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Why You’ll Never Outgrow the Study of Theology

The Study of Theology Will Be Perfected When Jesus Appears

What Happens to Our Theology When Jesus Appears

Is it possible to be so old and wise that our theology can’t grow anymore? Is there a point where further study would be useless? Consider these words from the apostle John:

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

— I John 3:2[1]

The phrase to note is, “what we will be has not yet appeared.” [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Our theology will be perfected when Jesus appears.[/inlinetweet]  If our physical makeup will be different in the eternal state, why not our mental comprehension of God as well? Here are some specific changes that will occur when we see Jesus:

  • Errors: Mistakes of all kinds will be corrected.
  • Gaps: The gaps in our understanding will be filled in.
  • Fully Renewed Minds: Our capacity to understand truth, free from the effects of sin, will be realized.
  • New Truths: New truths (which agree with and confirm Scripture) will be understood.
  • Complete Sanctification: The disconnect between knowing right and doing right will be gone.

    The Study of Theology Will Be Perfected When Jesus Appears
    Copyright: Cameron Whitman

172 Years in the Study of Theology

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to talk for over three hours with three people who like Credo Courses. Their combined age was 172. What was the biggest lesson I learned? [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]No matter your age, you’ll never outgrown the study of theology.[/inlinetweet] This shouldn’t discourage anyone. It should serve as a testament to the richness of the Christian faith.

Similarities from My Mini-Survey That Surprised Me

In our digital age there are many ways of learning about your audience, but it’s tough to beat sitting down and talking with someone. The tone of voice, body language, and energy of a conversation is hard to replace.

The three individuals I spoke with were Adrian (the youngest of the group), Janet, and Joel. What surprised me wasn’t that they had some things in common, but how many of them they had. Here’s what I learned:

  • 3 out of 3 – Have been or currently are in full-time ministry
  • 3 out of 3 – Expressed a desire to learn more about their faith and use it to help others
  • 3 out of 3 – Went to college
  • 3 out of 3 – Heard about Credo House first and then Credo Courses
  • 2 out of 3 – Have master’s degrees
  • 2 out of 3 – Are men
  • 2 out of 3 – Have more than one child
  • 2 out of 3 – Get much of their information from a network of friends and acquaintances

Three Preconceived Notions Destroyed

None of them fit my preconceived notions. My brain constructs pictures of what certain “kinds” of people are like. I think we all do this. Sometimes my pictures are accurate, but often they aren’t. People who like to study their Bibles are a “kind” of people in my mind. I should have drawn my picture in pencil because it didn’t stand up to reality.

The Study of Theology: Will Keep You from Being Active in Good Works

For some the study of theology is viewed as a danger. Why? Because they believe that knowing rightly and living rightly are opposed to each other. Or, at least, that you can’t do both equally well. So if you have to pick one, you should choose to live rightly.

Maybe you’ve heard someone allude to this yourself. They may say things like, “We should be concerned about living the Christian life. This theology stuff is just head knowledge.” A more spiritual version might be, “I just want to serve Jesus.” It’s hard to argue with a statement like that. As Christians we should all want to serve Jesus. Let’s try to put this in the form of an argument:

Premise 1: Christians should spend their time serving Jesus.

Premise 2: Time spent studying theology is time we don’t have to serve Jesus.

Conclusion: Therefore, we should spend less time studying theology.

It’s hard to argue with the first premise. In fact, I agree with it completely. The second premise has a built-in assumption. An assumption I deny. What is the assumption? It’s that studying theology is not a service we can do to Jesus. This is untrue.

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Theology is the study of God. As such, it cannot be contrary to serving God. It may be done (like anything else) in a wrong way. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Properly done, theology is as much an act of worship as feeding the hungry or caring for the sick.[/inlinetweet]

Joel, Janet, and Adrian are good examples of how theology coincides with good works. Adrian runs a full-time Christian ministry. Joel is a deacon at his church and teaches class on Wednesdays. Janet visits the senior center almost daily. She enjoys chatting with her friends (online and off) about theology.

The Study of Theology: Is for Institutions of Higher Education

While Adrian, Janet, and Joel are all well educated, none of them studied theology in college, seminary, or university. However,  they’ve each continued their education through self-study. They’ve gotten study materials from a variety of ministries (including their local church). They then apply it to their lives in practical ways.

There are thousands of religious schools in the United States educating tens-of-thousands of student yearly. For some the amount of time, money, and focus college requires can be too burdensome. The wonderful thing is that folks like Adrian, Janet, and Joel don’t give up. They’re continuing their education on their own.

The Study of Theology: Is for Younger People

Most formal education takes place when a person is younger. This gives them a chance to get a job in their desired field early in life. They will then have the majority of their adult lives to build their careers. When an older person goes to school they are sometimes referred to as “non-traditional.”

I’m happy to report that Adrian, Janet, and Joel all qualify as non-traditional students. Their age hasn’t slowed down their study. Neither has it slaked their desire to deepen their understanding of God.

Just Keep Swimming

In the movie Finding Nemo, Dory tells Marlin[2]:

Dory: When life gets you down, you know watcha gotta do?

Marlin: I don’t wanna know watcha gotta do.

Dory: Just keep swimming.

