The Act 3 Biblical Forum presents “Reading the Old Testament as Jesus Did” with Dr. Peter Enns, October 30-31, 2009, at the Holiday Inn, Carol Stream, IL.

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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).

This is Theology 101.

What do you say to her parents? You go to the house, or see them in church, and words fail. The regular clichés surface quickly: “How are you?” or “I am praying for you,” or “Is there anything I can do to help?” Or we just make ourselves scarce.

All these are fine, and not bad in and of themselves (except the “getting scarce” part), but it strikes me that they are somewhat self-centered comments. And this is where I feel a Biblical Theology orientation to a world and life view can have an impact.

Biblical Theology is not a “way” of interpreting Scripture, in our own categories or comfort zones. It is a way, a very biblical way, of making sense of life that challenges us to examine our categories and comfort zones. It reminds us that it is ultimately not about us, but that we are part of something big and wonderful, too wonderful to understand, that we have died, been raised, and ascended into heaven with Christ, and all of our lives are now to be oriented around that union with Christ our Lord and brother.

Like most Christians, I have had a share in suffering, although nothing like this. Still, what has been of most help to me is that wise Christian counsel that, on the one hand, walks with me in my pain—sometimes without saying a word, but is also intent to remind me, even in the pain—perhaps especially in the pain—of who I am.

I want to try that one day, when I find myself in a place to bring the gospel to people walking through hell. I want to say, “Remember who you are.” Or maybe even better, “Remember whose you are.”

That is just a way of saying, “Remember the biblical story, what God did, what he did for you, and the place you now occupy as his child.”

Maybe another way of putting it is that sometimes God’s people need to be reminded of what we sometimes refer to as the “reality” of the gospel. The problem, however, is that “gospel” is sometimes understood in a very truncated way, as “getting saved.” What Biblical Theology does is disabuse us of this view by showing us that the gospel is God’s grand narrative within which we are to view everything we are and do.

To put it another way, we often need to be reminded of the indicative of the gospel, as some theologians put it, or the historia salutis as some others theologians like to put it, in order to put the present suffering in the context of God’s story and our participation in that story. I know the way I just put it sounds somewhat jargony—an occupational hazard, I know. More concerned am I that all this sounds just like another pat answer. But that is not what it is supposed to be. The challenge and beauty of words is to articulate this wonderful narrative that we participate in, in Christ, that is persuasive, warm, loving, encouraging, and by the Spirit’s work, has the power to pick people up off the floor and raise them up to live in light of what they, in Christ, already possess.

I’ll let you know when I get there. I’ll write a book or something.

What is also very important here is not so much what we might say in certain circumstances, but what churches teach their people day in and day out. What I would like to see is God’s people, who through years of preaching and teaching, are so immersed in the grand narrative, who have a Biblical Theological foundation laid already, so that when the rough times come, they are prepared to see their very painful, very real, very horrible suffering not apart from God, but in him. Such a perspective should not lead us to minimize the pain, but should, I think, enable us to look the person squarely in the eye and, without flinching, say “Remember now, especially now, who you are. We will walk this together and remind each other.”

Maybe that is a lot to ask, and I am not there yet. But, too bad. I do feel that this is a model amply demonstrated throughout the NT, and it requires tremendous maturity and wisdom. The degree to which we are not captured by the enormity of this biblical model is an indication of how very far we have to go on our journey to reflect the image of the risen Christ.

At any rate, a young girl is dying. We all have so many chances to minister God’s love to people every day, if we just take the time to look around. And what we say, if given the opportunity, will reflect God’s story to the extent that we ourselves are captured by it.

Biblical Theology (BT) means different things to different people. The idea has a long and honored history, going back at least to the 18th century, and at first was a way of responding to dogmatic structures that did not take into account the historical particularities of Scripture (i.e., a “prooftexting” type of dogmatics). The idea continued to evolve into the 19th century, where it became more of a descriptive historical discipline, i.e., largely devoid of any prescriptive content.

Among evangelicals especially, BT has an assumed prescriptive dimension, but the actual task of BT takes on different flavors. For instance, BT can mean exploring the theological content of individual books of the Bible as opposed to a merely descriptive exegetical exercise (such as can happen in more critical circles). For others, BT takes on a more holistic dimension in attempting to offer some coherent account of larger sections of Scripture, e.g., of the Prophets or Paul.

This last definition has some affinities with the larger tasks of Old Testament Theology and New Testament Theology. Both are worthy disciplines, and, as an OT scholar myself, I am a strong advocate of having a coherent picture of the (diverse) theological landscape of the OT.

But the term “Biblical Theology” as I am using it here is different from what I have described above. My understanding of BT was shaped as an MDiv student at Westminster Theological Seminary in the late 80’s, primarily by Ray Dillard (OT) and Richard Gaffin (NT and ST), and represents the trajectory initiated in Reformed circles by Geehardus Vos.

BT is an attempt to give a coherent, narratival account of Scripture as a whole. That coherence is a function of the climactic moment in God’s redemptive work, i.e., the person and work of Christ.

