“To fall in love with God is the greatest romance; to seek Him the greatest adventure; to find Him, the greatest human achievement.” These words of Augustine of Hippo aptly remind us of the primordial place that God has in our lives. Theology or knowledge of God is the most important thing in our existence because everything we are and do flows from our understanding and relationship with God. Theology is more than an academic discipline reserved for a few, but the reality is that we are all theologians and the knowledge of God is practical and relevant in everything we are and do.
Isaiah 57:15 offers us a magnificent example of who God is and what our attitude should be when seeking him:
For this is what the high and exalted One
Who lives forever, whose name is Holy, says:
“I dwell in a high and holy place,
And also with the contrite and lowly of spirit
In order to revive the spirit of the lowly
And to revive the heart of the contrite.
Our God is majestic and sublime. There is no one like our triune God. The only people who can truly know and serve him are those who humbly acknowledge their great need for God. Humility is the essential requirement to be a good theologian. It is impossible to be arrogant and really know and represent our God.
For this reason, the Bible clearly teaches that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Ps. 111: 10; Prov. 1: 7; 9:10). A truly wise person knows God and behaves according to God’s character. That is, their conduct reflects the virtues that reflect the personality of God. Knowing God goes far beyond an intellectual activity and manifests itself in our behavior. People may have academic degrees in theology, but if their conduct is arrogant and contrary to the Holy God, then their degrees are insignificant since theology is always practical and not theoretical.
As followers of Christ, we are all called to grow in the grace and knowledge of God (2 Peter 3:18). True knowledge of God is always linked to divine grace that reminds us that it is God who takes the initiative so that we can know Him and relate to Him. The focus is always on divine grace and not on ourselves. We can know God only because God seeks us by his grace.
Therefore, an arrogant theologian is not from God. Pride and conceit are vices that should be totally distant from a true follower of Christ. God’s wisdom is always “pure, then peace-loving, gentle, reasonable, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial, free of hypocrisy” (James 3:17).
No one can say that he or she knows or represents the true God with arrogance and an attitude of superiority over others. People who truly know God bring refreshment to everyone around them. We are all theologians, the question we must ask ourselves is how good theologians are we? May our conduct reflect at all times the humility required for all of us who walk on the adventure of knowing God in order to fall more and more in love with Him.
