I had a very interesting discussion with a friend recently. We were talking about theology, it’s merits and purposes and whatnot. During the course of that discussion, we hit upon the fairly rudimentary and basic question: what is theology?

My friend averred that theology is a set of tools for understanding the bible. Which I found to be both a surprising definition and something of a lightbulb moment. Surprising inasmuch as I had never heard anybody articulate it in such terms. It also turned on a lightbulb for me. I realised that this is how many people think of theology and explains why some attempts to interest people in it fall flat. They just want to know Jesus, they aren’t for all this academic parsing of scripture.

I was surprised because I thought the definition of theology was fairly well attested. Theology is the study of God and what he has revealed about himself through his Word and the attending implications and applications of these things for the world generally and his people more specifically. Which means theology is not a set of tools I use to understand the bible; theology is what I draw from the bible about God so that I might know, glorify and enjoy him.

As I draw my theology from the bible, as I learn about who God is and how he will be glorified, I may systematise my understanding and slap labels on it all for shorthand. We may talk about ‘trinity’ as a shorthand for a whole set of teachings from the bible about who God is. We may talk about calvinism or ‘the doctrines of grace’ as shorthand for a set of teachings about salvation and how it is accomplished. I may speak about all manner of things using particular labels as shorthand for teaching that I deduce from scripture, but I’m not (or shouldn’t be) reading my theological system into scripture. Rather, I draw my theology from scripture, systematise it and use the clearest bits of it to help guide my reading of more arcane bits.

Such as my theological understanding tallies with an historic system (by and large) I am happy to associate myself with the label. Not so the label can drive everything thereafter, or so that I might be pegged as signing up to every jot and tittle of what that historic system argued, but as a shorthand that broadly tallies with what I see too. I can always make caveats as we go along; this is quicker than outlining in detail the overwhelming majority of what I agree with in a pre-existing, well-established theological tradition.

This means I am happy to associate myself with labels like Evangelical, Reformed, Calvinist, Baptist. It’s not that I agree with everything one might infer from those labels. It’s not that I agree with everything said by anyone else who might also associate themselves with those labels. It’s that those labels broadly – with no doubt a few caveats – act as shorthand for what I understand the bible to teach. The theology associated with these labels (particularly when they are all held together) is a shorthand for the theology that I draw from the scripture. They are are not tools I apply to scripture to determine what it means.