My first encounter with theology is really my first encounter with the Bible. It goes all the way back to when I was 4 years old. I had been given a children’s Bible, but at that young age I felt cheated that it wasn’t the real thing. Getting my hands on an adult Bible I started reading Genesis. At 4 years old I of course didn’t process everything that I read, but the opening pages of the Bible had a profound impact on me. I had an awareness of God as creator and I can honestly say that I never knew a time when I didn’t know Him.
The time that changed everything came when I was about 15 years old. My parents effectively said that it was up to me whether I went to church or not. Though I decided to no longer go, I made the commitment to myself to spend some time every Sunday reading the Bible. As I began to do this, I became more and more engrossed in the Bible. Instead of reading only on Sunday I started reading some of the Bible almost every day. Whilst doing this, I made a commitment to God that I would trust what He said and that I would build my belief and convictions on His Word. If something I thought wasn’t found in the Bible I decided I would hold it lightly as an opinion.
After about a year or so I then found a church that was alive and teaching the Bible. In Acts 17:11 the Bereans were considered more noble than the Thessalonians because they received Paul’s teaching but daily searched the Scriptures to see if what he said was so. This had become my goal, and as I heard great teachings I would go back to the source and see if what was preached was faithful to what God had said.
Over time I became more and more aware of the subject of theology and the academic discipline of theological study. Eventually responding to God’s promptings, I went to Bible College and completed a degree in Applied Theology. Theology for me, however, was a love and hate relationship. What I loved was pursuing God and discovering Him through His Word and then in turn through dialogue with His body, the Church, seeking to understand Him more fully. What I hated was seeing people knowingly or unknowingly relegating the authority of God’s Word and seeking to remove the person of God from the equation. To take Thomas Aquinas’ approach, it is faith seeking understanding. By faith we take God at His Word before then seeking to understand him more fully. This is in contrast to the approach whereby we doubt until proven otherwise, which is so often employed. Moreover, we are not to set ourselves as judges over God’s Word and determine what we believe he has or has not said. Rather, we submit to God and His Word and desire to know Him truthfully and authentically.
In John we hear that the Word was with God and the Word was God (John 1:1). Therefore, to know the Word is to know God for God has faithfully revealed Himself through His word. Thus, the pursuit of the Word of God is the pursuit of God himself.