Does Theology Matter?

It’s pretty common today to hear some Christians say “Theology doesn’t matter.”  Sometimes this is not said explicitly but in other roundabout ways like, “Faith over reason” or “All that matters is Jesus.” A good follow up question to that statement is “Which Jesus?” Various religious groups have views of Jesus that differ widely and are mutually exclusive (they can’t all be true).

Theology is inevitable.  I don’t mean, theology proper (the study of God and His attributes), but in a broader, looser sense. What I mean is something more like, religious thinking. Asking the big deep questions, “Why am I here?” “Is there a God and what is He or She like?” “What is my purpose?” “How do I find happiness?” “What is right and wrong?” and so on. These are the big questions and in one way or another, they are inevitable and everyone asks them.  How you answer those questions is a form of doing theology.

Truth is, everyone is a theologian. ¹   Whether or not you think it’s important to own a copy of a systematic theology text book for your home or church library is another matter, but everyone does theology (even the atheist!).

Because the second you say “theology doesn’t matter” you have just made a doctrinal or theological statement.  “Ironically,” Tim Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in Manhattan, says, “the insistence that doctrines do not matter is really a doctrine itself.  It holds a specific view of God… So the proponents of this view do the very thing they forbid to others.” ²

And when folks argue that “all that matters is Jesus” while sounding very spiritual and godly on the one hand is actually quite naive on the other.  For what sincere Christian is going to say “Nope, Jesus doesn’t matter” or “Jesus should have second place in our church”? The question really all boils down to what a person means by the statement.  If they mean, “stop teaching theology and just give me Jesus,” then they are not only contradicting themselves but forgetting that one of the major aspects of Jesus’ ministry on earth was doctrinal teaching (see for instance The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7). Much of what Jesus taught involved “doctrines” like sin, judgment, Heaven, Hell, money, justification, the law, the Sabbath, the Last Days, and how he was the fulfillment of OT prophecy.  Jesus was, in one way or another, a theology teacher. So if we are really trying to give the people Jesus, then an important part of that is teaching what he taught. ³

To be fair, in some cases, the objection is legitimate. I have known churches where Jesus and the good news is missed because the Sunday sermon is closer to a doctrinal lecture than it is the proclamation of the good news that Christ saves sinners. This was apparently a problem even in Jesus day. In John 5:39-40 Jesus reveals that many of the Jewish people were diligent students of Scripture (and theology!) but still missed Him, the One that all of Scripture pointed to. In 2025 my sense is that this is not the error that most people are making in the pews today (though it is in some circles). The error today in most churches (again, in my experience) is to scoff at the word “theology” and deep thinking as almost inappropriate in the church context.

Context Matters

Some of the challenge of this issue is context. When we read the Bible, notwithstanding what was said above, a lot of the things Jesus is saying don’t seem, on the surface, deeply theological. He’s talking about flowers and rain and lost sheep and father’s and sons—everyday stuff. His teaching is so simple that if we are not careful we can miss his deeper point, which almost always has to do with the nature of God or what he requires of us.

We must remember that Jesus was living in the most religious society on earth.  His context was radically different from the one we find ourselves in today.  He could explain things quickly and easily (he was God), because even the most average or uneducated of his hearers was still living in a thoroughly religious society.  Today, in America, and many other places in the world, people lack even the most basic religious framework.  Teaching the Bible or “Jesus” to them involves many layers of explanation that may have been assumed in the Jewish culture of Jesus’ day.  Almost no Israelite at that time in Israel would have argued over the authority of the Torah (the Romans would have); they may debated extensively the meaning of the words, but not the author or the authority they represented.  Today you would be hard pressed in some corners of our society to find anyone who just assumed the truth and authority of the Bible.  So giving people Jesus today involves teaching them about doctrines like the authority and reliability of Scripture, something that Jesus himself may or may not have had to do explicitly in his own day.

Healthy Churches Have a Solid Theological Base

Every healthy church will have a solid theological foundation, even if that foundation is not made up of extensive, scholarly, theological rationale.  But a healthy church that goes light on theology or ignores theological conversation and discussion altogether does not exist.  Dennis Bickers writes:

Everything must have a solid foundation on which to build… For the Christian and the church, that foundation is a good theology and doctrine… Although a church may function in many different ways, it’s essentially a theological organism that exists to transform people’s lives so those lives reflect Jesus Christ.  A faulty or weak theology will result in a weak church unable to bring about that needed transformation. ⁴

“No Theology” or Just “Theology Light”

What many proponents of a light theological diet suggest whether explicitly or just in practice is a heavy focus on certain teachings; not that the church should abandon theology altogether, but simply that we should not get lost in lengthy theological discussions about every aspect of Scripture teaching.

But even this notion is one that seems to contradict the plain teaching of the Lord himself.  For the last words he left us with before ascending back to Heaven from where he came was this:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” [Matthew 28:18-20]

Notice Jesus says “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Everything. Of course, rightly viewed, this also includes the teaching of the apostles, whose writings are considered Scripture too, i.e., the very words of God (see 2 Timothy 3:16-17, and also 2 Peter 3:15-16).

Doctrine and Life Go Together

The reality is that our theology shapes how we live. As I’ve heard it said before: “theology comes out of our fingertips.” In other words, you cannot separate theology and life. This is why so many of Paul’s letters follow the general pattern of explaining doctrinal and theological truth and then getting into what this means for life. Some good examples of this would be Romans, Ephesians, Colossians and Galatians; how we think and view the world directly effects how we live. This seems to be one of the clear implications of Paul’s words in Romans 12:1-2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

For some, it is the word “theology” that is the problem. It conjures up ideas of 10 syllable words that only professors know how to pronounce. It feels dry and empty and stale. If it helps, scrap the word. But let us not throw out the proverbial baby with the bathwater and hit the eject button on our brains. Let us be people who think rightly about God. Let us strive to be a people who are not afraid of hard questions and ideas. Jesus certainly was not and neither were his earliest followers. Let us be people who want to see ourselves and others and the world as God sees them. This is the work of “theology,” or, whatever you want to call it.