This is what the lives of Adrian, Janet, and Joel teach us. Despite age, circumstances, and stereotypes, these three just keep swimming.

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Footnotes


  1. “Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.”  ↩
  2. Finding Nemo, dir. Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich, perf. Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, and Alexander Gould (Walt Disney Video, 2003), DVD.  ↩
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Customer Focused Redesigns of Our Icons

Credo Courses Product Icon Redesign Examples

Original Design Considerations

[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Design is a tricky process. Forge your own path, and you risk looking foolish. Match current design trends and you could end up being forgettable.[/inlinetweet] At Credo Courses we’re aiming for a simple and clean design. This means the use of neutral colors and plenty of white space to let the content breath. Simple designs age well. When strictly followed, simplicity also ensures a pleasant user experience.

On the order klonopin easy buy online homepage we feature large icons of our scholars and courses. Because these icons are so prominent in the design, we knew we had to get them just right. Our initial design was intended to mimic the periodic table of elements. There were several critical design considerations:

  • Informative: The design needed to be capable of presenting all relevant information. For scholars this included their name and current position. For courses this included an abbreviation of the course name, an indication of its availability, and the full name of the course.
  • Readable: A pretty design isn’t much good if it’s unreadable. Contrast, simplicity, and legible font sizes are essential to readability. Integrating text into an image is always a risk. Although text may be readable on a large laptop screen, it may be unreadable on a smartphone.
  • Consistent: Remember how bad websites used to look? Here’s an example of horrible website design. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Inconsistency is one of the hallmarks of bad design.[/inlinetweet] Our icons needed to work with the design of the website, product images, social media graphics, etc. to provide a consistent and enjoyable user experience.
  • File Size: Not everyone has access to high-speed internet. In particular, browsing the web on a mobile device can be agonizingly slow. We wanted mobile users to have the best experience possible. Therefore, small file sizes were a must.
Anatomy of an Icon Design
Anatomy of the Credo Course Icon Design

 

Customer Suggestions

After the initial design process was complete we really wanted to get feedback from our customers. After all, it’s the customers who will be using the website. Luckily, we had a small, but highly dedicated group of early adopters and customers. They rose to the occasion and gave us some great feedback. We emailed close to 100 people and we were thrilled to receive over 25 emails in response.

  • Column One: This is the original design. Its color scheme is simple and neutral. The ribbon across the middle indicates the availability of the particular course.
  • Column Two (Customer Suggestion #1): The idea of matching the color of the collar to the ribbon can be attributed to Jeremy. It made sense to us so we decided to give it a try.
  • Column Three (Customer Suggestion #2): Both David and Jeremy suggested that the full title of the course needed to stand out more. Taking their suggestion to heart, we darkened the background to increase the contrast. You’ll notice that this column also includes the colored collar.
Credo Courses Product Icon Customer Redesign Examples
Three Icon Variations

 

Learning from Our Customers

The rules of customer service are simple:

Rule #1: The customer is always right.

Rule #2: If the customer is wrong, please see rule number one.

[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Sometimes experts think that they’re an exception to the cardinal rules of customer service[/inlinetweet]. After all, they have a degree and their customers probably don’t. But remember where we started: “Design is a tricky process.” There’s no such thing as a perfect design. It doesn’t matter if your design is “textbook” if your users don’t like it? Although a good design textbook will acknowledge this, it’s easy to become enamored with your own designs.

Be Part of the Design Process

Which design do you like? What would you change? We’d be remise if we didn’t solicit your suggestions after all our pontificating! There are two primary ways you can be part of the design process for Credo Courses:

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Why Should We Trust the Bible? (Video)

Why Should We Trust the Bible?

The Bible

The Bible is the most well attested ancient document of any religion. That’s not just hype. Both Christian and non-Christian scholars agree that [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]the Bible has more manuscript support than any other book of antiquity[/inlinetweet]. However, just because a book was copied a lot in the past doesn’t mean we can trust it. Does it?

Why Should We Trust the Bible?

In September of 2014, Dr. Douglas Groothuis visited Credo House in Edmond OK. Over the course of three days he recorded 30 lectures for his course Christian Apologetics 101.

When we finished filming the course itself, we sat down with Dr. Groothuis to ask him some of the most common questions apologist are asked and are asking.

Video Transcript

Well, the basic point is that the Bible is historically reliable. It’s not full of myths and legends. It gives a unified worldview. It provides meaning for every area of life. And we don’t have to take some blind leap of faith to believe that.

[inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]The Bible is well substantiated by the evidence of history and also by the evidence of science and philosophy[/inlinetweet] because there is good independent reason to believe there is a creator/designer, God. The Bible affirms that. And in fact, given the human condition (the fact that we have guilt) the Bible explains that as the result of sin, and Christ provides the answer to that problem. It’s very clearly and systematically laid out in Scripture.

So in the course, I develop a much richer more detailed argument for why we should trust the Bible; but it stands alone with respect to all the other holy books in the world’s religion as very well confirmed/verified, deeply enmeshed in history, and therefore buycheapvaliumonline something real that we can relate to and understand.

Feedback

What do you think about what Dr. Groothuis said? Does what he said make sense, or is it flawed? Because the Bible is so central to the Christian religion, it’s veracity is of upmost importance.

Voice your opinion in the comments section below.

free-28min-video-of-apologetics