Robert Jenson argues that theology is “the church’s enterprise, and the only church conceivably in question is the unique and solitary church of the creeds.”[1] That is to say, the Church has its boundaries. To study the Bible and God we need to have certain presuppositions. God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. We believe in the Communion of Saints. If a church abandons these central ideas she is doing theology in vain.
This is All Saints’ Day. As we celebrate the great actors in God’s history/play, we are celebrating men and women who did theology in the context of the holy, catholic, and apostolic church. They were not isolationists, they did not drink of the wine of the individualist, but rather they discovered that studying the Scriptures happened most effectively when there was proper accountability, faithful ministers, and pure worship.
Let us come this morning as worshipers of Christ in his holy Church.
Prayer: How shining and splendid are your gifts, O Lord
which you give us for our eternal well-being
Your glory shines radiantly in your saints, O God
In the honour and noble victory of the martyrs.
The white-robed company follow you,
bright with their abundant faith;
They scorned the wicked words of those with this world’s power.
For you they sustained fierce beatings, chains, and torments,
they were drained by cruel punishments.
They bore their holy witness to you
who were grounded deep within their hearts;
they were sustained by patience and constancy.
Endowed with your everlasting grace,
may we rejoice forever, O Christ, in your goodness,
grant to us the gracious heavenly realms of eternal life, through Christ. Amen.
[1] Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology.
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