Sunday, June 17, 2018 Robert T. Walker, "Theology and Everyday Life" https://tftorrance.org/firbush The audio recording for this presentation is available on the Firbush Retreat section of the website for the Thomas F. Torrance Theological Fellowship. The following AI transcript is too rough to rely upon, but perhaps useful for word searches and time-stamps. It is unretouched; if anyone wishes to listen to it and clean it up we will be happy to post an improved version (contact the webmasters). We invite speakers to send us slides for their talks, which we will post alongside the audios and transcripts. If any speaker wishes to have their talk removed from the website, just let us know and we'll take down both the audio and the transcript. ------------ 00:00-00:10 17th June 2018, the topic is Theology and Everyday Life. 00:10-00:12 What a great topic. 00:12-00:24 Readings from Deuteronomy 6 and 8 and from Colossians chapters 1 and chapters 2. 00:24-00:31 In the Old Testament it is really quite striking. 00:31-00:38 Deuteronomy 6 "Hear Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord, and you shall love the Lord 00:38-00:46 your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and all your strength." 00:46-00:53 To Israel the very heart of the law is that they have to love the Lord their God because 00:53-01:01 he is their Saviour, their Father who loves them. 01:01-01:06 Often they use the word "you shall cleave to the Lord your God" and it is the same word 01:06-01:13 that is used for a husband and wife cleaving to each other. 01:13-01:20 Then that passage in Deuteronomy 6 goes on "After having said you shall love the Lord 01:20-01:26 your God with all your heart etc. and these words which I command you this day shall be 01:26-01:35 upon your heart and you shall teach them diligently to your children. 01:35-01:39 You shall talk of them when you sit in the house, when you walk by the way, when you 01:39-01:42 lie down, when you rise. 01:42-01:45 You shall bind them as a sign upon your hand. 01:45-01:50 They shall be as frontlets between your eyes and you shall write them on the doorposts 01:50-01:53 of your house and on your gates." 01:53-02:02 So in other words whatever they are doing in all aspects of their lives the word of 02:02-02:07 God should be central and they should bear it in mind. 02:07-02:21 Then in chapter 8 Moses goes on to say that "All the commandments which I command you 02:21-02:29 this day you shall be careful to do that you may live and not to pay and possess the land." 02:29-02:33 And elsewhere he says "And yet the land will be blessed and you will be blessed in all 02:33-02:38 you do, your cattle will be blessed, the crops will be blessed and the whole land will be 02:38-02:41 blessed." 02:41-02:48 And then he goes on to remind them that God led them for 40 years in the wilderness that 02:48-02:55 He might humble you and He let you hunger and fed you with manna which you had never 02:55-03:04 come across before nor did your fathers know that He might make you know that man and woman 03:04-03:13 do not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. 03:13-03:20 And so you shall eat and be full, God will give them all they need in a good land and 03:20-03:26 you shall eat and be full and you shall bless the Lord for the good land He has given you. 03:26-03:31 And then Psalm 1 kind of sums all that up. 03:31-03:40 Not for nothing it's the opening to the book of Psalms. 03:40-03:47 Blessed is the person who doesn't do this and that, walks in the camps of the wicked 03:47-03:54 or stands in the way of sinners or sits in the seat of scoffers but their delight is 03:54-04:00 in the law of the Lord and on His law He meditates day and night. 04:00-04:06 The person who is like that is like a tree planted right by a stream of water and it 04:06-04:13 prospers, it never withers. 04:13-04:28 So Israel was taught to keep the law and the law is related as, well the Hebrew is Torah 04:28-04:33 but that comes from the word for light, it's or. 04:33-04:44 Then the basic root which is a three consonant verb is expanded by the addition of a letter 04:44-04:50 to become a noun so the word T is added, Torah. 04:50-04:56 So it's Torah and as is added at the end. 04:56-05:05 The law is basically light, it's teaching, it's instruction and it's essentially healing 05:05-05:10 and it gives light. 05:10-05:17 So that we don't live simply by bread alone but in a real sense by knowing God and by 05:17-05:22 meditating on His word. 05:22-05:34 In the New Testament it's Jesus who himself is the fulfillment of all that. 05:34-05:40 When God made himself known to people in the Old Testament it was through His word, through 05:40-05:49 His spoken word but ultimately that word was, when we say that, that's through His human 05:49-05:56 word spoken through prophets, the word which God has given to His people in human form 05:56-06:04 but ultimately that word that God gave to Israel in human form was actually Christ and 06:04-06:12 as Tia puts it, Christ beginning to become incarnate because all knowledge of God is 06:12-06:21 through His eternal Son and Word and so it's actually Christ who is at the heart of the 06:21-06:35 Torah and so when He becomes man then He's not just the word but He is now the word done 06:35-06:38 in the heart of Israel. 