Matthew 22 - Theological Minutiae

So this was what I had on the board for my “adult confirmation” class last night. We were working last night on the first week of theology and then another week on it next week. Nothing like trying to collapse 2,000 years of Christian theology into just a few weeks...But in a way it was good because it really forced me to work with them on what is essential (or at least what I think is essential). You see it circled in the middle - Jesus. Sure there’s all those other things and people and ideas and heretics and multisyllabic words up there but at the center of it all is Jesus. While I love talking this stuff I’ve never been one on theological minutiae. Seminary theology classes really frustrated me on that point. It was like one of my classes on the doctrine of election...the syllabus had every class mapped out with the final class out of all of them that said, “How this matters to the church.” Um...

In Matthew 22, we get some of that theological minutiae from the first century. A question about the resurrection and one of those, “if this happens and then this and then this then what does it matter?” Feels a little bit like a “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” Theology definitely matters but if it doesn’t come to a place of how this matters...I’d rather spend my time on trying to live as Jesus calls us to. In fact, in Matthew 22, the very next thing gets to the most important - love God with all your heart, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.