Trinity Teaching Level

So, what’s your TTL (Trinity Teaching Level)?

Do you avoid the Trinity at all costs? Only give the “water, ice, steam” analogy when asked about the Trinity? Do you try to pray at least once in the “Father, Son, Holy Spirit” formula during worship? Have nightmares about your theology professor standing at the gates of heaven telling you that you can get in as soon as one of your parishioners can explain the doctrine of the Trinity?

I’ve been thinking a lot about my TTL and I admit, I come up short. To deal with my obvious failures as a teacher of this doctrine, I have done the only practical thing, which is to blame my upbringing. I started out my spiritual journey as a blommin’ Baptist (we were mainly in church when the lilies and poinsettias were in full color) and at that church we only prayed to Jesus. God was the Father was mentioned on occasion, but appeared to mainly hang out in the first part of the Bible smiting people. The Holy Spirit meant you raised your hands, and we didn’t do that at our church. Then after my mom’s encounter with a Jimmy Swaggert crusade, we were in the local Assemblies of God church every Sunday. There I heard a lot more about the Holy Spirit, but mainly about the results of being filled with the Spirit. That meant you spoke in tongues (Did I, you ask? That’s another blog) and occasionally went down on the floor when an elder laid hands on you. Then, back to the Baptists and to seminary, where I learned that if you tried to explain the Trinity, you would always fall into one of 3 main heresies, and fail theology for the year. And the point of seminary was to graduate, right?

I don’t think I’m all that unusual in my reticence to try to develop a theologically sound and clear way to teach this important doctrine and I also believer most educators want to teach this doctrine well. It is the crucial doctrine of our faith. If we are not Trinitarian, then we are either worshippers of 3 gods or we do not have a divine Jesus. Furthermore, I’m yet to meet someone who doesn’t want to understand the doctrine of the Trinity. Church members really want to explore the subject and find a way to incorporate a sound understanding of the Trinity into their faith journey. The Trinity can help us understand the role of the Church in bringing about the Kingdom, and also the role of each individual in their spiritual growth.

So, enough blaming. I’m working on a 4-6 week study on the Trinity for our Wednesday night Bible Study. It has been a lot of fun so far, and I think its coming together pretty well. And I haven’t had that stupid dream about my theology professor in weeks.

On the journey together, Greg