S4 E1: Season 4 Prelude

Season 4 of Spirit-Led Hope is covering the Doctrine of God, or theology, from a Spirit-led perspective. In this episode, Glenn gives a prelude to Season 4 by covering the principles which will guide Season 4. The content of this episode is not essential for Season 4, but it is recommended listening because it sets the framework of why some topics are covered and why some are not.

This episode has a transcript. If your podcast player does not support transcripts, please go to the Transcripts section of https://spiritledhope.com/ . These transcripts have been edited for accuracy and are typically of higher quality than those produced automatically by many podcast apps.

Season 4 is part of a long term goal to study systematic theology from a Spirit-led perspective. If you want to know more about systematic theology, or expand your study, Glenn is using the following text as a helpful framework to make sure the main topics are covered:  Foundations of Pentecostal Theology, by Guy P. Duffield and Nathaniel M. Van Cleave.  The book is published by Foursquare Media and Glenn is using the Second Edition published in 2016.     

Transcript

S4 E1 TRANSCRIPT 

PRELUDE TO SEASON 4

Hello everyone and welcome to Spirit-Led Hope. My name is Glenn Erichsen, and this episode is 

A PRELUDE TO SEASON 4

I really enjoyed taking the summer off, but now it is time to engage in Season 4 which is all about the doctrine of God (or theology) from the perspective of a Spirit-led life. This is part of our long-term goal to study systematic theology through the lens of a Spirit-led life. Even though I am calling it a Prelude, this episode is now the beginning of Season 4.

WHY A PRELUDE?

So why am I doing a prelude?

This prelude is my solution to a problem I encountered when studying for this Season. If you have listened to Spirit-Led Hope before, you know that I value your time and usually try to get to the heart of the teaching quickly. As I was preparing for the first episode, I found myself adding too many disclaimers and explanations that were not part of the main teaching. And what I was saying was going to apply to every episode.

So, my solution was to do this prelude, up front, and get all those thoughts out of the way. You can skip this episode if you wish, and you will not miss any of the core content that is coming with Season 4. However, I think this will be valuable to you because it will help you understand some of the overarching principles that are guiding this Season, and most likely future Seasons. 

SOME OVERARCHING PRINCIPLES

The first big problem I faced was the amount of material that we are going to be covering. Of course, the Bible is our primary text, but it is important that as life-long learners we learn from great minds who have gone before us. In my personal library I have three main texts on systematic theology which span thousands of pages. And then I have dozens of books that cover topics within systematic theology. Many of these are written by well-known authors like C. S Lewis, Dallas Willard, or A. W. Tozer. Now add to all of that, the content that is available online. It is easy to see that choosing what to put in a short teaching podcast episode can be overwhelming.

For example, I was reading through a systematic theology book written by John M. Frame. This is a massive book of about 1200 pages. I wanted to see what he said about the doctrine of God, which is our topic for Season 4. There was a section in the book on miracles. What surprised me was that Dr. Frame took about 8 pages to define what a miracle is. 8 pages! For us, that would be one full episode simply defining a miracle. 

Do I believe it is important to understand what a miracle is? Yes, I do. Do I think that this podcast is the best place for hammering out the definition? No, I don’t. I believe our goal is to encourage each other to move forward in an experiential relationship with God through a practical understanding of Scripture, and a life that is transformed and led by the Holy Spirit. We do not need an 8-page definition of a miracle to do that.

Now, I do think that establishing a definition for a miracle is helpful, but I think that in this podcast we can give a one or two sentence definition that is good enough for us to move forward. Anything more that you are interested in is a great area for you to pursue with self-study.

And that will be one of our principles. In this and following Seasons, we will try not to get overly bogged down in philosophy and theology. In my life, I have met some great philosophers and theologians, or I have read their books…and I know that I am not one of them. Their minds work differently than mine.

Now to do this podcast, it is necessary that I function at times as a philosopher and a theologian, but that is not my calling. There are others who do teach philosophy and theology much better than I do, and you and I benefit from them.

What I hope to do, is help us all practically apply the things we learn in the Bible, and through other areas of study, in such a way that we grow in intimacy with God. That is what excites me. And if we, together, need to stretch ourselves and learn elements of philosophy and theology, then so be it.

I hope this sounds inviting to you, but more importantly, I hope that you will engage your heart, soul, and mind, in a pursuit of God. If we do that, we will be transformed to be more like Jesus, and God will meet us in a way we could never imagine.

