Theology or Religion
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN
RELIGION AND THEOLOGY?
By Brian H. Butler © 2015
RELIGION: HUMAN BEING'S OWN IDEAS ABOUT GOD AND HIS WORD THE BIBLE
'RELIGION' is a personal set, or an institutionalised system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices regarding the service and worship of God or the supernatural.
There are around 38,000 'Christian' religious organisations and denominations, plus other religions. Each of these has a body of beliefs which they think is the right one, and that they want you to believe.
Each priest, minister, or religious person wants to tell you what they think you need to know about God, and so ultimately to control what you think and believe.
Logic demands that they cannot all be right. There is only one version of 'Truth' and that is the Book God wrote called the Holy Bible. The differences of religious belief historically, and to this day, have caused more wars and trouble between people all claiming to worship the God of Love than any other way of thinking.
THEOLOGY: THE STUDY OF GOD'S WORD, THE BIBLE, WITH DIRECT HELP FROM HIM
Greek 'theos' meaning God, and 'logia' meaning word. So literally, the study of God's Word, the Holy Bible.
The purpose of life is to believe in, and learn about God, and to strive to be like Him. To learn what God wants us to know about Him and His Truth, we need to study the Word of God carefully for ourselves with His help. To seek to understand the Nature of God, and what He is saying to each of us personally and individually. This way we learn Truth directly from God's Word, without it being altered in any way by human minds is with His direct help of Holy Spirit. We have to ask for that help when we study.
My books do not presume to tell others what God is saying to them, or what they should or should not believe or think. They merely provides study tools, and physical and spiritual 'keys' that will aid better understanding of God's Word to us.
Another additional way to learn about God is to observe the Creation He has made. The heavens and everything on the earth reveal the Power of God. We can now see the invisible intricacies of world's creation by microscopy, for instance, DNA, and the structure of the atom. The amazing variety in the fauna and flora on Earth all speak of His incredible design and His eternal power.
The Holy Bible, the Word of God, is the only book on the planet which contains the Words of God spoken in the first person. For instance: “I am God, and there is none like Me.” (Isaiah 46:9) God inspired His servants the Prophets and Apostles to write down every word in the original texts in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek as He spoke to each of them.
The King James Version of the Bible is probably the best translation we have in the English language, however... Thanks to a man called Jerome in the 5th Century A.D., who translated the Bible into Latin from the original manuscripts in Hebrew and Greek, all modern printed Bibles contain the wrong number of books jumbled up in an incorrect order. This incorrect format hides the beauty of the structure, and the balance of the original design, and as a result obscures the thread of the Book, and makes understanding the Book more difficult.
The King James Version does contain some inaccuracies due to the rules given to the sixty-five translators by King James. A serious student of the Bible can overcome any difficulties this might cause when they understand that the Canons of the Old and New Testament were inspired to be written by the Prophets and Apostles word for word by Christ, appreciate the original structure of the Bible manuscripts, use concordances Hebrew andd Greek dictionaries and other study aids. And most importantly ask specifically for the direct personal help of Holy Spirit to understand God's Word.
