Biblical theology involves understanding the storyline of the Bible, but it is more than just a march through the pages of Scripture sequentially. It takes work and discipline and intentionality in every step along this march through the biblical narrative to see how the parts of the story are connecting, how continuity of God’s work and promises is maintained, and how God is progressively revealing his glorious saving plan and redemptive purposes to his people in the world he has made. This is why one wonderful way to engage in biblical theology is to trace theological themes or ideas, examining their development from Genesis all the way through Revelation.
Divinely Inspired Words
The Bible doesn’t come to us as an academic textbook, with carefully delineated topical headings organized according to theological themes. Certainly, God could have chosen to reveal himself differently. He could have given us a long lists of rules. He could have given us something like an encyclopedia of theological doctrines.
But, as we know, that is not how God has chosen to reveal himself to us in his inspired word. In the pages of Scripture, we discover stories, poems, and songs. We find prophecies, visions, parables, and letters to early churches and individual Christians. God’s word, divinely inspired through at least forty different human authors over thousands of years is artistically and beautifully composed and wonderfully literarily diverse. What a gift for us to discover our God through the pages of Scripture and through all of the distinct human authors and different biblical literary genres!
Systematic Theology
However, from the earliest days of the Christian church, biblical scholars and faithful pastors have discerned the important benefit of bringing careful organization and explanation to the theological truths and doctrines that the Bible clearly teaches God’s people. Some of the earliest articulations of what today we would call “systematic theology” emerged in and through the church councils of the third and fourth centuries as the early church fathers battled various heresies (particularly relating to the person of Jesus Christ), and early creeds were formed as fundamental summaries of Christian doctrine.
The Nicene Creed, as one example, affirms clearly both the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ (doctrines which had both been under attack by pernicious false teachings), as well as the glorious authority of both God the Father and God the Son, from whom God the Holy Spirit proceeds. To put it simply, systematic theology is the careful organization and articulation of the theological truths of Scripture.
Systematic theology uses human categories to summarize what the Bible teaches about all kinds of things. What is God like? What is the nature of sin? What can we know about creation, the church, about human beings, and about the end of the world when Jesus Christ returns? When we engage in systematic theology, we systematize (or organize) our theological understanding of the clear truths and doctrines that God’s word teaches us.
Biblical Theology
Biblical theology is a different way of studying and organizing Scripture’s teaching of core Christian doctrine. Rather than utilizing categories and topical organization, biblical theology involves tracing the development of theological truths throughout the pages of Scripture in conjunction with the development of the biblical narrative.