To put it another way, Scripture is a story moving toward a conclusion. That movement is seen by holding in tension two dimensions of the Bible’s own theological dynamic: (1) The theological contours of the OT, which is itself fluctuating, diverse, developing, and (2) observing how the NT writers “take captive” the OT and bring it to bear on the reality of the crucified and risen Christ.

Both of these dimension are important for the Biblical Theological task, and both are also decidedly historical tasks. In my opinion, an understanding of the theological contours of the OT cannot be undertaken apart from some working knowledge of the various historical contexts of the OT. (And to be clear, I am not suggesting all Christians need to be engaged in such study to understand the heart of Scripture or the gospel!). Further, an adequate understanding of how the NT seizes the OT can only be enriched by understanding the hermeneutical world of the Second Temple period in which the NT writers wrote.

I am not implying that this is all there is to it, nor that these are “objective” tasks. Perhaps in other posts we can enter into some of the subtleties of BT. But for now I just want to lay out issues that I feel are basic to the BT task.

With this in mind, I would like to suggest a brief definition of BT. It is an attempt to offer a coherent picture of Scripture, respecting the historical particularities of any portion while also understanding that portion as a part of a grand story whose conclusion is known to us.

Maybe not the most scintillating definition, but give it a chance to set in.

O.K., so much for defining BT. Now, why do I like it so much? Several reasons

• it tells a story that I want to be a part of,
• it offers a coherence that is flexible enough to handle the diversity that invariably comes with historical particularity,
• it is what the NT teaches (as is seen by how it uses the OT),
• it reminds me of the big picture of Scripture so I don’t get lost in the details,
• it shows me that, along with the diversity, the Bible is one story,
• it focuses on Christ, who is the center of our faith,
• it challenges attempts to control Scripture through prooftexting or arid dogmatics,
  and, for contemporary Christianity, it provides a grand narrative that, in the words of Puddleglum to the Green Witch, “licks the other ones hollow.”

Well, I promised myself I would keep these posts short and readable. Better luck next time. One thing I want to get into, already hinted above, is the triangulation of how the parts of Scripture relate to the whole, and how a study of Scripture in the modern world plays an inevitable role in how we articulate that relationship.

In the meantime I will also try to get another book review or two out (I am currently finishing up John Walton’s very fine Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible [Baker, 2006].) I am also finishing up a response to Paul Helm’s review of I&I, even though it is more than a year and a half old. I like to work slowly.

Merry Christmas…the beginning of the end of God’s story.

My oldest son is a sophomore in a non-sectarian New England liberal arts college. He elected to take an “Old-Testament-as-Literature” type of course, and occasionally we converse about it. What is striking to me is the manner of interaction he describes with his classmates.

Now, what I am about to say will not make the 6:00 news, nor will it be anything other than stating the obvious for most readers. Still, let me make the point, for it is my experience it is not taken as seriously as it should.

The students in my son’s class are, let us say, not really evangelical. Most of them are certainly not Christian in any viable sense of the word. But neither are they “liberal” in any viable sense of the word. In fact, I would neither describe them as “agnostics” or “atheists,” since both terms presume at least some minimal interaction with what they are either unsure about or dead set against.

These young people are, in fact, more than simply “post-Christian.” They seem to be post-religious. They may have some sense of spirituality, perhaps even find themselves on a self-conscious spiritual journey. But the ultimate truth claims of any religion, let alone the gospel, are not on their radar screens.

They are not primed to come to church to seek out spiritual solace, let alone be challenged. The world in which many of us operate, i.e., which religion is best, or more narrowly, which version of Christianity is best, is not so much ridiculed as it is incomprehensible.

This may strike some as a bit reductionistic of an analysis of our current religious climate, but, in my view, it is born out not simply by this anecdote but by virtually every aspect of the world in which I live every day. People just don’t care.

I have heard it said more than once that the contemporary West has more in common with the paganism of 1st century Palestine–where there was no “Christian subculture” to complicate things–than with the America of our parents. I think this is true, and this is the world into which we as Christians are called to speak. This will involve some risk, some discomfort, some moments of “tearing down” and “building up,” both our own views as well as those of others.

I am interested in seeing how I, in my own little micro-universe of irrelevancy, biblical studies, can bring to bear a field that is my life’s work on the world in which I live. I wish to be engaged in such a project so that I can better understand what it means to have a biblical, Christ-centered understanding of myself and world, so that I can do a better job of representing our Lord (i.e., king, master) wherever I happen to be.

I hope this website will contribute toward that end.

More specifically, two of my areas of interest are Biblical Theology and Biblical Studies. As I hope to clarify, Biblical Theology can offer a paradigm for “building up” our understanding of Scripture that has been challenged (“torn down”) by numerous developments in the modern study of Scripture (as well as many other areas).

I am not quite so self-centered as to think that these two interests of mine should be shared by all. Nor do I think they will shift the balance or win the day. Rather, the task calls for biblicists, theologians, pragmatists, historians, etc., to work collaboratively. All I feel I can do is, as I said before, work in my own area, and contribute as best as I can to help myself and others be more fitting bearers of Christ’s image to a world that has lost interest with “religion,” or “the church,” or “Christianity.”

Interactions such as the ones I envision might help us develop models of Scripture and the Christian faith that are firmly rooted in Scripture and that could provide counter-points to their perceived irrelevancy in our world.