The Person and Work of Satan
Join Dr. Easley as he completes Part II of Satanology and wraps up our series, Why We Believe What We Believe.
As Christians, it is vital that we are able to understand and articulate why we believe what we believe.
Join Michael Easley as he explores and explains Christian doctrine and theology in the first episode of this 14-episode series.
We’ve been building our theology for our whole life, but its important that we examine the theological foundation we have and compare it with scripture in order to accurately build for ourselves a biblical worldview.
When we start flattening the concept of truth, we get into trouble.
Truth, by its nature, must be a thing thats unassailable. Truth must be true.
“A theory without practice is dangerous, but practice without theory is deadly”
The local church likely had a key role in many of our lives in helping us come to a basic knowledge of Jesus Christ.
When we trust in Christ and Christ alone for our salvation, we have assurance of our salvation. These are bedrocks of our doctrine.
Perhaps you were blessed to be discipled in your faith, someone came along and helped you grow in disciplines of the faith. Maybe you were exposed to some theology.
But my fear is that most believers in Jesus Christ have no biblical world theology.
We need a biblical worldview.
Why you believe what you believe must govern all that you do.
“No fact of contemporary western life is more evident than its growing distrust of final truth and it’s implacable questioning of any sure word.” – Carl Henry, The Crisis of Truth and the Word.
Theism: The believe there was a vertical sovereign creator of the universe, intervening and sustaining a personal relationship with creation.
Deism: Belief in an impersonal creator, a God who does not intervene in the universe.
When other things crowd out the main thing, we’re starting to shift away from doctrine.
Humanism, evolution teaching, the dismantle of vertical view, etc. followed by:
Modernity: Ignores the past, is discontinues and claims to know better. The loss in modernity (forgetting the past) breeds all sorts of potential disasters in the near future.
Post-modernity has become so much a part of the language. Tolerance, relativism, inclusion, equality, diversity have spawned from a post-modern mindset. These are not biblical concepts, they are world concepts. There is value in having these concepts, but we cannot let the world teach us theology.
Secularism: removal of spiritual language from culture.
Don’t build a doctrine of diversity or inclusion or equality in the way the world thinks. We must build a doctrine around what the Bible says about diversity, what the Bible says about inclusion, what the Bible says about equality…
When we use those words as a believer in Jesus Christ, the world isn’t hearing what we may mean.
The way the world uses these terms is very different. We ought to be sure of what the Bible means by these terms or we will find ourselves subtly altering our doctrine to match that of the world around us.
When we lose a biblical, theological foundation; its not only dangerous, it’s deadly.
What are some of your presuppositions? How do you know what you know?
When you and I open the Bible, how do we approach the Scripture? Is it true and reliable? How does it line up with science, philosophy, and other fields of study?
When we open a book, and most importantly the Bible, we ought to know why we believe what we believe in order to discern whether or not we agree with the author and whether or not that text aligns with Scripture.
Do we have ears and eyes that are discerning?
I believe the Scripture is the very word of God and hope to show you, over time, that you can trust God’s Word.
As we continue in this series, we’re going to think through issues like, how to know for sure if we’re going to heaven, how do we know the Bible is the very word of God, who is this person of Jesus Christ, is He real? Should we just follow in His footsteps, or is He more than an example?
Join us for our next episode as we think about truth and authority, whether we’re pleasing God or pleasing men, and what role the word of God plays in our lives.
Have a Biblical or theological question? Ask Dr. E! Call us at 615-281-9694 and leave a voicemail with your question or email us at question@michaelincontext.com. Michael will answer it on an upcoming Ask Dr. E episode!
Join Dr. Easley as he completes Part II of Satanology and wraps up our series, Why We Believe What We Believe.
The Holy Spirit, which seals our Salvation, is a person at work. How does He empower us, fill us, indwell us?
Our culture has become increasingly opposed to black-and-white ideas, particularly in the area of theology. To hold firm convictions as a Christian is often difficult.
Learn more about the controversial Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the ways some academic approaches challenge our beliefs in Episode 11 of Why We Believe What We Believe.