Posted tagged ‘theology’
August 19, 2025
“But I tell you that everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Mattew 12:36-37)
I’m six weeks into wearing Invisalign retainers. It’s not something I envisioned having at age seventy-one, but my son-in-law dentist said I’d be looking like a toothless teddy bear if I didn’t do something. Thus, I’ve joined my two braces-wearing granddaughters in the retainer world.
The main problem is that I haven’t adjusted to the speaking part of wearing retainers. I find myself stumbling over words with more than three syllables. B’s, F’s, P’s, T’s, and W’s seem to be the main villains. They resemble splinters that a person tries to pry loose, hesitant to give up their attachment to the inside of my mouth. At my cross-country practice last week, I was showering the young runner sitting in front of me as I spat out any word with a beginning or ending “s.”
The result is that I’ve become more focused on the words than the message. I’m hung up on making sure I don’t “spray it, don’t say it!” someone as I’m stuttering through words like “preparation” and “fundamentalism.” I’m more concerned with what I could say than what I ought to say.
It’s a parable about our culture. These days, people seem to get hung up on the words, and what they spit out makes about as much sense as skinny-dipping on a snowy afternoon in an isolated Eskimo village. There’s a lot of bad theology being sputtered about these days that complicate the simplified and simplify the complicated.
For example, some people don’t talk about sanctification. Any word with fourteen letters sounds like trouble and high-brow intellectual grade mish-mash. Better to simplify it into understandable off-the-wall theology, such as “coming to a point where we will no longer do bad things. Beyond wrong.”
What?
There’s the oversimplification of grace that tells us “Don’t worry about sin. God’s grace is sufficient.” Translated, a new generation of spiritual journeyers interpret that as saying, “What you do doesn’t matter. Sin freely, and then be freed.”
With our generations becoming less knowledgeable, or interested, in what the bible says, culture fills in the blanks for us. God terminology flowsd out of bad theology. The rock our lives are anchored to could be categorized as a weightless pebble.
I know, I know, that sounds pessimistic and borderline crochety. What can I say? My retainers hurt and the student in front of me is wishing he had brought an umbrella to cross-country practice. I’m trying to keep my “s’s” to a minimum.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Bible, Christianity, Faith, Jesus, theology
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February 2, 2025
“After the Lord had said these things to Job, he said to Eliphaz the Temanite, “I am angry with you and your two friends, because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)
In my seven decades I’ve run into a few people who have no common sense, and yet they seem to have this idea that wisdom is their strong suit. It’s their reason for being on earth, their calling. Following their advice would be comparable to a train being redirected onto another track that leads to disaster. A trainwreck, as we call it.
In the Old Testament the majority of the book of Job consists of Job’s “friends” giving their advice and wisdom. Think Lucy Van Pelt of the Peanuts comic strip sitting at a booth with the marquee “Psychiatric Help- 5 Cents.” Job gets peppered by Bildad, Eliphaz, and Elihu. Each takes their swings at him, trying to make him see that everything is his fault…the loss of his kids, his livestock, his servants, even the sores on his body. Job 2:11 says that they “…heard about all the troubles that had come upon him, they set out from their homes and met together by agreement to go and sympathize with him and comfort him.“
It’s not that they were trying to be mean and accusatory like the senators at a Senate Hearing. His friends had already made up their minds that bad things happen to bad people or people who have done something bad. Pain and suffering were because the person had stepped out of the boundaries that God had set. Their wisdom was tainted, to begin with. They had bad theology, which always leads to wisdom that is suspect.
At the end of Job’s story, God says to Eliphaz, “I am angry with you and your two friends because you have not spoken the truth about me, as my servant Job has.” (Job 42:7)
The harsh truth is that we live in a culture that is pimpled with bad theology and dumbed-down wisdom. We give an ear to crackpots who can be wordsmiths of ludicrousness. Since our foundational beliefs are wind-driven by the latest cultural myths, we waver and stagger aimlessly.
Job’s friends felt like he had to have an intervention to get him straightened out again. The good news is that Job was solid enough in his relationship with God that he deflected and refuted their dubious directives.
