Welcome to the adventure of exploring Christian theology! It's an exciting but sometimes rugged adventure. I pray you will be filled with awe as we see the heavens declare the glory of God. I challenge you to join the centuries-old struggle to understand God. I expect you to grow stronger as we climb over, under, and through questions and ideas as we battle recurring heresies. Words like doctrine and theology scare some people. They imagine dry, technical, and esoteric expressions propounded dogmatically about things they can't understand. A preacher or teacher who carries on like that before a congregation or class should be ashamed. A Christian doctrine is a collection of beliefs taught in the Bible. The doctrine of God is what the Bible teaches about God. The doctrine of creation is what the Bible teaches about creation. The doctrine of the church is what the Bible teaches about the church. Theology is a compound of two Greek words, theos, meaning God, and logos, meaning word. The heart of theology is a word about God. It grew into the study of God, then the study of everything relating to God. When the study overwhelms us, we should return to the heart. The heart of theology is a word about God.