I’m planning to write a series of posts over the course of the next several months, but before I do, I want to give credit to Dr. Wayne Grudem for teaching me about some of the core doctrines of the Christian faith.
How his book, Systematic Theology, even reached our shelves, I do not know! I can’t remember if I hung onto it from the portion of my college years spent at a Christian university or if Russ got this as a resource in his years serving as a lay elder.
Whatever the reason, despite its moving around with us over the course of some years and occasionally being used as a weight for piecing together our kids’ blanket forts, the spine is still nicely intact, and the pages still white, crisp, and free of my coffee stain dribbles, so I don’t think I’ve utilized it to its fullest potential.
I know exactly why: it looks intimidating!!! Visualize these stats: 2.25 inches thick. 4.2 pounds. 1,291 pages. Do you know how many words can fit into 1,291 pages?! Me neither, but it’s just so. many. words. So many paragraphs. So many parts with so many chapters. AND, get this, the subtitle is An Introduction to Biblical Doctrine. This is just the introduction?! What’s the full story?!
I think I assumed that because I don’t really consider myself a theologian, I might thumb through those 1,291 pages and not understand the content. I’ve done that with a few of Russ’s books that I quickly decided to re-shelve. Maybe they’ll be for me later.
However, I was thinking about a particular topic a month or so ago, and I decided to roll up my sleeves, be brave, and unshelve Dr. Grudem’s Systematic Theology. Maybe he had something to say in those 1,291 pages that could help me. I was actually quite surprised. I understood what he wrote! He made it so accessible for me… just a very ordinary woman with a college education.
Since this seems more like a book you’d use as a flip-to resource than one you’d cozy up with and read cover-to-cover, I’m almost certain I’d never read the preface until yesterday. Are you a preface-skipper? I used to be, but I’ve learned that the preface is a really special part of a book!
Here’s what Grudem says in the first two sentences:
“I have not written this book for other teachers of theology (though I hope many of them will read it). I have written it for students– and not only for students, but also for every Christian who has a hunger to know the central doctrines of the Bible in greater depth.”
I thought, “Hey, wow, that’s me! He wrote this for people like me!” (I’m kind of wishing I had read those sentences 20+ years ago!)
Anyway, I just want to give credit where credit is due. Thank you, Dr. Grudem, for putting 1,291 pages worth of words into accessible language for an ordinary person like me to understand theological concepts. I’m excited about the plan that’s simmering in my mind! Hint: it has to do with some core doctrines we see in the book of Hebrews… how it encouraged the original recipients to persevere and how it can encourage us still centuries later!
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