Systematic Theology

Lecture 1 – Introduction, Word of God, Canon of Scripture

 What Is Systematic Theology? (Pages 21-43)
 Theology is the “study of God”. Systematic theology is putting our study of God
into a non-contradictory and logical system that “checks and balances itself”.
 For the purpose of this course is any study that answers the question “What does
the whole Bible teach us today?” – about any given topic.
 Its is NOT putting God inside a human system of thought – no one can do that!
God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts! (Isaiah 55:8,9)
 Systematic theology helps us to think rightly about God in a comprehensive,
detailed and organized way that addresses all the relevant bible verses on a
particular topic.
 Systematic theology is the opposite of disorganized and unbiblical theology.
 It not organizing God, rather it is organizing our thinking about God so that it
makes sense, and is not contradictory, idiosyncratic, confused, chaotic or
downright muddled. The “system’ keeps us from going off the rails, it does not
contain God or contain all knowledge about God which will be incomplete until
we see Christ face to face (1 Corinthians 13:9-12).
 We need to be prepared to be challenged and give up preconceived ideas if it is
clear FROM SCRIPTURE that they need to be corrected.
Why Bother With Theology?
 Everything we say, think and do has a theological component
e.g. “The whole world stinks” is a (wrong) theological
statement. Your attitude to other people has theological
implications (are they made in the image of God?) and even
how you spend your money has theological implications.
 If your theology is wrong, inadequate or poorly understood
your whole life can suffer e.g. people who try to work their
way into Heaven. Everyone, even an atheist, has a theology -
but most don’t have any idea what their theology is!
 It is better to have an accurate and well-worked out theology
than a confused, inaccurate and misleading theology. Wrong
teaching is warned against in every book of the NT except the
brief letter to Philemon.
 Those in any kind of ministry need to know that what they are
saying about God, Jesus and the Church is true.
Dogma vs. Theology
 In evangelical Christian theology we balance two statements :

A) The Holy Spirit is our teacher and reveals God to all who seek Him on
an individual basis without needing any body of traditional human dogma
(Scribes, Pharisees) or a human priestly mediator. (1 John 2:20,27).

B) No prophecy arose out of private interpretation (2 Peter 1:20,21)

We cannot just make things up, our revelations have to be brought to the
body of Christ for discernment. We approach the Scriptures as a loving,
prayerful community of grace working out what God is saying to us
together.

 Therefore one one hand we are not trying to “have the final infallible word
for all time” nor are we trying to invent our own “new” and idiosyncratic
path, rather we are trying to discover the truth of the Scriptures together
and apply it to our lives and to our ministry today.
Types of Theology
 Philosophical Theology – speculative human reason
 Historical Theology – how doctrines developed over time
(closely related to Church History)
 Apologetics – defending the faith from attack / heresy
 Biblical Theology – what a particular bible book says
about a particular topic e.g “what Luke says about prayer”
or what the OT says, or the NT says or how a doctrine
develops over time within the bible itself.
 Systematic Theology – what the whole Bible says about
a particular topic, it often overlaps with biblical theology
but tries to get the whole view of things.
Some Major Theological Positions
 Liberal: A theology that sees reason as more important than Scripture and
is highly critical of the Bible, miracles, Creation, the deity of Christ and so
on. It is often found in mainline churches such as the United Methodist
Church. Its modern version is the “Emerging Church” movement.
 Evangelical: Believe in the need to be born again as a distinct personal act
of faith in Jesus Christ involving repentance from sin. The opposite is
sacramentalism (salvation by ceremony / church membership) or salvation
by works. (CC position)
 Charismatic: Believes in the gifts and baptism of the Holy Spirit, that they
have not ceased and are for today but has a wide range of different opinions
about how they should be used. (CC position)
 Pentecostal: Speaking in tongues is the sign of the baptism in the Holy
Spirit but is not necessary for salvation. Experience is very important.
 Conservative: Holds to the authority and the inerrancy of Scripture as the
sole rue for the faith and practice of the Christian life (CC position).
 Fundamentalist: Started as opposition to the liberals and stated belief in
five “fundamental” truths. Now tends to be “reactive” – that is more
“against” things than “for” things.
 Others: Unitarian , Liberation Theology, Prosperity Gospel etc.
Our Starting Point For This Course (p26)
 We start with faith in God as revealed in the Scriptures and
believe that:

 a) There is one Creator God who created the heavens, the earth
and everything in them and that this one God exists in three
persons Father, Son & Holy Spirit

b) That God the Father spoke to His prophets and apostles

through the Holy Spirit to write the Scriptures for the glory of
His Son and the edification of His Bride the Church and that
these Scriptures are fully inspired, authoritative, inerrant and
infallible and are to be the guide for the life and practice of
every Christian and that we are to seek Christ in and through
these Scriptures.
What Is A Doctrine? (p. 25)
 A doctrine is what the whole Bible teaches us today about
some particular topic.
 Some are major doctrines (e.g. the Doctrine of the Word of
God) and some are minor doctrines (the doctrine of the proper
mode of baptism) these minor doctrines live as sub-topics of
major doctrines.
 For instance the seven major doctrinal areas that we find listed
in Grudem are the doctrines of: The Word of God, God, Man,
Christ & the Holy Spirit, The Application of Redemption, The
Church, The Future
 We will then try to put these major doctrines into some sort of
order because they overlap and interact and do so in powerful
and insightful ways.
 We should “major on the majors and minor on the minors”.
The Doctrine Of The Word of God (p. 47-51)
 The Word of God As A Person: Jesus Christ