Oh, that our foundation would be solid enough to figure out what is horse manure in a culture that has lost its sense of smell.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: bad-advice, Bible, God, Jesus, Job, theology, wisdom
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January 20, 2024
A few years ago, I discovered that my parents almost named me Silas Dean Wolfe instead of William Dean Wolfe. Silas was the name of one of my grandfathers, who had been killed in a mining accident when my dad was in his growing-up years. Not knowing about my “other name” until I was in my fifties made me consider the possibilities. Would a name change have made any difference?
On the opposite side of the situation, would someone else assuming my name make a difference? Whereas, if I would have been christened “Silas Dean’ would not have altered my life course, if a different person took on my name after all these years would have been different, even suspicious.
It would be like a Chevy Chevette masquerading as a Corvette. Some of the same letters would be used but the car would be a real discouragement.
Thus, it is with the name “evangelical.” What it meant a few decades ago has been replaced with something uncomfortable and shaped differently. (Picture the Chevette with a Corvette name taped onto the car’s back panel.) The uncomfortableness can be seen in how the media uses the term and also in some of those who identify themselves with the term.
The roots of the word “evangelical” come from the Greek word “euangelion”, which means “the good news” or “gospel.” It emphasizes the proclamation of Jesus and the good news that He offers of eternal life.
In recent years, it has morphed into an identifier of a conservative political group with strong ties to the Republican Party. In the recent Iowa political primary, many of the evangelicals openly admit that they are not connected to any community of faith. In essence, the political party that they have invested their money and time into is their church.
The effect is that to be an evangelical is viewed as a defining label of one’s political views and only slightly connected to the gospel of Christ. Even certain broadcasters will place a sneer into the prouncing of the word. The interesting thing is that the National Association of Evangelicals, founded in 1942, was meant to be a moderate group placed between two factions of conservatives and liberals.
Over the years, things have changed. The good news is now viewed with suspicion. Let me say it again. The good news of grace, peace, love, salvation, and forgiveness of God is now viewed with suspicion.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: evangelism, Faith, Politics, religion, theology
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January 7, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. January 7, 2018
Spellcheck has saved me a few times over the years. My fingers have hit the wrong letter keys so many times it’s embarrassing. There have been those few times when I spelled correctly, but inappropriately. One time I hit the ‘u’ instead of the ‘i” and changed my name from Bill Wolfe to Bull Wolfe. People thought I had a new nickname, and that’s no bull!
It was doubly embarrassing when “Bill shot” had two letters wrongly hit. I was one letter off to the left both times, so people were dumbfounded by why I had said “Bull shit” in the midst of a writing.
Most of the time, however, spellcheck has cleaned up my messes, so to speak.
I’m wondering if some Christian entrepreneur might consider developing “Doctrinecheck”, a program that would be able to correct theological error before it gets put out there, a program that rewords bad beliefs with scriptural truth.
There would be a decent market for such a product. People have become increasingly illiterate in their reading of, use of, and understanding of scripture. There’s a tendency to replace correct doctrine with what sounds good. That’s kind of like buying a piece of swampland in Florida because you’ve always wanted to live in that state. Good intentions, bad execution!
“Doctrinecheck” could straighten out all the bad theology associated with the after life. Our belief system has been influenced more by movies like Ghost , Heaven Can Wait, and It’s A Wonderful Life! than scripture.
Of course, there are those certain areas of doctrine that require some latitude. Whether someone is pre-millennial, post-millennial, or a-millennial would have to be taken into consideration. Perhaps “Doctrinecheck” would have to include links to certain categories when those “preferences” appear.
This could work! All the fluffy theology could get sorted out, the legalistic paranoia could get eased a bit, and people could understand what Jesus taught…again! And that’s no bill…er, bull!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Death, Faith, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: afterlife, bad theology, belief system, Beliefs, biblical illiteracy, biblical understanding, doctrinal beliefs, doctrine, scriptural truth, spellcheck, theological belief, theology
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April 16, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. April 16, 2016
I remember my seminary days of studying theology, talking about it in non-personal ways, and writing papers about it that connected with my mind, but not my soul. A minister friend of mine recently referred to that period of our lives as “reaching for our theology.” That is, we reached for books on library shelves and wrote various statements in essays that were a mixture of what someone else believed and what we thought we believed. In those days, we were not adverse to do some name-dropping in these papers of theology. If a quote from Moltmann’s The Crucified God could be nonchalantly inserted into the pages we would go for it…whether we understood the run-on sentences or believed the doctrine.
