Experience
or Theology?
by Pastor
Greg Bitgood
I will never forget the conversation I had with a woman about a new Church she was excited about. She said, "I really love that Church because the pastor doesn’t preach doctrine he just preaches the Word!" I think she was trying to say that the Pastor doesn’t preach denominational traditions. Nevertheless, she illustrated a common problem in the church today, a lack of fundamental understanding of the doctrines that constitute the Christian Faith. I suspect that here at Kelowna Christian Center we often make the same mistake. Not that we would be as ignorant as this dear woman was but we often value experience over sound theology.
We tend to evaluate our lives by the level of spiritual experiences we are having. One person might say, "I don’t think I am doing very well because I haven’t heard God speak to me today." Another might question if God really cares for them because they don’t feel his presence like they used to. Please don’t misunderstand, I do believe God speaks to us and I do believe that we can be conscious of His presence in our lives. What I don’t believe or trust is my ability to always hear and sense correctly and I think it is a mistake to gage how you are doing by how you are "feeling" or "sensing."
A good, sound theology must always come before experiences. Webster defines theology as "the study of God and his relation to the world." The obvious source for that study comes from the Bible. Any experience that we have with God can only be correctly defined by the Bible, thus, theology before experience. I am not suggesting that God cannot move beyond His Word, no, He is God and can do whatever He pleases. I am saying that our ability to understand what God is doing in our lives comes from the Word.
When it comes to spiritual experiences in our lives, generally they follow clear revelation of God’s Word and purposes. The best example of this is your salvation. Roman’s 10 plainly tells us that our salvation experience is a direct result of faith and faith is a direct result of hearing the Word. Faith itself demands that we believe something before we see or feel it.
I believe that my relationship with God is sound, not because I feel like a Christian or feel like praising or feel anything for that matter. I believe that my relationship with God is sound because His Word tells me so. I can now experience God based upon an objective truth and I can interpretations that experience based upon an objective definitive source.
31 August 1995