Insight from 2 Peter 3:<\/p>\n
Ignorant and unstable people misappropriate God\u2019s Word, but those who are neither ignorant nor unstable can rightly understand it. [\u201cThe Profit of Employing the Biblical Languages: Scriptural and Historical Reflections.\u201d Themelios 37.1 (2012): 36.]<\/p>\n
The first step of systematic theology is to ask God to supply both insight with reason and humility with love. There are at least two reasons why all pursuit of doctrine must begin with prayer. First, we do not want to be ashamed of failing in rigorous, God-dependent thinking. First Cor 14:20 and 2 Tim 2:7 stress that the quest for right doctrine will include God-dependent, rigorous thought, directed toward God\u2019s Book. The danger of failing at this point is serious. As Peter notes, \u201cThere are some things in [Paul\u2019s letters] that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures\u201d (2 Pet 3:16). Destruction comes to those who mishandle God\u2019s Word, and because the quest is so serious and because it necessitates rigorous, God-dependent thought, we must pray that God will \u201copen our eyes that we may behold wonderful things in your law\u201d (Psa 119:18).<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"give_campaign_id":0,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_crdt_document":""},"class_list":["post-4729","reading-plan","type-reading-plan","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reading-plan\/4729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/reading-plan"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/reading-plan"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/handstotheplow.org\/om\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}