Biblical Theology: What it is, why I love it, and why YOU should love it too

For a long time, if you asked me my favorite passage in the Bible, you would likely have been puzzled with my response. Ever since studying the story of David and Mephibosheth in 2 Samuel 9 with Berg my sophomore year in discipleship, I have loved the narrative. I've given talks on the passage, probably forced every Bible study I've ever led to read it, and gone to it when I have felt emotionally disconnected from the Lord. "Why?" you might ask--after all, it's simply a narrative of David keeping his promise to Jonathan to continue to show favor to his family. In response to that I would say, "True. But it's also a BEAUTIFUL picture of God loving, accepting, and adopting as a child someone who serves no use to him, and in fact is someone who probably deserves no better than death."

Little did I know it, but this was my first real encounter with biblical theology.

Upon hearing about my love for this narrative, and several similar narratives, Chris Burton recommended the book, According to Plan: An Introductory Biblical Theology. In this book, the author Graeme Goldsworthy says that biblical theology "enables us to relate any Bible story to the whole message of the Bible, and therefore to ourselves." This was incredibly intriguing to me, because this was what I was doing when I was looking at the passage on David and Mephibosheth. I saw David as a type of Christ, as we're often taught that he is, and was able to relate what he was doing to what God has done for us in Christ. But this could be done for any story in the Bible?? What did he even mean by that?? Well, it turns out, yeah, it absolutely can, and he means we can relate the ultimate story of God sending his son Jesus to die for our sins on the cross to Scripture just about anywhere we look--and it has SO enriched my reading of Scripture over the past year.

Here's why I love it: the Bible is so rich, and so beyond the surface reading that we can often give it--throughout all of history God has been showing us what would happen through Christ in so many different ways and through so many different people, through the laws and through narrative and through prophecy. As I have read the Bible over the past year or so, and especially lately, I have just been blown away by the richness of Scripture, and how so much of it points to, in some way, the good news of Christ's death on the cross for our sins.

Simply put, there are so many elements of the gospel in so many of the biblical narratives: Moses was called by God to represent him before the enslaved people of Israel in Egypt. He led the Israelites out of slavery and toward the promised land. Jesus is the greater Moses because he has led all people out of the slavery of sin and death and toward the promised land of life in Him, and never doubted the Word of God along the way.

David was but a humble shepherd tending his flock for his family when Israel's prophet called him to be king. He then went to battle against Goliath for all of Israel, humbly defeating a foreign ruler and oppressor when the entire nation of Israel was paralyzed in fear and even its king was afraid to fight. He defeated Goliath in an unconventional, humble way, and saved the nation of Israel. Jesus is the greater David because he defeats an even greater enemy on behalf of his people, also in the incredibly humble and unconventional way of dying on a cross to destroy death and saves a nation and is King over.

Naaman was a great ruler of Assyria, but he had leprosy--after speaking with Elisha, the prophet and representative of God, who told him to wash himself in the Jordan seven times and he would be healed, he went away angry, thinking that this way was foolish, until his servants convinced him to go back and do what the prophet said. Naaman expected to have to do great things to earn his cure, but all he really had to do was humble himself to the act of bathing seven times in the Jordan out of faith that God would really do what Elisha said He would do. This relates to the gospel because we, like Naaman, have a terrible disease in sin and our natural response is to feel that we need to earn our way back to God--we see this as true through so many conversations we have with people who talk about living a "good life", even people brought up in a solid church--maybe needing to do something GREAT to be healed of our sin, but the reality is that we need to put our faith in God that HE will heal us, in his own way, through the work of Christ on the cross, and to humble ourselves and go before him knowing that only he can heal us. (2 Kings 5)

Even the words of Christ point to this--In Luke 6:27-36, Jesus talks about loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us. This is completely unnatural, and there is no person who has ever done this well, particularly on a heart level, except for Jesus. We get upset when people slight us only lightly, like with a sarcastic comment, or an elbow in a basketball game--but Christ endured the cross on behalf of sinners who continually rebelled against him. He loved his enemies (Romans 5:8) by dying on the cross for us while we were still sinners. He prayed for the people who were killing him as he was on the cross! Though we can't love our enemies perfectly, there is one who has done this--Christ!

As I have read Scripture after reading "According to Plan" and listening to Tim Keller talk about Christ-centered preaching, more of these continue to pop out at me, wherever I am reading in the text of the Bible, and it has been an incredible encouragement and enriching of my reading of the Word. I think it would do everyone well to go into a passage looking to ask the question: "How does this relate to the gospel and what Christ has done in my life?" This question helps me relate well to any passage in the Word and has helped me to look for the gospel in whatever I'm reading. What a sweet encouragement that God has been preparing us for the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the Old Testament and that the whole Bible points to him!

The gospel needs to be at the center of our lives, as it is truly the center of Scripture, and reading the Bible in this way helps me to continually focus on what Christ has done for us, and the tremendous significance of that event for the world.

I'd love any comments and other insight you guys might have on this.