We need the right foundations for any building work.  

Jesus Himself told a story about two people building houses: one had good foundations on a rock and the other had no proper foundations on the sand.  The foundations made all the difference between happiness and disaster.

Without solid foundations we cannot build a house.

Following the commands of Jesus is where all theology and life must begin.  Theology is not for the intellectually gifted or those who like studying old books.  Theology is the “study of God” and He has walked among us to tell us how to live.  

He told us to follow Him and we will freely receive life, forgiveness, cleansing and wisdom, without money and without price.  When we fall, He will help us to get back up and carry on following Him, over and over again.

Aspects of the foundations of theology have shifted at different times in history, around the world.

In the early years after the apostles a big part of the foundation was what we call the Old Testament.  

In later years Church life and authority played a bigger role but in parts of the world philosophy from people who never followed Jesus was introduced into the foundations.

We need to be so careful about our foundations in life and theology.  How we think shapes how we live and feel.  If our thinking is twisted then our emotions, perceptions and actions will all be twisted too. 

In the modern age there has been perhaps the biggest change of all, from the study of theology to the study of “religion”.  

Colleges that used to offer serious theology courses now offer courses in “the study of religion”.

This is a huge shift from the study of the Living God Himself to the study of what human beings think about religion or their gods.

Instead of studying the Living God there was a general conclusion, especially in the Western world, that it was impossible to say anything for sure about “God” – and so it was considered to be much safer to just study “religion”, what human beings think or believe about God, gods or ultimate reality.

This huge change shows up in the study of the Bible also.  From seeing the Biblical text as a unique, almost mystical text through which the Living God speaks the unchanging teaching of the Church… the study of the Bible has shifted to trying to understand or reconstruct what the human authors were thinking, believing or trying to say.

There may be good reasons for studying human religion or investigating the ancient world or trying to understand the psychology or literary techniques of ancient Biblical writers.  However, none of these activities are theology – in the sense that local churches have always meant.

In this month we are going to see why Jesus Himself is the rock-solid foundation of theology.  When we say that, we mean that the central teaching of the Church down the ages is that Jesus is Himself the Living God.  

Jesus did not come to tell us about a God somewhere else, but rather He acts and speaks as the LORD God Himself.  If that is true, then all study of God must be the study of Jesus.  

If we think there is anything other than Jesus at the centre of theology then it must be because we are not sure that He really is the Living God.

In the end, this whole month we are going to state and try to appreciate that Jesus is God.

Hardly anyone really believes that.