Public Theology: The Task of the Pastor/Theologian, the Reality of Ministry and Theology in the Indicative Mood.

To a large extent, the public theology Christian theology is indicative. As Vanhoozer says, theology is the attempt to put into words what is in Christ. This is another way of “indicating” the truth of the gospel: what God has done, is doing, and will do in Christ.

There are many true stories about what is happening in the world (and even more false stories), but the focus of the biblical story is what God is doing in the world to renew the created order: “The Lord is risen indeed…” (Luke 24:34).

Nothing seems the same after the impact of the resurrection: God, the human being, the plan of salvation, the cosmos itself - everything needs to be rethought.

The Task of Public Theology

The theologian’s task is to expound “sound doctrine” in word and deed: the truth about the strange new world of the gospel. The theologian is a representative of this strange new post-resurrection world, an emissary of God’s kingdom that is already making an impact on the old world in which many think they still live.

By clarifying what God has done in Christ, the theologian produces something useful and renders a service. In other words, it can be said that the theologian is a minister of reality.

A minister (Latin, minus = “less”) makes himself smaller than the object or person being served. Pastors are public theologians because they bear witness to what is in Christ, and there is no reality more fundamental than that.

The Word of God Does Not Change or Fail

If the word of God endures longer than the heavens and the earth, the living Word through which the heavens and the earth were made will endure much longer.

As he helps God's people to live in the reality of the resurrection, the new creation in Christ, the theologian helps people to have an encounter with reality.

The gospel is a reliable indicator of reality, since it reveals the nature, origin, and destiny of the entire created order.

This is also public theology: making known “the mystery which has been hidden for ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints […] Christ in you…” (Col 1.26,27).

Final Considerations

Public theology is the presentation in propositions and, even more importantly, in people of the reality of new life in Christ.

The church, the group of those who have been raised with Christ, is the vanguard of the new created order. The distinguished pastor-theologian Jonathan Edwards says something very similar: the purpose of God’s work of redemption, and therefore the whole purpose of history, was to create a kingdom for his Son, a people who would be his special possession.

Those who have been raised with Christ, the society of the redeemed, are only the firstfruits of this supreme reality.