A Non-Apology From A Student Of Theology

Rev. Peter Koster. Trowel & Sword, August 1975

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Why Revisit Trowel & Sword? The above statement, which appeared in every issue of T&S, clearly outlined the purpose of this magazine. Through it individuals and churches communicated with one another, were kept informed about the issues of the day and were able to compare their thoughts and beliefs with those of other “Reformed” Christians. What we have discovered is that many of the issues that the Reformed Church members of yesteryear wrestled with are still with us today and many of the insights expounded in the pages of Trowel & Sword would greatly benefit the current narrative. We raise this because we recently learned that a reader had decided to unsubscribe from TSR because she felt she didn’t have the time to read the articles. Given that the average time needed to read each article is about 10 minutes this seemed strange to us. If on the other hand one’s purpose in subscribing to TSR as simple to embark on a trip down “Memory Lane”, then perhaps that 10 minutes could well be better spent. We are not trying to discourage subscribers, but rather to encourage our readers, and the church, to see these articles as an important part of our growth, both in faith and in our engagement with world that we live in – something that perhaps even some of our current pastors and/or ministers have not fully appreciated. This is what we mean when we talk about “MOVING FORWARD BY LOOKING BACK”. After all, if we can still learn from the Scriptures, which were written 2000+ years ago, surely we can also learn from the wisdom of the men who helped establish the Reformed Churches in Australia and New Zealand a mere 70 odd years ago.

Preamble: During the years of its publication, the editors of T&S would, from time to time receive comments or complaints about the content of the magazine. Foe example, it was a magazine by ministers for ministers, too much advertising, not enough human interest articles, not enough for kids or teenagers, too much of this, not enough of that, and above all, too much theology. Perhaps that was the reason behind this next article by Peter Koster. One senses a deep air of frustration, perhaps even annoyance that in his eyes people often prefer to be fed on milk rather than meat.

A Non-Apology From A Student Of Theology

I’m not sorry.

A lot of people either expect me to be sorry or try to make me feel sorry for what I am, but I’m not. Nor should any student of theology be sorry for what he is, because the truth is a glorious thing.

A lot of people that I have met at various times do not like theology. The Church would be better off without theologians who spend their lives just digging up one thing after another to fight about and to split the Church with and to divide faithful and loving members of the Universal Church of Christ. If they didn’t go into things so deeply there would be no schisms rending the Church asunder. We should forget all about our complex doctrines (which the person in the pew doesn’t understand anyway) and concentrate simply on living a loving Christian life, serving God and our fellow men with a child-like faith. I’ve even heard it said that candidates for the ministry of our Reformed Churches should receive a maximum of one year’s training, and that even that training was to consist entirely of practical aspects such as counselling and teaching methods. No Hebrew or Greek and especially no theology, please.

This position needs a careful examination. It appears that people who think this way, while they may have their heart in the right place, are somewhat misinformed (which is not surprising, considering their anti-educationism). Peace between brothers in Christ is the ultimate objective of this school of thought, and as doctrine and dogma issuing from the mouths of theologians not only stand in the way of peace and unity but actually causes much of the disunity in the first place, it is obvious that by removing theology altogether, unity would not be far away. We could summarise their thought pattern in this way –

Peace is our objective. Theology stands in the way. Therefore: get rid of theology.

But this nice, simple little logical deduction has a lot of basic questions to answer. To begin with, we must ask why it is that God has seen fit to ensure that we in the twentieth century should have His word in our keeping, a word which consists not merely of “love God and your neighbour”, but of 66 books written over a time span of hundreds of years, and containing over eleven hundred chapters, with more than thirty-one thousand verses. Why so much? And all of it speaks about God, about what He has done and will do, and about us and what we have done. It is full of theology. Take Paul’s letters as the most obvious example. Why did he write those heavy works like Romans and Galatians? Surely he, and God, wants us to know something. He didn’t write those epistles for the sake of getting his name in the Bible or for any other reason than that he wanted us to read and understand what he wrote.

And nobody has to take just my humble word for it, because Paul himself said so. He wrote to his friend Timothy that all scripture is profitable for teaching (II Tim 3:16). Paul was very ardent for the truth. He himself was a good scholar who missed his books and parchments and wanted Timothy to bring them to him (11 Tim.4:13). He had no doubts about what he wanted Christians to do with what he wrote: “Think over what I say” (11 Tim. 2:7). He was very concerned that there should be those who could teach sound doctrine (Titus 2:1) so that we, as faithful followers of Christ, would praise God the more.

The more we read of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, the more we begin to realise that today is not the first time that an anti-theology movement has been found among Christians, and a careful reading of that letter soon gives us a different answer to the whole problem of theology and unity. He does not subscribe to the opinion that the solution for false doctrine is to throw out doctrine altogether, but declares that we must resist false doctrine with true doctrine. It seems that some men, Hymenacus and Philetus by name, were teaching that the resurrection was already past. Paul tells Timothy to avoid this swerving from the truth by handling the word of God rightly (II Tim. 2:14-19).

Paul does warn against disputing about words, which he calls “godless chatter”, and we read in 2:23-26 that Timothy is to have nothing to do with stupid, senseless controversies. But, that he does not mean that all disputes concerning the truth are stupid and senseless is obvious from what follows. The Lord’s servant is to be, among other things, an apt teacher, correcting his opponents with gentleness. Right doctrine is important, and it must be defended against wrong doctrines. The way to oppose wrong doctrine is to match it with right doctrine, not to meet it with no doctrine. Those who are holding on to false teachings, says Paul, are in the snare of the devil (V.26) and it is our task to rescue them with a right knowledge of the truth.

No-one will deny that theology must be conducted with faith and in a spirit of gentleness, which has not always been the case, but the fact that it must be conducted is incontrovertible. To say that we do not need theology if we have a child-like faith is to miss the point altogether. When Jesus said that we must be as children He spoke about our attitude to and our relationship with God our Father, not about the content of our faith. It is impossible to believe nothing; it is all too possible to believe the wrong thing, and we must continue to strive for the truth so that one day all people may worship God in Spirit and in truth.

PETER KOSTER

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