and first one out? You’re not going to be able to do what we’re talking about here. I think another aspect of it that’s very important is, whether a church is doing it through small groups or through Sunday school classes, are there dedicated times where people can come together, can study the word, and can apply it to their lives in community with each other? And that takes effort. You have to actually create that time. You have to facilitate it. You have to have trusted leaders in the church who can be responsible for that. But whether it’s a small group, whether it’s a Sunday school class, is there time outside of the sermon for people to really dig into the word with each other? And then you’re speaking into this person’s life, and they’re speaking into your life. And that way, theology affects you all as you grow into Christlikeness together in the different facets that you are growing.

Matt Tully
It strikes me that in addition to having those forums for doing this in a church context and then actually showing up to those things, there also maybe needs to be some kind of attitude. I think we’ve all been in spaces where we kind of recognize, Hey, I view this a little differently than that person does. Or, I’m more interested in this naturally than they are. We have to come to view those differences as perhaps a good thing that God has given us, not just get annoyed at the other person and say, They’re always talking about that doctrine. They don’t ever seem to think about their own life. But actually, maybe they’re helping to balance me out in a certain way.

Samuel James
Absolutely. I go to a church in Kentucky with a lot of seminary students and even some seminary professors. And so I think one of the things that people have to watch out for, especially people with a seminary background, is not to immediately think of the non-seminary people in the church as being less able to dig into Scripture, less able to interpret. That’s not the truth. And in fact, there’s been so many times in my small group and in our Sunday school class where someone with no seminary education (but they’ve been a saint for 30–40 years), they don’t have any letters after their name, they’ve never stepped in a seminary classroom, but man, they have read the word, they have sat under solid preaching for so long. They’ve listened, they’ve internalized it, and they are just able to open the Bible in just such a rich way. I actually think it was John Newton who wrote a letter to a younger man who was tempted to skip around churches, like he was kind of a connoisseur of churches. And one thing John Newton said was every time you leave a church service disappointed by the sermon, you’re getting what you expected. So if you went in expecting to hear from the Lord you would hear from the Lord regardless of how proficient that speaker was. If you go in expecting this guy to not be able to speak anything to you because you’re just beyond him, well, you’ve received according to your faith, basically he’s saying. So that’s something really important. We’re expecting to hear from the Lord as he opens up his word in the church. We’re not just going to hear something maybe that’s going to blow our minds intellectually.

25:31 - How Do I Know If My Theology Is Correct?

Matt Tully
Another objection that we might hear about theology is that there are so many different opinions. We all have a shared bible. Even if we all agree that Scripture is inerrant and inspired and for our good, teaching us things, nevertheless, there are just so many opinions on so many of these doctrinal things. And so even if we believed there is truth that we need to understand, how do we know that we actually got it? There are so many different viewpoints out there, so why even try?

Samuel James
That’s a great question. I think the first thing I would say to that is a variety of opinions does not mean that there is no objective truth. There are lots of religions, but only one has come in the flesh and dwelt among us and we’ve seen his glory. There’s only one Son of God. There are a lot of ways to get to God that man has invented. So a multiplicity of opinions does not necessarily mean there’s no objective truth to be had. I think another thing I would say to that is—and C. S. Lewis gets to this in one of his essays called “Man or Rabbit?” In the opening of the essay, he says, I’ve been asked, Can a person be good without Christianity? And the first thing he says before he actually answers the question is, I don’t like this question because it assumes that the value of Christianity is in how it could make you live a good life, not whether what it says is true. And Lewis says, I don’t respect that question because I think any honest person should want to believe Christianity if they think Christianity says true things about God and the world. And if it doesn’t “help them” live a certain kind of life, it’s still true and you’re still obligated to believe it. And the same is true if it’s false. It doesn’t matter how useful you find it. If what it says about the universe is wrong, then you shouldn’t want to believe it. So I think what I would say is for a person who’s kind of feeling like that there are so many opinions and so many different arguments and asking, What’s even the point?, I would say don’t get distracted by that. God has given you his word. God has revealed his truth. Your goal is not to settle all theological debates. You’re not going to do that, and you’re not even going to come close, and that’s okay. And God knew that. God gave us his word, and he knew in his sovereign wisdom and omniscience what we would do with it. He knew all the denominations that would pop up. He knew all the different interpretations that would pop up.

Matt Tully
He’s not surprised by our disagreement.

Samuel James
He’s not surprised at all. He knew this was going to happen, and yet he still gave us his word. So our task is not to litigate every possible debate. It’s to say, Look, according to the best principles of biblical interpretation, what do I believe this text is saying? Is this affirmed by the church historic? Is this an interpretation that finds support through Christian history? And then your responsibility, as much as you can, is to believe it. And when you find yourself before the throne after the end of your life, God’s going to reveal some surprises for you. You’re going to be like, Oh! I was wrong about that. That’s okay. That’s okay. That’s your finitude; it’s not your sinfulness. It’s your finitude that’s speaking there. And we have to just be faithful in our finitude. We have to say, I don’t know everything, but what I do know, I believe in and I’ve committed to it, and I’m trying to be faithful where the scripture calls me to be faithful.

