The Theology of Journey
I want to do one last post on the Theology of the Journey. The journey into a deep and powerful Faith in God does something to our theology: it condenses it. That might seem a little strange to say, but I believe it is true. Let me explain more.
During this journey, our theology moves from something that is very black and white to shades of grey. The reason this happens is because so much of what we know about God gets challenged. For instance, we know the promises from scripture about seeking God first and He will provide everything we need. But when you are looking at no money in the checkbook and lots of bills to pay, that belief gets challenged. It’s not as pretty and tidy as we would like for it to be. What if part of this journey means that you have your house foreclosed upon? What if that means you don’t eat for a few days? This is serious stuff that gets challenged in the midst of the journey.
The journey changes our theology because experience may conflict or contradict our interpretation of scripture. It is true that God’s Word never changes. But our understanding of God’s Word does change. For instance, what happens if in the midst of your journey into Faith, you have an experience with ecstatic speech in a biblical manner, something you truly believe ended in the first century? At this point, you have a crisis of Faith. Do you trust the experience, which happened in a biblical manner, or your own interpretation?
When we have experiences similar to this, we learn to hold our interpretation of the scripture loosely. I do not mean that we abandon our beliefs, simply that what may have been black and white becomes grey because our experience with the Word has changed. We have a humble theology. It’s humble orthodoxy.
The Word becomes more relational than propositional. This is a huge transition. The scriptures are inherently relational, not propositional. In fact, Truth is relational, not propositional. Jesus said that He was the way, the truth and the life. No one gets to know the truth apart from relationship. In addition, when Jesus states that you will know the truth and the truth will set you free, He had already announced that He was the truth. In addition, “knowing” is a word that indicates intimacy, as in a man knowing a woman. It’s a relational word, not an intellectual word. Paul also uses the idea of experiential knowing in Colossians 1:9 “For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding,” The phrase “filled with the knowledge” is to be understood as filled with the experiential knowledge.
When Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:12 “For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day,” we need to notice Paul did not say, “I know in what I believe…” He notes that he believes in some one, not some thing.
The journey causes us to hold on to a core of our theology. The trinity, the virgin birth, Jesus being the only way to heaven, the death, burial and bodily resurrection…all these things become the core of our Faith. Issues like women pastors, which we may have a developed theological understanding, are not issues in which we argue, get mad, or separate over. The Gospel becomes primary and other issues are not as important. We learn to hold on to orthodox creeds, but all the extra denominational chatter becomes “not so much” important.
This does not suppose a low view of scripture. In fact, it supposes a very high view of scripture and allows us to deal with what appears to be inconsistencies in scripture. What do I mean by that? In Rom 16:7 Paul says, “Greet Andronicus and Junia(s), my compatriots and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to [or prominent among] the apostles, and they were in Christ before me.” There are two major interpretive problems in this verse, both of which involve the identification of Junia(s). (a) Is Junia(s) a man’s name or a woman’s name? (b) What is this individual’s relation to the apostles? Many scholars believe Junia(s) is a woman. The question now requires us to see if Junia is “outstanding among the apostles” or “well known to the apostles.” People get down into the nitty gritty of the Greek, but there is no clear consensus on “among” or “to.” What happens if it is this is a female apostle? How does that affect our understanding of women are not to teach men or women are to keep silent in the church? And how do we reconcile these questions with the reality that Priscilla is most likely the primary teacher of Apollos? We end up having to explain these away in some manner.
In other words, things are not so black and white. They require us to hold our beliefs humbly and loosely. The Journey into Faith allows us to have a grey theology, be in a healthy relationship with others, serve with others, and hold to orthodox conservative theology.
