Do you want to be a bad theologian?

Do you want to be a bad theologian.

Then try to be "smart" and "figure" things out. Try to find ways around all the things in Scripture and theology that you don't like. You're smart - find the loopholes. Come up with something new (Luther and his ilk were just products of their time, and didn't get all the things we do in our own, after all).

If you want to be a bad theologian, have the attitude above.

If you want to be a good theologian - read Luther, Chemnitz, Sasse. See how they approach things. See how they interpret the Scriptures and set goals. Then act in that way. Write in that way. Think in that way.

Always be a student. Then you might be an okay theologian.

(It astonishes me how many "well trained" people are determined to publicly speak on things that they don't know... just rant about their own ideas that I'd expect a first year seminarian or my confirmands to recognize as off base. If you have something that is new and novel - stuff it).

(But, but, but what about your novel approaches, oh Gadfly!?!?!? Saying that ethics is simply that a Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant, bound to love his neighbor is nothing new at all. It's old school. And deconstruction... it ain't really new at all. Go read Luther deconstruct the Roman Sacramental system - it's called "The Babylonian Captivity of the Church". Good stuff.)