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What Is Biblical Theology?
Have you ever been given the responsibility of tackling what seems to be an overwhelming job? Whether it’s organizing a garage full of junk, planning a major event, or planting a church, the question that immediately leaps to mind is: “How do I get started?”
A lot of Christians face this question when they study the Bible. The Bible is a very large and complex book. A quick scan of its pages leads to a lot of anxiety for those wanting to gain an overall understanding of what it says. With all the stories, poetry, proverbs, genealogies, and prophecies, it can be very confusing.
Systematic Theology
Over the history of the church, there have been several major ways Christians have addressed this problem. One very old method is often called “Systematic Theology.” If you go to a Christian library or bookstore, you can get some idea of this approach for yourself. Open a volume on systematic theology and look at the contents. You’ll see the material is organized according to topics, or themes—usually starting with God himself, then moving to what the Bible teaches about Man, the work of Christ, and so forth—usually winding up with the subject of “Last Things,” or Eschatology.
I often refer to this approach to the Scriptures as “thematic analysis.” Everything from an academic systematic theology to a topical sermon follows one basic strategy. It addresses questions Christians might have, or to lay out what the Bible has to say about longstanding or even contemporary themes that interest us. This strategy for understanding the Bible has been with Christians for quite some time, and it will continue to be important part of our toolbox as we seek to understand what the Bible has to say.
Biblical Theology
However, you’ll notice that the Bible isn’t written with a topical, or thematic arrangement. This observation has led theologians over the past couple of centuries to look for how the Bible itself presents theology. One of these approaches has been termed “Biblical Theology.”
Now, we have to be careful here, because the term “biblical theology” can be understood in broad and narrow senses. In a general, broad sense, biblical theology is “theology that is true to the content of the Bible.” In other words, it is any theology that accurately reflects the teaching of Scripture, including systematic theology. Certainly, for evangelicals making sure that all theology is biblical in this sense is very important.
Biblical theology is theological reflection drawn from the historical analysis of acts of God reported in Scripture.
But beyond questions of content, in a technical, narrow sense, “biblical theology” is theology that conforms to the priorities of Scripture. In this outlook, biblical theology adheres not just to what the Bible teaches, but also to how the Bible arranges, or organizes its theology. It’s in this technical, narrow sense that biblical theology became a formal discipline in the 20th century.
How does biblical theology make a difference?
So how does biblical theology work, exactly? And does this approach make any difference in our understanding of the Bible?
As it pertains to the first question, among evangelicals biblical theology “works” through a process that we’ll call historical analysis. For our purposes, we can summarize this approach in this way: “Biblical theology is theological reflection drawn from the historical analysis of acts of God reported in Scripture.” Rather than looking at the ways the Bible addresses particular topics or themes that may be of interest to us, biblical theologians seek to understand how God revealed himself and his will for us in historical events recorded in the Bible.
As for the second question: “Does it make any difference?” The answer is an emphatic “yes.” At a very basic level, it reminds us that our Christian faith is rooted in events that actually took place in the world. For example, modern readers are often tempted to read the accounts of Creation and the Fall as fanciful accounts of origins that bear little relation to what actually happened in the early stages of human history. But a study of these stories from a historical perspective reminds us that Moses taught ancient Israel their theology by reporting what actually happened in those days. The same is true of the stories of the resurrection of Christ and his future return in glory. Although many people treat these and similar New Testament reports as ancient fantasies, biblical theology helps us see that they report what God has done in the past and will do in the future. Christian theology is not based on fantasy but on fact.
In our next installment we’ll take a closer look at historical analysis, and see how Biblical theologians have handled the historical dimensions of the Scriptures.
Dr. Pratt will be teaching Biblical Theology and the Old Testament at Re:train next year.