The Surprising God

This is the fifth and concluding post in a series adapted from "What is a Theological Ethic?" a lecture by  GCS  professor Dr. Gary Deddo.   For other posts in the series, click a number:  1 ,  2 ,  3 , 4 . Last time we saw that our calling as followers of Jesus is first to worship God (and no other), then out of that relationship of worship (loving God), to love our neighbors (sharing in God's love for them). By worshiping only God, we avoid a form of idolatry that is common in our day -- the collapsing of the first Great Commandment (to love God) into the second (to love neighbor). Let's look further at how a theological ethic protects us from this idolatry. We begin with Jesus' example. Jesus' example of sacrificial giving Throughout his life on earth, Jesus showed perfect love by sacrificially giving of himself. He first gave himself in faithful, even joyful obedience to his Father. Then, as part of his worship of the Father, Jesus gave sa...

This is the fourth in a series of posts adapted from "What is a Theological Ethic?," a lecture given by  GCS  professor Dr. Gary Deddo.  For the other posts in the series, click a number: 1 , 2 , 3 ,  5 . Worship only God Last time , we noted the danger of collapsing the first great command (to love God) into the second (to love neighbor). Though doing so is common in our modern/post-modern world, as followers of Jesus we must understand that it is a form of idolatry,  which God strictly forbids. We are to worship only God, and no other -- a command Israel, sadly, never fully obeyed (as pictured below), despite years of being chastened by wilderness wandering and exile in Babylon. The Adoration of the Golden Calf (public domain via Wikimedia Commons) Though the two great commands go together, they are radically different in that the two objects of love (God and neighbor) are very different and so cannot be interchanged and must not be confused. W...

This is the third in a series of posts adapted from the lecture "What is a Theological Ethic?" by GCS  professor Dr. Gary Deddo.  For other posts in the series, click a number: 1 , 2 , 4 ,  5 . Developing, then living out an ethic that is God-centered ( theocentric ) rather than human-centered ( anthropocentric ) is a great challenge. Why? Because the worldview (mindset) so prevalent in our modern/post-modern West is fundamentally anthropocentric, leading to an ethic that is largely pragmatic, utilitarian and even hedonistic. So how do we as Christians, in this cultural setting, develop, then live out a truly theological ethic ? A good place to begin is in the Gospel of Matthew.   Theological ethics and the great commandments According to Jesus, these two commands summarize the central and controlling will of God for humankind as presented in Holy Scripture ("the law and the prophets" is a reference to the Hebrew scriptures, what we refer to as the...

This is the second in a series of posts adapted from the lecture "What is a Theological Ethic?" by Dr. Gary Deddo, professor at  GCS .  For other posts in this series, click a number: 1 , 3 , 4 ,  5 . There is a tendency to approach obedience to God's directives and instructions in one of two misguided ways. The first is legalism --  seeking through obedience to earn God's favor, thus overlooking the reality that God's grace underlies all of God's commands. The second misdirected approach is antinomianism -- treating God's commands as arbitrary and thus subject to being re-worked or entirely dismissed. Both approaches undermine true biblical obedience, which the apostle Paul calls  the obedience of faith  (or the obedience that comes from faith ) (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). Legalism and antinomianism both arise when the commands of God are detached from their biblical context -- their grounding in the grand narrative of God's plan for humanity with its fou...

This is the first in a series of posts adapted from "What is a Theological Ethic?" -- a lecture by Dr. Gary Deddo, professor at  GCS . For other posts in this series, click a number: 2 , 3 , 4 ,  5 . How can we help the people in our care learn to think like Christ ? A principal way is to help them develop a theological ethic -- an approach to ethics built on the foundation of our knowledge of God (theology). But what does a theological ethic look like, and why is it important? We will seek to answer these questions through the course of this series of posts. Defining a theological ethic The theological ethic presented in this series is thoroughly biblical in that it takes into account the whole of the  biblical narrative. Rather than picking out individual Bible verses (proof-texting), it considers the entire history of God’s interaction with his creation. Because the focus of that history is the person and work of Jesus, this theological ethic involves takin...

This post is excerpted from "On Misdiagnosing Legalism and Finding the Right Remedy," a lecture from Grace Communion Seminary President Dr. Gary Deddo. Though legalism is a real problem (Gal. 3:1-5, 10) some charges of legalism are unwarranted. Understanding what legalism is (and thus its remedy) begins by answering a fundamental theological question: Is God good and opposed to all evil? If so, has God revealed his will so that we may live toward his good ways and away from the ways of evil? In other words, is obedience to the will and ways of our Creator and Redeemer good, and is disobedience sinful, that is, a collusion with the evil that our Triune God opposes? Is obedience a certain kind of relationship with God that God enables by revealing to us his will and ways so that we may obey and so do what is good? Answering yes to these questions reflects an understanding that God intends for our relationship and interaction with him to always be what Scripture refers t...