06:38-06:48 Israel was taught to do the law and the whole system of regulations that to us seems very 06:48-06:55 demanding and unnecessary, all the kind of ritual, rules and ceremonial, it's all part 06:55-07:09 of a whole way of living to emphasise good practice like honouring their father and their 07:09-07:10 mother. 07:10-07:14 Part of that is because from their father and their mother they learn about God, they 07:14-07:21 learn the traditions, the good traditions and they pass them on and so they learn what 07:21-07:28 it is that makes a society healthy and of course you get all the hygiene rules which 07:28-07:36 are also very important especially in a hot country and lots of other rules which don't 07:36-07:43 seem to be necessary but they are part of a whole way of teaching the people to distinguish 07:43-07:54 between what's clean and what's unclean and to worship God in a way that He lays down 07:54-08:02 because heathen worship is just having a picture of God which we've made up and then worshipping 08:02-08:12 God in a way that we think will please Him and so you get child sacrifice and all sorts 08:12-08:19 of stuff because they think God's angry with their sin and so they want to try to make 08:19-08:27 God love them and so that's all human worship, worship on the basis of our distorted view 08:27-08:30 of God. 08:30-08:39 Whereas in Israel it was all laid down what a right sacrifice was and the meaning behind 08:39-08:48 it, it's ultimately a giving of ourselves to God and loving God Himself and that word 08:48-08:54 summed up in the ten words of the commandments, the Hebrew for the ten commandments is the 08:54-09:04 ten words but that word, the word of God summed up in the ten words was meant to become flesh 09:04-09:12 in Israel, that's what Moses taught them but the word that failed to become flesh in Israel 09:12-09:16 in their hearts because they didn't live it out, they didn't meditate on it, they didn't 09:16-09:24 make it theirs, they didn't cleave to God has now Himself become flesh in order to live 09:24-09:31 out the word which He is so the whole life of Christ is actually the living out of the 09:31-09:43 law of the Torah and that's why Jesus says in John 15 I am the vine, the vine is one 09:43-09:50 of the key metaphors for Israel in the Old Testament, Jesus is the vine, He is the fulfilment 09:50-10:01 of Israel, in Him the light of God, the Torah, the healing instruction has been done and 10:01-10:12 performed and lived out and so He is our bread, He is our nourishment. 10:12-10:25 Now when we look at Colossians and next week I think we are going to look at Colossians 10:25-10:40 and Ephesians and to see the parallels between them and if we concentrate certainly this 10:40-10:50 week on Paul's prayers and what the key thing is that he is after and Paul's prayers are 10:50-10:57 very very instructive, so Colossians 1 and verse 9 "from the day he has heard of their 10:57-11:07 faith he has not stopped praying for them asking that you may be filled with the knowledge 11:07-11:17 of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding" why? "so that they can lead a life worthy 11:17-11:27 of the Lord, pleasing to Him, bearing fruit in every good work and going on to increase 11:27-11:32 in the knowledge of God" so he prays that they will be filled with the knowledge of 11:32-11:40 His will in all spiritual wisdom in order that they can live out a fruitful life and 11:40-11:52 that's and then he goes on, well for example in verse 121 he says that "you were once alienated 11:52-12:04 from God, estranged, hostile in mind but now you have been reconciled to God by Christ 12:04-12:13 and therefore you are now in the process of discovering all the riches of Christ" so he 12:13-12:17 has prayed that they will be filled with the knowledge of His God's will in all spiritual 12:17-12:27 wisdom and understanding and he reinforces that by saying that this is the mystery hidden 12:27-12:41 for ages chapter 1 verse 25 his calling is to make the word of God fully known the word 12:41-12:52 behind the word of the Old Testament the mystery hidden for ages and now made manifest and 12:52-13:01 it's the mystery which is Christ in you the hope of glory Him we proclaim warning everyone 13:01-13:08 and teaching everyone in all wisdom again that emphasis on wisdom that we may present 13:08-13:20 everyone mature in Christ with mature understanding and then he goes on in chapter 2 "all this 13:20-13:27 is that their hearts that your hearts and the people are also the people that later 13:27-13:36 see that their hearts may be encouraged as they knit together in love to have all the 13:36-13:44 riches of assured understanding and knowledge of God's mystery of Christ in whom I hid all 13:44-13:53 the treasures of wisdom and