(Transcript of the video above, edited for readability)
A lot of people say, "I don't want to know about Jesus. I just want to know Jesus. I want to have a personal relationship. I don't need all these details, this theology." Well, theology is the study of God. Imagine telling your spouse or your girlfriend or boyfriend, "I really don't know anything about you because that would ruin it. I just love the relationship. I don't know about you." That wouldn't fly with my wife. [Let's imagine] I don't know her birthday. I don't know her favorite color. I don't know what she's like. I don't know her character. I don't know what she would do in this situation or that situation. I don't know anything about her history, what she's done in the past, because that would ruin it. I want the romance. Well, she would look at me a little cockeyed and say, "You're not interested in me if you're not interested in those questions."
It's true with God too. You can't have a personal relationship with a God about whom you know nothing. Which God? There are lots of versions of God out there. Does it matter whether you're loving the right God? Well, yeah. The first commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, wind and strength, and have no other gods before him. It's important for us to worship him in the way that he's prescribed, the second commandment. So we have to know who God is and what he has done in order to worship the right God. But even more than that, we're saved from the wrath of God by calling on his name. Well, calling on whose name and saved from what wrath? Why? See, the more questions you ask about this, the more you realize that the theological questions are deeply personal. They're life and death questions.
This isn't just about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Look, we invest ourselves in learning how to use iPhones. We invest ourselves if we're a chef: we pour ourselves into learning all the technical terms for the different pans and the different sauces and the different measurements. How much time people spend on hobbies and sports, getting into all of the statistics and all the rules of baseball and football, and so forth. If people say that they don't want to get into their faith at that level, what they're saying is it's basically insignificant. And there are many Christians who go to church every week and wave their hands and sing "hallelujah" and so forth, who are willing to live with a superficiality in their faith that they would never get away with in any other aspect of their life.
For more information about Michael Horton, visit: www.whitehorseinn.org
For more information about Christianity, visit: www.christianity.com
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