Hello and welcome to my foray into the blogging world. Well, technically, this is my second blog. The first one, “a bit of this and a bit of that” is no longer. Good thing too! Last post was in 2016.

Why am I starting a blog?

After much thought, time, and prayer over starting a blog, looking at why, and for whom I am doing this, I made the decision to plunge into the world of blogging.

My name is Nicole, I am a child of God, a follower of Jesus Christ, and as a Christian I am a theologian. And by the way, so are you. It’s a term that should not be reserved only for someone who is seminary educated. If you are a faithful Christian seeking to know God, His ways, His Word, to grow in your love for Him, then you are a theologian.

Theos (Greek) means quite simply God. And any “ology” means study. As Amy Gannett writes in her book “Fix Your Eyes”, “Theology is what we know and believe about God“, and, “Theology is the pursuit of the knowledge of God“.

I do not hold any degrees from a seminary or university (although I would dearly love to go!). But I am a woman who loves God with all my heart, soul and mind. I seek to understand Him more so that I will love Him more. And the Bible does tell us we need to know God and love God with our mind, not just our emotions. Doctrine (“something that is taught”) leads to Doxology (“praise, worship”). That’s why we should desire to know God more! And as Jen Wilkin is famous for saying, “the heart cannot love what the mind does not know“. The question then for any theologian is: is your theology good?

So, why write a blog? It’s two fold.

1. I am intensely yearning to know more and worship God more, that I believe is only from the Holy Spirit. In this pursuit of knowledge, I simply want a place to write out what I am learning, and even to share with others what I have gleaned just in case someone else can benefit from it. (by the way, in the pursuit of knowledge I stand in good company: JI Packer wrote “Knowing God” and A.W. Tozer wrote “The Pursuit of God”. 🙂
2. It’s for God. He has given me the desire to learn more about Him. So I am responding to this by writing. Because God knows that I learn best by reading and then writing it down. You should see how many sermon journals and other note taking notebooks I have!

In the last few years I have collected and read a lot of theology books. I began listening to a podcast called “Knowing Faith” with Kyle Worley, JT English and Jen Wilkin. They discussed so much on theology that I was hooked. They would have a season or two where they would go through a book of the Bible, or a season focusing on a particular doctrine, such as Salvation. And then I read Jen Wilkin’s book “None Like Him”. It opened my eyes and heart to the utter majesty of God, and a realization of how little depth I really had! Oh, I knew every attribute she wrote about, but not in the way that she wrote. I was blown away! After that I read “In His Image”, then followed “Women of the Word” which created in me the longing to learn how to truly study the Bible.

Two years ago I asked and received for my birthday: John Calvin’s “Institutes of the Christian Religion” and “Reformed Dogmatics”by Herman Bavinck. (no I haven’t read them through entirely, they are great resource books!). But I also wanted to learn from other theologians whose writings are not as “heavy” as Calvin and Bavinck. The books below are just a few that I have read for more insight.

Do you want to read more? I recommend starting with Jen’s books of course. It will whet your appetite for more. Here are a few books that I highly recommend:

1. Fix Your Eyes by Amy Gannett
2. Jesus Through the Eyes of Women by Rebecca McLaughlin
3. Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves
4. None Greater, the Undomesticated Attributes of God by Matthew Barrett
5. Name Above All Names by Sinclair Ferguson and Alistair Beggs

Thank you for reading! See you at the next blog post.