God, His Sovereignty and Providence Part 1

God, His Sovereignty and Providence

Part 1

The sovereignty of God is a subject we normally do not hear from the average pulpit because people have been taught to not like theology and to think that anyone who is a theologian cannot be spiritual but simply an academic with no personal connection to Christ. Well I hate to say it but everyone is a theologian. 

The word theology is derived from the Greek word theologia and is a combination of two words meaning an account of or discourse about gods or God. In Christianity, theology is an account of or a study about our God, what we see, know, experience, about Him and what we hear from Him. The reason I say everyone is a theologian is that everyone says or claims to know something about God. Simple statements like “God have mercy on us” or “The Lord be with you”, tells something about what you have studied, experienced and known about God.

The first statement tells us that you know God as someone who can be merciful and the second tells that you have a view that God can accompany someone wherever they go. It may also be said in a sense where one is cursing another when they say “God be with you”.  We also talk about God being all-powerful [omnipotent], all-knowing [omniscient] and being present everywhere [omnipresent]. We may not know the full extent of all these but they show that we are all theologians with varying degrees of the knowledge of God. 

We all therefore do theology. Whether we have been to Bible School or not. In fact, we all started doing theology since we were infants when we prayed, “God bless our food amen”. Even those who do not believe in the existence of God [atheists] have that as their theology. So, we do not claim to say such and such is an expert in theology but we know that there are people who have had different, deeper experiences of God and with God and we do well to learn from them and to study what they say.

For the Christian, we are blessed to have the Bible. It is the inspired word of God. Hebrews 1:1-3a says, “God, having spoken in former times in fragmentary and varied fashion to our forefathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by a Son whom he appointed to be the heir of everything and through whom he also made the universe. He is the reflection of God's glory and the exact likeness of his being, and he holds everything together by his powerful word.” [Internationals Standard Version]. Because Jesus is the reflections of God’s glory and the exact likeness and imprint of God, we can know God by studying Jesus. A study of Jesus is doing theology. 

Though we will be looking at the sovereignty of God, it is important for us to know that there are many branches in the study of theology. An orderly and rational discipline study of all these branches is called Systematic Theology. It looks at what the whole Bibles teaches about certain topics. Rather than go all over the place and not concentrate of a specific topic, the good thing about systematic theology is that we have disciplined studies such as: 

Theology Proper: The Study of the character of God

Christology: The Study of Christ

Ecclesiology: The Study of the Church

Angelology: The Study of Angels

Pneumatology: The Study of the Holy Spirit

Soteriology: The Study of Salvation

And there are many other studies included in Systematic Theology.

There are forgotten words that the church needs to recover and reuse because they carry deep meaning and teaching and I would like for us to be doing that in this study.

Providence is part of Theology Proper and it is an old-fashioned word that I believe needs to be recovered and reused by the church today though it seems strange when it is brought to the fore. John J. Murray in his book Behind a Frowning Providence says providence “… comes from the Latin word video “to see” and pro “before”, meaning to see beforehand but we do not see what is going to happen.” Before we have a baby, we normally plan for it, though we do not know what is going to happen in that baby’s life. That is how far our knowledge goes. 

When used of God, the word providence takes a whole new, powerful and dynamic meaning by which God works in all events and happenings in the universe to accomplish the purpose of His mind with complete knowledge and total control of all things. In His providence, God works all things according to the counsel of His will [Ephesians 1:11].

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About The Author:

Pastor Sam Machacka is co-founder of Brink Ministries Southern Africa. A wonderful colleague and good friend. Equipping Pastors and Church leaders in Southern Africa. He grew up in Harare, Zimbabwe with his beautiful wife Mildred and they are blessed with three lovely children namely Samantha, Munashe and Joshua but they are now serving as missionaries in Malawi since August 2018.