 The Word of God As Speech by God:

God Decrees (to angels, creation)
God’s Words of Personal Address (to people, nations etc)
God’s Word As Speech Through Human Lips (prophets)
God’s Word Through Written Form: The Bible

 Our focus will be on God’s Word through written form –

the Bible
The Canon of Scripture (p. 54-72)
 The canon of Scripture is the list of all the books that
belong in the Bible
 Canon = standard or rule
 It is very important because we need to know which
“words” are the words from God.
 Marcion – reduced the canon to Luke’s gospel plus the
works of Paul
 Council of Trent (Catholic) tried to add the Apocrypha
 Modern liberal theologians try to add in the Gnostic gospels
such as the Gospel of Thomas
 F.F. Bruce The Canon of Scripture
 Josh McDowell Evidence That Demands a Verdict - Vol. 2
Old Testament Books
 Started with the Ten Commandments ‘written by the
finger of God’
 Moses then writes Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers
and Deuteronomy recording God’s words and deeds.
 Over time Scriptures added to by Joshua, Samuel, the
prophets, Ezra the scribe etc.
 By the time of Jesus it was agreed that the last inspired
writings ended with Malachi in 435 BC last books were
Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi
 Jews agreed on this current list by Jesus day (Josephus)
and certainly by 100AD
 Copied exceedinly carefully by the Masoretic scribes
New Testament Books
 Authored by the apostles or by those close to the apostles (e.g.
Hebrews)
 Widely used by the Church in both East and West
 Profitable for life and doctrine: good outcomes
 Consistent with the life and teachings of Christ
 Christ is the final statement (Hebrews 1:1-3)
 Smaller books controversial: 2 john, 3 John, 2 Peter, Jude
 Revelation also controversial
 Current list agreed on substantially by 150AD and agreed fully
by 367 AD
 Over 10,000 NT manuscripts exist enabling cross-checking,
and there is a very high degree of consistency <1% of the NT
is in dispute even to the slightest degree and no major doctrine
is affected by such a dispute over the etxt.
The Apocrypha etc.
 There are many books that were not included in the OT or
NT canon the major ones were: 1 & 2 Esdras, Tobit,
Judith, the rest of Esther, the Wisdom of Solomon,
Ecclesiasticus (not the same as Ecclesiastes), Baruch
(including the epsitle of Jeremiah), the song of the Three
Holy Children, Susanna, Bel and the Dragon, the Prayer
of Manasseh and 1 & 2 Maccabees.
 Mostly written between 400BC to 100 BC
 Interesting historically and of some value but definitely
NOT Scripture
 Not included in any of the Jewish or early Christian lists
of inspired books
Why The Apocrypha Were Not Accepted (p. 59)

 They do not claim for themselves the same kind of

authority as the OT writings

 They were not regarded as God’s words by the Jewish

people from whom they originated

 They were not considered as Scripture by Jesus or any of

the authors of the NT

 They contain teachings inconsistent with the rest of the

NT
Pseudepigrapha
 Pseudepigrapha – “false writings” those who claim authors
with bible names but are written by someone else
 Enoch, Psalms of Solomon, Book of Jubilees, Acts of Peter,
Gospel of Thomas, Life of Adam and Eve, Testament of Job
etc.
 They are numerous in number and of very low quality. The
Gospel of Thomas ends with a statement that women must
become men in order to be saved!
 Some (such as Enoch and the Shepherd of Hermas) gained a
little credibility but later were not accepted. Major doctrinal
problems w. Shepherd (very legalistic)
 Mainly written between 200 BC to 200 AD
 Pseudepigrapha heavily influenced by astrology, dreams,
visions, Gnosticism and old Jewish fables, mainly in vogue
today with pagans, witches and Gnostics. Colossians 2 warns
us aginst such things as does 1 & 2 Timothy.
How Do We Know We Have The Right Books?
 The faithfulness of God in authoring, preserving His Scriptures and
in guiding His Church to select correctly.
 The experience of the Church over time
 There are no strong candidates for inclusion
 There are no strong candidates for exclusion
 The most controversial books: Esther, Song of Solomon, 2 & 3
John, 2 Peter, James, Jude, Revelation and Hebrews do not contain
any false doctrine harmful to the Church and no major evangelical
theologian wishes to exclude any of them
 Doubts: no direct mention of God (Esther) mystical nature (Songs,
Revelation), possible non-apostolic authorship (2 Peter, 2 & 3 John,
James, Jude, Hebrews), difficult doctrines (James). These have
been discussed extensively and resolved over time.
 Apparent contradictions are resolved by studying the culture, use of
language, symbolism, metaphor etc.