Michael J. Svigel
Theology professor, department chair, patristic scholar, writer, husband, father. Passionate about the one Lord and his church.
- Theology 101: If judgment begins with the household of God, so must repentance.
- Theology 101: Worse than being deceived is doubling and tripling down in defense of the deception out of pride.
- You know what I miss? I miss dignity in all its forms.
- Theology 101: In the incarnation, the truly divine Person, God the Son, inextricably and eternally united with true humanity. He did not merely indwell a human body or unite himself to a human person.
- Theology 101: God is extremely patient with all of us, but apparently he'll take only so much from godless rulers before he feeds them to the worms (Acts 12:23).
- Theology 101: To me, the existence of the cocoa bean and coffee bean in the same world—along with creatures like us with the wisdom and creativity to enjoy both—is evidence enough for the existence of a wise, powerful, benevolent God.
- Theology 101: False prophecy isn’t a “faux pas,” or a “my bad,” or a “whoops,” or an “oh well,” or a “gimme another chance.” False prophecy is a presumptuous sin against God and against the church. False prophecy is spiritual fraud. It should end one’s ministry immediately.
- Theology 101: The profound reality of fallenness is woven into the fabric of life. The vast majority of our time is spent maintaining things that are deteriorating, fixing things that are broken, strengthening things that are weak, and mourning things that are lost.
- Theology 101: Regardless of your views on eschatology, the kingdom, and the church, I know one thing for sure: this world won’t be getting better and better while the church keeps getting worse and worse.
- Theology 101: When my son was a toddler, I gripped his hand and kept pulling him away from the edge of the Grand Canyon and back onto the path because I love him. Similarly, calling people from destructive sin to the path of righteousness should not be motivated by hate but love.
- Theology 101: Literally.
- Theology 101: A culture of constant offense is a culture that has forsaken grace. Both seeking to offend and being always offended are symptoms of a graceless life.
- Theology 101: Temptation is like a stray dog. Feed it with sin and it will follow you everywhere you go. First it will befriend you, then it will bite you, then it will devour you.
- The Enlightenment did not bring to Christian Europe a torch of illumination, but a flame of incineration.
- Theology 101: Christ’s death, resurrection, ascension, and future advent are not only for spiritual regeneration and moral renewal but for physical resurrection and cosmic restoration. He is Lord of all.
- Theology 101: The entire world needs a regime change.
- Theology 101: Bullying and belligerence have no place in the body of Christ. Leaders too often mask these behind the proud labels of boldness and bluntness. They are not the same.
- Theology 101: In the kingdoms of this world, people seek earthly power to exercise authority and make servants of others. In the Kingdom of Heaven, God grants people divine power to divest themselves of authority and become servants of others.
- Theology 101: When Paul shares the gospel at Mars’ Hill, he begins essentially with “God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.”
- As an educator, let me be blunt: there is no scenario in any academic context in which having AI write a paper for you is acceptable. If you do this you are cheating, sinning, and admitting you are lazy or stupid and do not deserve the degree or credential you’re trying to earn.
- Theology 101: The foundation piers of your house are just as practical as the water faucet in your kitchen. So, too, are the foundational doctrines of the Christian Faith many regard as theoretical and irrelevant.
- Theology 101: To forsake the deep historic roots of Christian biblical interpretation, devotion, theology, and ministry is to weaken the branches of the modern church.
- Theology 101: Because the Christian Faith was “once for all delivered to the saints,” any true reform must retrieve what has been neglected from the past; it cannot simply reject what is in the present or project what could be in the future.
- Theology 101: Sarcasm, ridicule, and incredulity are not sustainable objections to arguments for the existence of God.
- Theology 101: If the church had a book of prophecy that was fulfilled just a few years later, you’d think their apologists would have capitalized on that fact over and over again instead of saying the book was written later and referred to things that haven’t happened yet. Hmmm.
- Theology 101: Without the virgin birth, you don’t have a God-man (one person with two natures), you have a God and a man (two persons), a.k.a. Adoptionism or Nestorianism. www.retrochristianity.org/2010/04/20/i...
