“What Has Shaped Your Theology—Scripture or Tradition?” October 11
What has shaped the way you think about God?
The Bible?
Your church?
Your parents?
A favorite teacher?
Something you were taught as a child?
Or simply the way you have always believed?
Every one of us has a theology—a set of beliefs about God, salvation, worship, suffering, prayer, and the Christian life.
But having a theology does not necessarily mean we have a biblical one.
Something can be familiar.
Popular.
Emotionally comforting.
Passed down for generations.
And still be wrong.
In Jeremiah’s day, people had religious practices they had accepted as normal, but God condemned them because their worship was not according to His truth.
Centuries later, when a Samaritan woman appealed to religious tradition, Jesus told her that true worshipers must worship God “in spirit and truth.”
And Paul warned Timothy that a time would come when people would gather teachers who told them exactly what their itching ears wanted to hear.
So perhaps the question isn’t merely:
“What do I believe?”
It is:
“Where did those beliefs come from—and can I support them from Scripture?”
Today we’ll look at false teaching, religious tradition, the “queen of heaven,” our need for sound doctrine, and why every Christian must learn to examine what he hears by the Word of God.