Like flying in a plane at 35,000 feet and describing what Kansas is, our words were often “reaches’ for a grade, and not heartfelt beliefs. I confess…I was often in that place of reaching.
And then many of us upon graduation took positions on church ministry staffs and we soon discovered that there is a difference between “reaching” and reality. What we seemed to be able to stay a safe distance from- the actual experiencing of our statement of beliefs- suddenly moved into where we lived.
We went from explaining grace to having to live out grace in our ministries. We went from “reaching preaching” to “preaching from our life experiences.” In many ways it was good, but in some ways it was to uncomfortably close to home.
John Piper is a well-known author and, until 2013, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. I have several of his books in my personal library, including Desiring God and Future Grace (I just name-dropped, didn’t I?). In 2010 Piper took an eight month leave from his position for what he called “a reality check from the Holy Spirit.” He sensed that he had a growing disconnect between what he wrote about and who he was.
A reality check from the Holy Spirit! Many times in my years of ministry I sensed the Holy Spirit nudging my life. Sometimes I faced up to it, and other times…I just kept flying over Kansas!
One of the most difficult elements of ministry is connecting what we believe with why we believe it. It’s the knowledge getting married to the intimate, the distant God that we realize is close at hand, the words of God now being experienced with the breath of God.
In my “reaching days” I could quote from Moltmann’s Theology of Hope, but the reality of ministry is standing by the bed of a hospice patient and talking to him about the hope of the resurrection and what it means for each one of us.
There is a difference between preaching on forgiveness and being forgiving to the person who has purposely told a lie about you that has resulted in deep emotional pain.
I had many excellent professors back in my seminary days. One that I will always be indebted to was a theology professor named Tom Finger, not because I took pages and pages of notes in his classes, but rather because he kept asking me the hard questions:
“Why do you believe what you believe?” “
“What does that mean to you and for your life?”
“What difference does it make?”
He took me from flying over Kansas to having my feet in the dirt. People like that are God’s uncomfortable blessings upon our lives, because they help us figure out life. We see their handprints upon us as we gradually transform from “reaching preaching” to “preaching from our reality.”
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Grace, Holy Spirit, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: belief system, Beliefs, Desiring God, doctrinal statements, doctrine, Future Grace, John Piper, Jugen Moltmann, ministry, pastoral ministry, Preaching, reality check, reality check from the Holy Spirit, statement of faith, systematic theology, theology, Theology of Hope
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February 26, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. February 26, 2016
“Reading Leviticus With Attention Deficit Disorder”
I’ve often thought I was ADD! Fidgety…restless…hard to stay focused. In seminary I would have to read my systematic theology books out loud to try to stay on track…and assist me in the understanding of what was being written about.
And now I’m about to finish reading through the book of Leviticus. It is an exercise in “literary rowing.” I’m like one of those oarsman who is trying to stay focused on the number of strokes he and his team are executing each minute. Row…row…row! The finish line is 3000 meters ahead…row…row…row!
Except I’m in Leviticus…”If someone has a swelling, he shall…if someone has a rash, he shall…if someone has a white spot, he shall…if someone has a skin disease, he shall…”
By the tenth skin condition I begin to itch! By the end of the second chapter about skin conditions and uncleanness I’m finding it difficult to continue with the literary rowing.
And then a couple of chapters later we get into sex! Actually, unlawful sexual relations. Read Leviticus 18. It’s a little disturbing to have to be told that you aren’t to have sex with your aunt…or your dad’s other wife.
Leviticus reads like one of those Apple product’s terms of agreement files that seem to go on forever. You know the ones I’m talking about…and at the end you’re to clip on the box that says you have read and agree to the terms. Who reads that stuff?
Leviticus is similar, but with the added spiritual element that convicts you to stay the course.
