Is it possible that biblical theology can provide a way of escape from the inherited dangers of “systematic theology”? Can we find here that sense of freedom, of openness to new approaches to the Bible as the Scriptures are brought into contact and confrontation with the world’s diverse cultural and social contexts? Is “systematic theology” so captive to the encumbrances of Western categories and methodologies that we must now, for the sake of a truly emic theology, discontinue its use or look to biblical theology to reinforce its strengths and minimize its weaknesses? Can we use “biblical theology” “to designate the comprehensive statement of what Scripture teaches (dogmatics), always insuring that its topical divisions remain sufficiently broad and flexible to accommodate the results of the redemptive-historically regulated exegesis on which it is based” [Richard B. Gaffin, Jr. "Systematic Theology and Biblical Theology," The New Testament Student and Theology, John H, Skilton, ed. (Presbyterian and Reformed, 1976), 49] and, we would add, to reflect the varieties of the world’s contextual agendas? Is it possible that biblical theology can return us to a methodology more in keeping with the organic, historical character of special revelation itself?

Such a biblical theology will not demand formulations expressed only in the categories and images of the Bible itself; as we have said, it clearly affirms the place and role of the contemporary communicator. From a redemptive-historical perspective the interpreter affirms not only that he or she stands in the same continuum of the presence of the kingdom as, for example, the apostle Paul; the interpreter also affirms that, just as biblical theology demands fullest justice to the cultural context of redemptive history, so the commentator too must look to his or her own situational content with care. Our contemporary setting is part of that flow of redemptive history that is addressed by the Scripture. (EWCW, pp. 227-28).

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