It sounds almost sacrilegious. But the term was born during my preparation to preach my first sermon. I had been asked to preach, on a Sunday night, in the church I was on staff at as a youth pastor. I’d spoken to the youth plenty of times, taught Bible studies to young folks and adults, but never been in the pulpit. I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t been to seminary. I was 24 years old. What else was there to do other than plagiarize? So I selected one of my favorite R.C. Sproul tapes and went from there.

There really was nothing original in the sermon, except for my illustrations. The text and the points were all taken from R.C. I don’t even know where that tape is now, and I don’t remember what he titled the sermon. But the text was 1 Samuel 4:18-6:14, and the focus was mainly on the last three verses. The point of the sermon (and there really was only one point) was that God is sovereign even over what seems like very little details in life (like a couple of cows).

I’d been really pounded over the head by this notion. I lived like God was impotent. I never would have said that but I really did act like it. I freaked out all the time. I mean really stressed out over things. But as the moments unfolded in each situation, God suddenly showed me that everything was quite under control and He was indeed working all things together for good. I’d like to tell you that I’ve now, nearly 9 years later, mastered this issue of faith. But I haven’t.

The story went like this. Eli was ruling as a judge in Israel. He had two sons, Hophni and Phineas, who were ungodly to say the least. He failed as a father in many ways, even though he was the spiritual leader of Israel for 40 years (sound familiar?). The Philistines were Israel’s archrival and they were constantly embattled with them. In an attempt to achieve a victory, Israel decided to take the Ark of the Covenant into battle like it was a good luck charm. Well you guessed it, the Philistines won and they took the Ark. Eli’s sons were killed in battle and when he received the news he fell over dead. So the Philistines have this Ark and they have no idea what’s in store for them. God sends plagues against them. They try moving the Ark. Everywhere it goes the plagues follow. They catch on quick enough. So they decide to take a couple of cows and hitch them up to a cart that would carry the Ark. They had better theology that Israel (who thought it was a good luck charm) because they said, “If the cows take it back to Israel then we’ll know this Ark is the reason for the plagues.”  One note of import is that the cows shouldn’t have left and gone anywhere. They should have stayed with momma because they’d just been weaned and had never been hitched. In other words, it wouldn’t be natural for them just to take off, let alone in the right direction (toward Israel). But they did. And the Bible says they turned neither to the left or the right but went straight in the direction they were to go.

So a couple of cows taught both the Philistines and Israel a lot about God that day. They had better theology than God’s people whom He’d given a great deal of general and special revelation to. So, my first sermon title was this: “He is There: Arguments for the existence of God according to bovine theology.” I’m not kidding. I actually used that. Oh what fun it was to be young and dumb. It was a lot more fun than being older and dumb like I am now. Oh yes, and the nod to Francis Schaeffer was intentional.

So when I candidated at the next church I served at (even though at the time I didn’t know I was candidating…but that’s another story), I preached that sermon. After all, it was the only one I had. And from that, the term “bovine theology” kind of stuck. Anytime there was an opportunity to trust God’s sovereignty (or an incident where we didn’t) you could often hear a reference to bovine theology.

I like the term and the idea behind it, mainly because it is so profound and really should be life changing…if I would just consistently believe it. But I find myself going through life, getting all stressed out quite regularly when things don’t go as I think they should. So I thought Bovine Theology would make a good theme for a blog. I don’t know that I’ll always write about matters relating to God’s sovereignty, but it seems like a good enough idea to prompt plenty of thoughts for writing. So here’s to yet another attempt to begin blogging (again). Maybe I can stick with it this time. – JSW