Why did God have to be so specific? Why was he so repetitious in his explanation of the expectations of his holy people, and what was not acceptable?
Two things occur to me! One is that the Israelites had a tendency to be ADD in their conduct. They seemed to be prone to forget what they were to be about and what they were to abstain from. They had short memories and shorter attention spans. Better explain it over and over again so they could finally hear it.
And second, the community of God’s people needed to be holy. Uncleanness, in any form, was to be atoned for or cast out. A community couldn’t be close to God and be marginal in how it was living.
Today I’ll finish the book! I’m sure God will say a few things he has already said once again just so that I will hear it. After Leviticus I’m going to go back and pick up one of my seminary systematic theology books and start reading to myself again…and nap!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Faith, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: ADD, attention deficit disorder, attention spans, God's law, laws, Leviticus, Moses, Old Testament, Old Testament Law, perseverance, theology
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January 6, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. January 5, 2015
Recently I obtained the first volume of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of the Word of God. It joins other classic theological works that set on my bookshelf…unread! I keep telling myself that I’m going to read them, but I approach the opportunity with the same level of excitement as when my physician checks my prostate at my annual physical.
They are masterful words set to an endless number of pages. Cures for insomnia as you ponder the theological reasoning of the Christian faith.
Today I hung out with my nine-month old granddaughter, Corin. We had moments of pondering, periods of quiet, and reoccurring messages.
I’m not sure why it is, but when I’m with Corin I repeat myself “Trinity style”- the same message three times but with differences in the inflection of the words. So I say “Corin, God loves you! Yes, he does…yes, he does, yes he does!” She stares at me…absorbing the message, pondering its implications…or feeling uncomfortable with the wetted weight of her diaper!
Today I sang “Jesus Loves Me” to her, just because she was sucking on a bottle as I was holding her.
I keep my theology simple and sweet sounding with her. Perhaps next year we’ll get to some conversations on propitiation and substitutionary atonement, but for now it’s all about God and Jesus loving her.
I’ve always been a simple theologian. In seminary I used to have to read Emil Brunner out loud to myself to follow his train of thought. With Corin I keep it short, personal, and with a smile on my face.
Quite honestly, sitting in silence with a nine month old is a treasured time. She found her “recliner” this morning in the bend of my right elbow with my leg as her cushion. We pondered the stillness for a few minutes before her eye lids pushed down. It was a sacred moment undisturbed and intimate.
And then I took her to basketball practice! Perhaps she will come to love Jesus AND God’s favorite sport!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Grandchildren, Humor, Jesus, love, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: babysitting, Barth, Emil Brunner, grandparenting, infants, theology
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May 28, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. May 28, 2015
Jerk. A four letter word that I find myself saying more frequently these days. The way I use it almost never is connected to some kind of meat, like chicken or beef, but is, however, almost always related to a meathead!
Jerk-hood for many people is not a sickness. It’s a persistent condition, like bad breath or B.O. It travels around with them like a dust storm announcing Pig Pen’s presence.
The “Big Boy” truck that weaves in and out of traffic like he’s a Duke of Hazzard…the forty-something man who charges out of the grocery door without regard for the pregnant lady coming in with two pre-schoolers in tow…any of the Real Housewives of Anywhere, USA…jerk-hood is gaining new members more rapidly than gray hairs on my head!
It’s puzzling to me! Why do more and more people act like “Biff Tannen” from Back to the Future. Do they realize it? Oblivious?
It’s interesting that jerk-hood stands out like a sore thumb compared to sainthood! Saints don’t go around wearing their good deeds and compassionate hearts on their sleeves. Jerks stand out like a leisure suit at a GQ Fashion Show!
So what’s going on? Is this a phase, a momentary trend? For one we’re more and more self-focused. We’ve even given it a name…”selfies!” We’re very much about ourselves. We’ve bought into it, and now believe it. It’s blurred the lines of what is acceptable and what is unacceptable. We’re not as sure these days.
