Theology without Love is Nothing

 The fact is, many of us have become too theologically wise to love our enemies, care for the poor, stand up for the disadvantaged and alongside the sick, and help people pick up the pieces of their broken lives.
We perfect the creeds and reject the needs. Beth Moore.

It's good to understand God better, but if our knowledge of God is mostly theoretical, we can only be religious without following Jesus.

When did Jesus send his disciples out to heal the sick? After they had completed their theological training? Not at all.

For Jesus, compassion and practical faith were more important than flawless theology.

God has raised up many heroes of faith in church history, men and women who have passed on God's saving grace in many countries. But were they all theologically flawless?

Martin Luther, John Wesley and Dietrich Bonhoeffer baptised babies. The Baptists only baptise believers.
Luther, John Knox and Charles Spurgeon believed that salvation can never be reversed.

John Wesley believed that a truly converted Christian still has the free choice to turn away from God and end up in hell.

God used disciples with different beliefs, They could not all be right, but God used them anyway.

Unfortunately, there are so many Christians who strive intensely to understand everything and always be right that they become arrogant and ineffectual religious experts.

When you learn about God, you must put this new insight into practice in order to pray better and help other people better. Otherwise you will remain stuck in a dead religion.

Jesus criticised the scribes because they were full of biblical knowledge but would not acknowledge Jesus.

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,
yet you refuse to come to me to have life. Jn 5:39–40 NIV

But what is that to us? We believe in Jesus, don't we?

But our faith is useless if we think it's enough to think right and preach right.

Jesus didn't say learn to think without error. He said: ‘Follow me!’

What are you doing to help suffering people? Do you look at prostitutes, drug addicts or homosexuals with a critical attitude or with deep compassion?

Do you love Christians of other denominations as your brothers and sisters? Do you really love them?

We are saved by faith in action, not by theology.

Christian Activism

 As a little girl, she firmly believed in Jesus and prayed to God with childlike trust. But then she was sexually abused. As a teenager, she was confused and sought solace in marijuana and boys.

I am thinking of stories of more than one or two women who ended up in a brothel, a clinic or on the street.

I am thinking of a young man who was begging on the street in a German city in winter. He lived from donations and told me that he sometimes spent the night with a client.

I know women in Germany who visited brothels to help prostitutes with friendliness. In one year, they found four victims of human trafficking and helped them to return home.

In one Australian state, the government reported that 15-20% of all mentally ill patients committed suicide within 24 hours of being discharged. After that, no more statistics were published. The scandal was simply hushed up.

Yesterday a Christian political activist rang me. He told me to contact the government and demand that we have religious freedom.

I was not at all impressed and told him in very clear terms what I was thinking

Why do these activists protest against abortion, gender mainstreaming etc. but ignore domestic violence, homelessness and the neglect of the mentally ill and victims of abuse?

I told the Christian on the phone that his organisation should be lobbying governments to provide adequate poverty relief and mental health services. He said he had been a homeless drug addict until someone told him about Jesus, and he was born again. He said we just needed more evangelism.

I answered rather angrily that I minister to Christians who are mentally ill or suicidal because of abuse in Christian families and churches.

I know a Christian woman who needed therapy in a psychiatric clinic. In the clinic, she met Christians she had known in Church.

Of course, freedom of speech is important. I am not in favour of gay marriage or gender mainstreaming, but if we focus on a few moral issues and fail to care for broken people, we are misrepresenting Jesus.

A conservative Christian politician in Australia loudly opposed abortion and post-modern gender policies. He said it is better to have a fence and a warning sign at the top of a cliff than an ambulance at the bottom.

But warning signs will not stop people jumping or falling. It is good to promote Biblical principles for personal morality, but we still need ambulances and rehab services.
 
Jesus sharply rebuked the Pharisees for imposing a narrow religious mindset on others, but they didn't care about poor, sick and suffering people.

Righteousness and justice are the foundation of Your throne; loving kindness and truth go before You. Ps 89:14 NASB95

For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Gal 5:14 NRSV