Matt Tully
That kind of takes the burden off a little bit of having to know and have even the level of confidence that we’re absolutely correct. You’re kind of saying that’s not the standard for how we think about theology.

Samuel James
Yeah, absolutely. And I should probably amend something I said earlier. I think earlier I said differing interpretations are based on human sinfulness. What I should have said is our finitude. That’s what it is. Some interpretations are more wrong than others.

Matt Tully
And some could be a result of our own sinful blindness.

Samuel James
Absolutely.

Matt Tully
But not necessarily.

Samuel James
Not every one. I don’t believe that people who have different end times beliefs are doing so out of sinful motivations. But it is our finitude; it’s our creatureliness. God gave his word to finite creatures who weren’t going to be able to know everything about his word, yet he still revealed it to us. And that should result not in anxiety, but in more worship to this God who is far beyond what we could ask or think.

30:15 - Is Theology Non-Inclusive?

Matt Tully
And who’s keeping us humble, even in how we think. He’s keeping us on our knees. Maybe a final concern that might have more residence today in our culture today than before, but nevertheless, it’s probably something that I would imagine some Christians wrestle with at times, is that theology often would lead us to view God in non-inclusive ways. So often theology is about drawing boundaries between right beliefs and wrong beliefs. And maybe that inevitably leads to people being marginalized, people being put out of the camp, so to speak. And we’ve seen examples of that in church history. We’ve seen negative, sinful examples of people being marginalized because of their beliefs. How do we think about that? Isn’t it better to focus on making Christianity as inclusive and welcoming as possible, especially in our day and age?

Samuel James
It’s a very important question. The first thing I would say to that is that the premise behind that question is that we could do that. We could take Christianity and take Christian theology and we could just make it to where it was this big “All Are Welcome” sign. There would be no exclusion and there would be no judgment. It would just be everyone kind of coming in as they are, however they want. We can’t do that. You just can’t do that with Scripture. The message of Scripture is clear that God has given us a revelation of himself that is true, and the burden on us as his creatures is to believe that. And when we don’t believe that, bad things happen.

Matt Tully
So it sounds like what you’re saying is if Christianity isn’t very inclusive, or if theology isn’t very inclusive, the issue is that Scripture isn’t as inclusive as you might want it to be, not the theology itself.

Samuel James
Oh, I think so. I want to be clear that it’s possible to be too narrow in your theology. For example, if you say, I don’t believe people who have a differing view on baptism than I do are even Christians, you’re outside of church history; you’re outside of what the New Testament says; you’re applying your own understanding there in an inappropriate way. So there’s an example of just being too narrow minded. And that’s why the task of biblical interpretation is so important. Gavin Orland’s book Finding the Right Hills to Die On is very helpful on this point. Discerning what are the theological points that are just central and that we can’t flex on? What are the ones that are really important, but we wouldn’t necessarily break brotherhood with? But then what are the ones outside that circle that there’s just going to be a lot of room for disagreement on? We have to be okay with that as the church. The last point I would want to make about this question is that often this type of question comes from people who what they’re really doing is they’re saying theological division is what they dislike. But they’re okay with other kinds of division. They’re okay with saying, If you voted for this candidate, shame on you. They’re okay if with saying, If you believe this about this issue, then you are just totally wrong.

Matt Tully
This moral or ethical issue.

Samuel James
Absolutely. We are a generation and we are a culture that is very open about our belief in objective truth. We’re not relativists.

Matt Tully
The relativism of a previous generation is long gone.

Samuel James
It’s gone. And the only proof you need is to fire up social media, and you will see proof after proof-

Matt Tully
Or don’t do that.

Samuel James
Or don’t do that, but you can take somebody’s word for it that everything you see is just proof that we believe in the objectivity of truth. But when it comes to God, when it comes to religion, when it comes to theology, what we want to say is, Well, let’s not be divisive. What we’re actually saying is, Theology is not as important as these other things: who I vote for, the political party I support, what I think about the latest news issues. That’s important enough for me to draw lines in the sand, but what God says about himself is really not as important. And guess what? That action in itself is theology. You’re saying that Scripture should take a backseat to these other things. That’s theology. It’s bad theology, but you’re doing theology when you do that.

Matt Tully
Samuel, thank you so much for helping us think through these important questions and objections—things that I’m sure many listeners even have had to wrestle a little bit themselves—and helping us to maybe think a little bit more rightly about the importance of doctrine.

Samuel James
Thanks, Matt. I really appreciate it.

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