It was A.W. Tozer who so famously said, “What comes into our minds when we think
about God is the most important thing about us.”[1] The reality is that a well-formed
doctrine of God will shape and inform nearly every other theological view that a
person might hold. Unfortunately, the converse is also true; a poorly-formed doctrine
of God will also (mis)shape and (mis)inform every other theological view that a
person might hold.
In the day and age in which we are living, there is no shortage of bad information
floating around on the internet about who God is. i This is part of the problem with the
internet, no one needs qualification anymore to have as large of a platform as
possible. The questions that I want to be prepared to answer are those that stem from
the promulgation of false information about God. My desire is to know and
understand this doctrine so thoroughly that I can effectively refute bad teaching in
this area.
Ultimately, however, my ambition is to study the person(s) of the triune God as a
means of truly knowing Him. Apart from knowing God, all of the study of Him is an
exercise in vanity. I heard, recently, of a legendary theologian whose precise identity is
escaping me (someone along the lines of a DA Carson or a John Piper) who spoke at
a seminary chapel service with would-be pastors filling the auditorium and he
challenged them that in the midst of all of their theological, hermeneutical, exegetical,
and homiletical work, they had better pursue all of that with an eye toward worship,
that their study might inflame their hearts with love toward God and empower them to
pursue depth of relationship with Him. i
In my view, matters explicitly pertaining to the doctrine of God are better served in a
congregational setting if the pastor is to pepper the truths into his teaching all
throughout the year rather than have a concerted emphasis on them for one particular
series. However, if I were to develop this content into a series, I would take the
approach referenced above and address the false teachings that are pervading the
culture through social media. Perhaps I would call it something along the lines of “The
Lies We Believe.”
For the Church, it is absolutely non-negotiable that she would be carefully formed and
shaped by a clear understanding of the person of God. Beginning without that as a
foundational premise would produce misreadings and misunderstandings of the rest
of the Bible. A misshaped view of God would call into question His sovereignty, His
omnipotence, His omniscience, His omnibenevolence, or His divine authorship of
scripture. With those doctrines undermined, suddenly, what you are left with is no
longer the God of the Bible but a God of your own making, likely in the image of the
person who is imagining this God.
[1] A.W. Tozer,
The Knowledge of the Holy.
(San Francisco, California: Harperone,
1978), p. 1.
