What’s more dangerous to the human soul—money or theology?
Money is the easy answer. Paul warns us, “The love of money
is a root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have
wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs” (1 Timothy
6:10). Treasure money, and what it can buy, more than God, and it will rob you
of him and buy you terrifying, unending pain, apart from him.
Jesus himself says, “No one can serve two masters, for
either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the
one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money” (Matthew 6:24; see
also Hebrews 13:5). The God of Christianity and the god of money are
irreconcilably opposed. They cannot room together in the human heart. If you
find yourself serving money—consuming yourself with earning, gathering and
spending—by definition you are not serving God.
But is money more spiritually dangerous than theology? The
answer may be trickier than we think, especially within the numbing comfort of
a proudly affluent and educated American Church. Money is a tangible,
countable, often visible god. Theology, on the other hand—if it is cut off from
truly knowing and enjoying God himself—can be a soothing, subtle, superficially
spiritual god. Both are deadly, but one lulls us into a proud, intellectual,
and purely cosmetic confidence and rest before God. Theology will kill you if
it does not kindle a deep and abiding love for the God of the Bible and if it
does not inspire a desire for his glory, and not ultimately our own.
Good Theology Is the Only Path to God
Now, I love theology, and you should, too. Paul’s one aim
in life and ministry was to know Christ and him crucified (i.e., to know
Christian theology), and he wanted to know God in Christ as truly and
thoroughly as possible, with all of its implications for everything he thinks and
says and does (1 Corinthians 2:2). You cannot read this man’s letters and not
come to the conclusion that theology was his heartbeat. He lived to know as
much about this unsearchable God as possible, and he was ready to die for those
truths.
Psalm 119 is a passionate love letter written to the
revelation of God in his word. What we know about God from the Bible is
unbelievably, inexhaustibly profitable for teaching, reproof, correction,
training in righteousness and life (2 Timothy 3:16; John 6:68).
Without theology, you will not know God—literally and
spiritually. So, this article is not meant to be a prohibition against
theology—God forbid—but a caution and a warning about theology. Knowledge about
God can replace an authentic knowing of him to our destruction, especially for
the theologically refined and convinced. We all should want our theology to be
not only true, but Spirit-filled and fruitful.
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