Should Christians Keep the Sabbath? | Pillar and Buttress Episode 21

So the first thing I want to bring up, I've got a couple general questions to get us started.

The first one is, how should biblical theology and systematic theology interact with and complement one another? And the reason I'm asking this is because I've noticed something over the years, and that is that for the most part, this is not a universal, but for the most part, the guys I talk to that are staunch 1689ers are systematicians.

Yes.

And the guys who are more in the PC realm, progressive covenantalism, are more of your biblical studies people.

Now, Steve Wellum is an anomaly.

Mm-hmm.

because he is a systematician.

But it does seem to be kind of a characterization.

So this is the question.

One of the questions people differ on this, how should these two disciplines interact with and complement one another?

Yeah, so historically, people have presented this almost like a pyramid.

Like the base of the pyramid is your exegesis, and then your next step up the pyramid is kind of a synthetic pyramid.

putting together of a lot of texts from across the Bible.

And then you kind of keep working up the chain.

You factor in some history at some point through this process.

And then the crown of the whole thing, sort of the capstone, is going to be your systematic theology.

Other people have used a bridge metaphor where it's almost like you do your exegesis and then you bridge to systematic theology by means of biblical theology.

I would prefer to think of these as tools.

The approach of biblical theology or the approach of systematic theology, they're like the tools that I use to work on my lawn.

So if I want to edge along the sidewalk, I'm not going to be using the lawnmower for that.

And when I am using the edger, it's also interesting to observe that I can't mow the grass in the body of the lawn and edge the lawn at the same time with the weed eater.

And then I've got a blower, and then I've got clippers, so I've got different tools for different jobs.

And I think that the job that you want to use biblical theology to do is to understand and embrace the interpretive perspective of the biblical authors And then I think the job that you want to use systematic theology to do is to make sure that you're thinking about the Bible and everything the Bible says, let's say, about God or the Trinity is coherent and complete.

And in that process, you're going to be reconciling statements with one another that may seem to be in conflict, like statements about, like, I mean, for instance, in Hebrews, Hebrews 13, eight, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Hebrews 2, 9 and 10, he learned obedience through what he suffered.