In class we discussed how theology (theo-logia), rather than being some mere "study" of God, is the "story" of God.
God, in giving His Spirit, reveals Himself so that His story can be faithfully told. There is more to this story than any single telling discusses. Although other tellings may be possible - very many more - the whole story rests completely in the mind of God. God become man in Jesus Christ, whose unique life truthfully tells God's gracious story.
One cannot tell what one does not know. No one but God's Spirit knows the mind of God. God is unknowable without the Spirit's anointing, the active presence of God in one's very life. Jesus Christ, full of the Spirit (CHRIST = MESSIAH = ANOINTED ONE), lived his life on earth completely faithful to God, obedient even in death; God raised Jesus from the dead to ascend into heaven in order that the Spirit of God might descend to dwell in the people of God.
To be a Christian is to be one born again in Spirit and Truth, able now to be a faithful witness to God's true story in Christ. Each Christian depends on the Spirit to lead the way of telling the story truthfully. Without the Spirit, one is ignorant and the telling becomes less than true.
In the beginning was the Word/LOGOS, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1).
Our story must be told with more than merely persuasive words of wisdom. What we proclaim ought to be true a demonstration of spirit and power. Our faith rests not on human wisdom but on the power of God. "What eye has not seen and ear has not heard and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love Him, this God has revealed to us through the Spirit" (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:2-16).
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Any telling of the story of God will, by definition, be incomplete. At best, one can only tell select portions of this story. Every story, to be told at all, must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Given the Christian doctrine that Jesus is God Incarnate, one confessing to be Christian considers the story of Jesus to begin in eternity and go on to eternity.
This complicates any effort to tell that story. Where does one begin? How does one end the telling? Any one telling of the passion of Christ is part of a whole story, the story of God; not just that, but it is one telling of the part of the story.
Telling the story of God is what all humans are called to do. God knows the story of God the best. God told the story first to Adam who then became responsible for retelling the story of God to Eve and to their children. Each person born from then on has to hear and tell the story of God, with God participating in the telling, sometimes very explicitly, other time much more subtly.
Christianity makes the audacious claim that in the fullness of time God came to tell the Story of God in the first-person, and that person was, is and will continue to be God the Son, Jesus, born of the Jewish maiden Mary in Bethlehem of Judea back in the time when Caesar Augustus of Rome ruled the world.
This Jesus lived and died as a Jew among Jews and non-Jews; after suffering death by crucifixion, Jesus rose to live again, leaving this world to be with God the Father in Heaven while God the Holy Spirit continually dwelt among people on earth.
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