Biblical Theology
WHAT IS BIBLICAL THEOLOGY?
Biblical Theology is a way of reading the Bible in light of the full context of the scriptures as a narrative whole with each individual part ultimately pointing to the gospel of Jesus Christ. This means that while reading a passage of scripture we don’t just take it at face value through the lens of our own modern culture which is much different than that of the author and audience of the biblical text. We also don’t interpret a scripture passage without being careful to read not only the passages before and after it but the whole book it’s contained in and where it fits in the overall biblical timeline.Biblical theology uses the Bible as a whole to help you understand your immediate passage, often leveraging ways in which the New Testament authors interpreted the Old Testament. Likewise keeping the whole of the Old Testament in mind while studying or preaching the New Testament will provide you with a vast well of connections that point toward what you read in the New Testament. Instead of only reading one passage of scripture biblical theology has you zoom out to view the Bible as a whole and lets that knowledge inform your immediate passage. Zooming out should also bring to light that all of scripture leads to Jesus.
WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR EXPOSITIONAL PREACHING?
Biblical theology guards against proof-texting and moralism in preaching. To avoid proof-texting a pastor should never use the Bible to say what he wants to but instead he should preach what a bible passage says. He should preach not only what it says to its intended audience but also, using Biblical Theology, should preach it in the context of the whole story of the Bible. Instead of coming to the text with a preconceived meaning we should derive our meaning for our preaching from the text itself.Biblical theology also stops preaching from being solely zoomed in on a passage and only teaching on the successes or failures of people in the Bible. Instead of preaching moralism in this way we want to zoom out and show how the passage of scripture points to Jesus. Jesus should be exalted, not a person in the Bible.
Having a knowledge of the whole story of the Bible also protects preaching from skipping over parts that are unfamiliar. Jesus said in John 5:39 "it is they (the scriptures) that bear witness about me," so when preaching about Jesus from the Old Testament we are being faithful to Jesus's interpretation of it.
WHAT ARE PRACTICAL WAYS TO INCORPORATE BIBLICAL THEOLOGY IN AN EXPOSITORY SERMON?
Biblical theology helps an expositional sermon by clarifying the Bible's main purpose. A sermon should always contain the main point of the Bible which is the gospel of Jesus. Biblical theology helps guard and guide the church by helping sermons to be prepared by a preacher reading scripture rightly knowing where each book of the Bible fits into the overarching narrative. Understanding the whole bible helps clarify who Jesus is and what his gospel is. This is important as it should be in every sermon.Biblical theology helps us preach expository sermons that teach evangelism as starting with God and his creation to see what's wrong with the world with the introduction of sin. Biblical Theology helps us to keep Christ as the main thing when we read and understand the Bible which is the way Jesus said we should in John 5:39. Missing the main point of the Bible produces false gospels and false churches. Biblical theology helps guard against bad interpretations of the Bible which in turn produces bad sermons. When each part of the Bible is not seen as relating to the whole and to Jesus then interpretation suffers.
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