And this leads me to the next principle we are going to follow. This was a harder decision for me to make, but I am at peace with it now that I have made it. One of the reasons some teachings on systematic theology and philosophy become so large and complicated is that they are trying to answer the questions for the largest possible audience.

For example, in the case of Christianity and systematic theology, a large amount of time can be spent presenting logical reasons for atheists to believe in the existence of God. Or, in general, a lot of time can be spent trying to cover minutiae to answer the skeptics. 

Because a major goal of this podcast is to help Christians grow in their intimacy with God, this Season will focus more on content that benefits disciples of Jesus. In other words, the teachings will be presented as if you are a Christian. But that does not mean that anything we look at is a secret or to be kept from a non-believer. In fact, if you are a non-believer, I want you to feel welcome. Just understand that I may not be speaking directly to you in each episode, although I may from time to time just like I am now.

So those are two big principles we are going to follow. We are going to try and make complex things understandable, and we are going to focus on a Christian perspective. 

Another principle we are going to follow is that these episodes need to be about more than just the intellect. It can become very easy to approach systematic theology strictly as an exercise for the mind. But always remember that we are seeking to know God better. Any healthy relationship will go beyond intellectual knowledge. There will be the presence of the other person, and our emotions will be engaged.

With God, there is the added component of the supernatural. In fact, anyone limiting their worldview to materialism, will be unable to enter a deep relationship with God. In other words, if you do not believe there is anything beyond the physical universe, you will be severely handicapped to understand God. 

In fact, it is even stronger than that. The Apostle Paul pointed out that we require help from the Holy Spirit to grasp what God reveals to us. In 1 Corinthians 2:14 we read:

But the person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually.

1 Corinthians 2:14 CSB 

So, if you are a non-Christian who believes there is only the natural, physical world, of course you will reject almost everything we say about God…because you do not think he exists.

Now, all that said, if that is you, God will honor any step you take towards him to help you have relationship with him. God loves you so much, that he will take your simplest of moves towards him, and help you grow in faith so that you can know him.

For Christians, my point is this…the upcoming episodes must be about more than just thinking. For sure, thinking is critical. But, as we just read, it is only through relationship with the Holy Spirit that our thinking about God can make sense at all. So, if you think that the only way to have relationship with God is through reading Scripture and intellectually assessing every word, then you are missing something very fundamental in your relationship with God. You are missing the work of the Holy Spirit.

A fourth principle I want to mention is that we will need to be okay, without answering some questions. Because God is so far beyond us, there will be times when we must be willing to say that we do not know the answer. Sometimes, we will not even know the right question to ask. We will need to be content with that.

Now I do think that we need to be careful not to fall back on that response just because the answer seems difficult. I think that when we throw our hands up too quickly because the answer seems beyond us, we can miss the benefits of struggling over the answer. Once we say that God is beyond our understanding and we cannot know the answer to some question, there is a tendency to rest in that and not challenge our thinking again. That can cause us to become stagnant and that is what we want to avoid.

Are there things about God that we can never answer? Absolutely. But even the exercise of speculation can be useful because it forces us to examine what we do know about God. And that always has value.

The final principle is that as we do these episodes, do not automatically accept everything I say without thinking about it. Within Christianity, there are some essential core beliefs that make you a Christian. But there are others that are non-essential, and we can be free to disagree about them. If I say something that does not sound right to you, then dig in and study…maybe I am wrong. Or maybe it is one of those topics where there are multiple possible answers. For sure, you will gain something valuable in the process of studying.

CLOSING

To summarize, these are some of the principles we will be following as we begin to study the doctrine of God. 

·        We are going to try and make the complex understandable.

·        We are going to focus on a Christian perspective.

·        We are going to exercise more than just our intellect.

·        We are going to accept that we cannot answer every question.

·        We are going to challenge what we believe and do self-study. 

With these principles in mind, it is time now to start digging in on the doctrine of God from a Spirit-led perspective.

In our next episode we will look at:  The Knowability of God.

As always, you can send me comments, suggestions, or questions, by email at glenn@spiritledhope.com, or simply use the Contact Form at spiritledhope.com. That is spiritLEDhope.com. You can also send me an anonymous text by going to the show notes and clicking on the link with your smart phone.

I look forward to hearing from you.

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As we end this episode…

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope, by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

Until the next episode, take care.

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