- Theology 101: One day, it will be as clear as eternal day which areas of my firmly held theology on secondary issues are completely wrong. My goal is to live in light of that day.
- Theology 101: Demands of unquestioned loyalty and unconditional submission in leadership is the opposite of effective accountability and wise counsel. Leaders should demand questioning and subject themselves to pushback. This is the stuff of strong leadership.
- Theology 101: For some people out there, it seems their theology is a costume with props and memorized quips. It’s classic Clichéanity. Looking like, acting like, and displaying the hobbies and habits of your movement’s leaders and heroes isn’t “imitate me as I imitate Christ.”
- Theology 101: Love your neighbor. Who’s your neighbor? The one you hope I won’t name as the answer to this question.
- Theology 101: In AD 155, a “celebrity pastor” was somebody who served the Lord 86 years, prayed for hours, confronted heretics, provided a meal to the soldiers who came to arrest him, and was burned alive and stabbed to death for his unwavering faith. Times have changed, I guess.
- A BIRTHDAY WISH... Dear followers: my birthday is on Jan 30. Would you consider donating to a Dallas unsheltered and homeless ministry, OurCalling, to help meet their needs, especially during this time of freezing weather? Please "like" and "repost." Blessings! ourcalling.harnessgiving.org/donate/
- Theology 101: ’Tis better for our souls to be overlooked than to be over-liked.
- Theology 101: The poetic monologues of Job’s friends teaches us a lot of things. But one thing it teaches is that setting your bad theology to poetry or song and then repeating it over and over again doesn’t make it true.
- Theology 101: “Vain and miserable are those who do not choose to see what is so manifest and clear but shun the light of truth.” (Irenaeus of Lyons)
- Theology 101: Throughout its history, the church’s political aspirations have been the church’s perennial devastations.
- Theology 101: We shouldn’t be surprised that unbelievers fail to find Jesus in a Christianity we’ve filled with false Christs.
- Theology 101: “It is a...human right, a privilege of nature, that every man should worship according to his own convictions.” (Tertullian)
- LOL. The atheist and anti-Christian comments are causing this post to have way, WAY more exposure than any others I’ve had. Way more than it deserves, tbh. Advice: if you hate something, ignore it. The algorithm will do the rest. Smh.
- Theology 101: In case we forgot, God is not a Republican, a Democrat, or an Independent; he doesn’t obsessively watch FOX, CNN, or NPR to inform his perspective; he cares deeply about truth, not about our opinions; and he is a just avenger of those of us who act wickedly.
- Theology 101: Them: “Inerrancy is a modern invention by fundamentalists.” Me: “So, name one orthodox Christian in the early church that believed there were errors in Scripture that needed to be corrected by philosophers, historians, scientists, or anybody else.” Them: […]
- Theology 101: The Christian hope is not all the good things minus this world, but this world minus all the bad things. The glimpses of beauty in this world are a reminder of the paradise we lost and a foretaste of the paradise we will regain.
- Theology 101: God’s revelation in creation is not sufficient to make us wise unto salvation through faith in Christ Jesus, but to those who have eyes to see, it is sufficient to reveal his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and his divine nature.
- Theology 101: Christians are not called to live lavishly but to give lavishly.
- Theology 101: Conversion to Christ not only saves you from eternal death. When lived in light of your baptismal confession and repentance, it saves you from deep despair, from a destructive life, from damaging decisions, from wicked deeds, and from diabolical deceptions.
- “By the side of every doctrine which agrees with the truth of things, there springs up some falsehood.” (Athenagoras)
- Snowed in? Cozy up with an engaging and edifying story in three parts: The AItheist, The AItheist 2.0, and The AItheist 3.0. Available as paperback, ebook, and audiobook.
- Theology 101: “We however, who extend the accuracy of the Spirit to the merest stroke and tittle, will never admit the impious assertion that even the smallest matters were dealt with haphazard by those who have recorded them.” (Gregory of Nazianzus)