knowledge" so again this whole focus on Christ that in Christ 13:53-14:02 himself is hidden all wisdom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge and as they grow in 14:02-14:14 Christ as they listen to his word as they united to him through the spirit so they are 14:14-14:23 to live in Christ chapter 2 verse 6 "rooted and built up in him and established in the 14:23-14:34 faith etc" so there is very great emphasis on focusing on Christ and being built up in 14:34-14:45 him and discovering the riches of knowledge in him so theology is not about what we know 14:45-14:59 it's not about theory and doctrine it's ultimately only Jesus Christ we could say he is theology 14:59-15:14 he is living theology and so theology is what happens in us when Paul's prayer is fulfilled 15:14-15:24 when we begin to understand more and more of what's happened for us in Christ and it's 15:24-15:33 very hard for people to see to get rid of all sorts of presuppositions and default oppositions 15:33-15:44 we come to. We are so used to dividing the mind from the heart or doctrine from life 15:44-15:52 what's the use of doctrine? We need to be practical we need to live things out but the 15:52-16:01 gospel is that Christ lived it out he is the word become flesh the word lived out through 16:01-16:09 and therefore he is the word of God and because he's lived it out he is practical theology 16:09-16:18 because he has done it and the more we know Christ the more this dualism in us between 16:18-16:31 thinking and living thinking and feeling is overcome and it's partly the whole meaning 16:31-16:44 of word. God is personal but as personal he is eloquent speaking God. We are personal 16:44-16:49 and part of the key to our being personal is that we can speak we can communicate we 16:49-17:00 can communicate ourselves to other people and communicate things. God is supreme word 17:00-17:10 speaking word doing word word which is love and joy and peace and truth so there's no 17:10-17:20 separation between a kind of intellectual thing and a kind of doing thing. God in himself 17:20-17:32 is everything and when he became man what he was in God he now lived out as man the 17:32-17:40 way that we are meant to live so that Christ is the living heart of theology and the more 17:40-17:52 we meditate on him hear his word we grow in understanding so that we cannot have faith 17:52-17:59 we can't actually do anything in life without some measure of understanding. The simplest 17:59-18:11 thing knowing how to put the tap on or drive a car or cook or make things is all based 18:11-18:21 on understanding and when we come to know our friends inevitably we come to understand 18:21-18:37 them the more we know them we come to understand them. It's built into us this desire to understand 18:37-18:44 and that's because the universe is intelligible it's there to be understood in its incredible 18:44-18:55 order and the order is a created order of unbelievable depths which reflects the even 18:55-19:08 million times greater depths of God but to delve into the depths of creation is a key 19:08-19:16 part of being human and also of healing. If people have a real interest in something they 19:16-19:29 have a focus and it takes them outside of themselves and so that in the Christian faith 19:29-19:42 we woefully de-intellectualised it we think of faith as something we believe we become 19:42-19:50 experts at our jobs at mathematical physics or accounting or whatever our job is but as 19:50-19:59 T.F. used to say we don't commit the same level of commitment to understanding God to 19:59-20:09 understanding our faith. Growing and understanding of God is obviously very different from mathematical 20:09-20:19 physics but it is every bit as demanding if not a lot more so and as exciting if not more 20:19-20:28 so than ultimately healing and fulfilling and that is for everybody at any level we 20:28-20:38 can begin to come to understand. Obviously it takes time but Paul is praying this for 20:38-20:48 ordinary people in ordinary congregations they all come to be filled and so it's just 20:48-20:54 rightly understood that there is no better subject than theology because theology is 20:54-21:09 Christ who is living theology. But we can't just think it intellectually as T.F. often 21:09-21:19 said but it is certainly emphasised that theology can only be done on our knees and it can only 21:19-21:30 be lived out. We cannot love God if we don't love our neighbours. So that theology is ultimately 21:30-21:36 the most profoundly healing thing we can do. It heals our minds and our bodies and our 21:36-21:47 relations and it makes us whole again in this unified way. Well it's hard to put it onto 21:47-21:54 the Word so we'll stop there. Let's pray. We pray O God that the light of Christ, the 21:54-22:10 Lord made flesh, the living, loving, knowing of you may become more and more ours through 22:10-22:18 the Spirit as we share little by little but more and more surely in the risen life and 22:18-22:22 mind of Christ. In His name, Amen. 22:22-22:24 (clicking)