What springs to mind when you hear the word “theology”?
Bookshelves full of weighty and dusty tomes that, if not for reading, would make excellent doorstops or draught excluders? Thoughts of long-dead philosophers of religion from centuries past? Earnest young “TheoBros” ever eager for a feisty argument about the logical sequence of the eternal decrees of God or some such esoteric doctrinal debate? Or perhaps you’ve decided that theology is for other Christians; yours is a simple faith, it’s just not your jam. (Isn’t that what we have preachers for? After all, you don’t buy a dog and bark yourself!)
I’m pretty sure if you asked the apostle Paul the same question, one of the first words that he’d offer would be the word “praise”. Most commentators divide his epistle to the Romans by identifying the first 11 chapters as theology and the remaining chapters as application, and Paul bridges the two sections with his praise-heavy doxology of Chapter 11v.33-36.
Clinging by your fingertips?
You’ve got to hand it to Jude; we may not know much about him, but he could certainly could knock …