Sunday School (2)

The Word of God

Sunday School Lesson

I am a big fan of Creeds and confessions. It is lost in our age and sometimes- often, hated. But everyone has a creed. People say Deeds not creeds or no creed but christ, but those statements themselves are creeds. Creeds and confessions are mostly a protestant thing that Catholics capitalized on and many today believe it belongs to them. So when many protestants hear the word catechism, they think of the catholic church, but it was the protestants that actually created it.

This was the way the church trained other Christians. People memorized these creed’s and confessions because it was recited to them. This was in a time when most did not know how to read. So the church had to give memory tools to help. Confessions also let the world know where we stand. What is our biblical position.

And the thing about confessions or statements of faith… is that they are usually inspired by systematic theology in our age. But the original confessions are the ones that inspired or were really the first forms of systematic theology

1. What Is systematic theology?

Systematic Theology is what does the whole bible have to say about one given topic. The word does not come from the word system like most assume but its a compound word taken from Greek. Now the word System does come from the same compound word. It means to gather, that is the syn, like sync. and to set up. To gather and set up.

We take in all what the bible has to say about one given topic or any given topic to make a solid conclusion based on what we are reading.

2. Why do you think theologians do that?

The reason why this is done is because this is how our doctrines were meant to built. We have to take into consideration what the whole bible has to say. If we dont, we run the risk of being in heresy. And this happens way too often.

People take a verse and build an entire doctrine off that verse without considering what the whole bible teaches.

In one of may sermons, I told you guys about a visitor who came to a Sunday school class. I came into that class late, I was still setting up for our Sunday and heard the man hijack the sunday school.

This happens when someone is not familiar with the subject at hand and they re-direct the conversation to what they know and then begin to teach the class. We tend to see that with people who are new to the faith and zealos for it and those who have never matured in the faith.

So he hijacked the Sunday School and kept the conversation somewhere where he was comfortable. But as we began to listen to what he was saying, I had to question him.

He said several things that were wrong and I said ok, we are just going to have to go down the list one at a time. We never got past the first one. Because as I began to press him on the issue, more unraveled. He admitted that he was sinless and equal to God.

He also said that the resurrection was not a physical, historical event, but Jesus was resurrected in the heart of believers. He was denying the resurrection, of course, he denied that accusation as well after I laid it on him.

Now I told that man that him and I both know that he did not come up with that conclusion on his own based on the scripture and that I was willing to bet that he was just repeating what he learned on Youtube. He did not deny that, he just stared at me. He was siteing verses to back himself up, which anyone can do for any given topic.

Now before I tell you what I told this visitor, I want to share a darker story with you. The ministry I was in where I did youth ministry, and this was long before I attended this church, this ministry was setting up for a wedding. The bride was someone who was raised in that church, whose parents have been long time members of that church as well. And likewise, the groom was raised in that ministry and his parents were long time member's there.

The groom was with his mother setting up for the big day and the groom told his mother to be sure and not allow his niece to be around the father of the bride. The grooms mother knew something was wrong and demanded that her son explain the reason why he said that. The son would not say, but mamma was presistant. She finally got it out of him.

The Groom revealed that his bride to be was molested by her own father for many years, a man who was the deacon of that church at the time. The mother of the groom was angered but knew that it was a serious accusation. It was best to confront it in peace and get more answers. She got the pastor involved and everyone was there to ask this deacon about these accusations.

The deacon, admitted that he did have relations with his daughter and the reason he had these relations was because it was the biblical thing to do. After all, that is what Lots daughters did to him, and they wanted to do that to lot so therefore, his daughter wanted it as well. Clearly this man is evil.

But that is what happens when you isolate one text. and take it out of context. These are two examples of the same error on different sides. Both men refused to take into consideration the whole sum of what scripture has to say about the topics they were talking about. One caused a father to betray his daughters trust, violate her, rob his daughter of her innocence and hurt the image of Jesus because after all, he was a deacon and his daughter watched the man dress up and play church every Sunday.

The other mans teaching could give people a psudo salvation, people think they are saved but are really not because one man refused to consider what the bible has to say and he may be giving people false hope and they walk around with false assurance, like he did.

We have to take into account what all of scripture has to say on topics because sometimes, it appears that two different texts are saying two diffrent things about the same subject. So we have to figure out the best way to understand it because we know the bible has no contradictions, so there appears to be one, then we must find what is is truly saying and eliminate that apparent contradiction.

So we do that by considering what the whole bible has to say about one topic. The bible, in its original form, did not have chapters and verses. That came at the reformation as a tool to help people memorize scripture. Sound doctrine is not left to one verse and we cant build an entire doctrine off of a single verse, so we do systematic theology.

Now the baptist general conference has one of the shortest affirmations of faith. However, converge has a list of resolutions that expand on that but its a separate list. It is free to view on the website and covers topics like abortion, homosexuality and open theism just to name a few subjects.

For the sake of this study, we will begin with the affirmation of faith. These are the things that theologians agreed were the essentials. They agree that there is room for disagreement on many issues, but the affirmation of faith are the essential, no budge topics.

This affirmation of faith was documented in 1951, it was affirmed as a denomination again in 1990 and amended in 1997. What was amended, i don't know. Before we read the first affirmation;

3. Does anyone have any thoughts, questions or concerns they want to share?

The Word of God We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, fully inspired and without error in the original manuscripts, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that it has supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.

4. Most systematic theology books, courses, and statements of faith begin with the scriptures. Why do you think that is?

4. Why do you think that is?