Jerk-hood has even entered our churches. Most of the time we wrap it in Christ-like language, but it’s still there. Some weeks a person has to look real, real deep to find any fruit of the Spirit in the congregation. Part of Joel’s Osteen’s popularity has been the blurring of theology. It’s mixed up even more than a DQ Blizzard, spinning together some God talk with mostly self-talk. The message sounds appealing…and it makes me happy…which is what it’s all about! Jerks for Jesus…has a certain ring to it!
What Jesus said is a little disturbing to the jerk clan. He said “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it.” (Luke 9:23-24) Those words might not sell well to the sixty-something woman who just displayed her middle finger for me to see as she turned in front of me.
Lives are based on the mountain of momentary decisions that display our true selves. What is right, what is Christ-like, what is encouraging and positively impactful…often get buried in the last chapter of a person’s unwritten life of destructive behavior and disturbing words.
Some might miss this point, but it really is the evidence of the evil one’s intense interest in each of our lives. If I can have a few “f bombs” thrown my way it can take me off my commitment to doing random acts of kindness. If the hamburger I order at Wendy’s looks like it was put together by my four year old granddaughter it will take me into those darker moments of bitterness and disgust that will cause me to treat someone or several people with disdain and no value.
It’s a hard thing, and a spreading fog of fallen humanity, and I recognize that my membership card for jerk-hood gets displayed quite often.
Thank God that he even loves jerks as much as the saints!
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Humor, Jesus, Pastor, Story, Teamwork, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Back to the Future, being a jerk, Biff Tannen, denying yourself, distorted theology, DQ Blizzard, Jerk, jerks, Joel Osteen, Luke 9:23-24, people being jerks, sainthood, Saints, taking up the cross, theology
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March 29, 2013
WORDS FROM W.W. March 29, 2013
As I write this blog post I have earbuds in and I’m listening to Darlene Zschech sing beautiful praise songs on Spotify. If you arent familiar with Spotify that means you are probably still paying for the music you listen to. Spotify is free…unless you go premium…which they hope you will! Premium is $9.99 a month and it means you can listen to music without any commercial interruptions. It’s like a music DVR. You can fast forward through the ads.
But, in terms of music, I’m cheap! So I go free and basic. What that means is that every four songs or so you get “commercialed up.” It makes for an interesting combination. Since Spotify is a music supplier that has Christian music as just one of it’s listening possibilities the advertisers to the business are all over the map.
For instance, I’m listening to Darlene sing the great song “I Will Wait.” The song ends and a commercial comes on advertising Trojan condoms. Awkward!
One moment I’m listening to Barbi Franklin play “Breathe on Me, Breath of God!” on her violin, and the next I’m being invited to a party where the beer is flowing.
Such pendulum swings are hard for me to make. I could pay the ten bucks a month and stay secluded in my own little between-the-ears world, but I won’t!
It seems, however, that our culture is more and more comfortable with the pendulum swings. Listen! I am not such a prude that I’m going to cast Trojans and tequila into the lake of fire. It seems that is also a polarizing element in our world; too often giving verdicts that something or someone is totally demonic or something or someone is the next thing to being in heaven. We have a hard time saying that something can fluctuate from good to bad depending on the situation.
It also seems that more and more people are comfortable with a Spotify kind of theology. A belief system that operates without concern for conflicting practices. For instance, I can pray for the leading of the Holy Spirit in my life this afternoon, and gather with a few friends to use a Ouiji board tonight.
Whereas my generation is uncomfortable with such diverse practices, other generations are not as uneasy with them. However, that isn’t meant to be a slam, because I think other generations, especially the current young adults, are more willing to dialogue with people they may disagree with. There seems to be more of a willingness to converse and learn from one another.
The red flag for any generation is being so immersed in the culture that our theology starts resembling basic Spotify. Praising Jesus one moment, and deciding on what type of condom I”ll buy your tonight the next.
Do I have solutions or answers? No, we seem to be too quick to give solutions and slow to listen. We live in a world of intertwining connections. So I want the free music, but without the commercials…and yet a big reason the music is free is because of the commercials. One can not operate without the other.
So I’ll continue to listen to Darlene Zschech sing the song “Under Grace”, and then try to live by grace
Categories: Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grace, Jesus, love, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: commercials, Darlene Zschech, music, Spotify, theology
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Words from WW Blog 