Let's look first at the goal of Old Testament biblical theology. This is the handout here. We want to know why we're taking this class, what we're doing ultimately, at least what's in my mind. for why I'm teaching this class, why I think this class is important, why I think you should think this class is important. So I wrote down this goal. And I want you to refer to it often. You can hold me accountable to this goal. This is a goal that we want to seek to fulfill. It's the ultimate purpose of this class. And so I'm going to read it to you. And I've given you a copy that you can look at. But when we're looking at this Old Testament biblical theology, Our purpose, our goal, is to know the Holy Scriptures better so that through this inspired self-revelation of God, we might know him better as our heavenly Father and kind King in Jesus Christ, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, to the glory of the Triune God, and for the good of his church and the world. All right? So that's why we're doing this class. There's a couple of things I want to reveal about my presuppositions or biases that are, I believe, biblical biases that are important to make known to you. I believe the scriptures are the inspired, inerrant Word of God. And that's why I put there, particularly in this, that they're inspired and they are the self-revelation of God. And as we will continue, the self-revelation of God in history, in real time and space, We'll look more at that perhaps in next class when we talk about diversity, but we'll touch on it today. I also want you to have a Trinitarian understanding of our God as He's revealed Himself. I want you to know Him as Father. I want you to think about when you go to the Scriptures that you're going to the Scriptures to learn Him, to know Him better as Father and King. as one who is your beloved Father and who is also your awesome Lord. Beloved Father, awesome Lord. So you see that in this mission statement or goal. And then we ultimately rely on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He is the inner teacher. He's the one whom we seek to help us with our illumination of the scriptures, with our understanding of them, okay? He's the one who ultimately helps us to understand and the one who helps us to ultimately live in service to our Father and King. And the reason for this class is ultimately for the glory of God and the good of His church and the world. As you know more about the Word, you know more about God. And so that's why this goal is here, so that we can continue to keep that as our focus. Let me say it in a different way. We want to remember that all Bible knowledge is not an end. Bible knowledge is a means to the end of knowing God in Christ by the Holy Spirit better. So it's a covenantal relationship you're wanting to establish, reestablish, or continue to enjoy and to enjoy it more. And so the scriptures are not just an end in themselves to gain knowledge. Knowledge puffs up. Knowledge can be for pride. Knowledge can be just to show our intellect to others or to know the Bible better than someone else. But what we want is to know God in Christ. And so it's a covenantal relation that we're seeking in our understanding of the Word of God. The Word of God is the means God's given to know Him better by the Spirit. Okay? All right. That's what we want to do. Now, did everyone just so... don't want to take time for this. Did most of you get to read the letter to the class, even if you didn't respond to me? Did you read the letter to the class of expectations and goals, that sort of thing? If you didn't do that, I'm not going to go over it now, but would you make sure you read that? It was sent out, I don't know, a few days ago. And I didn't get a response from everyone, but that's OK. Just if you would be kind enough to read that, that would be good. And know what some of the expectations are. All right. So let's read some scripture, all right? One of the things about the expectation that I speak of is there are two big ones. And one is always come prayerfully prepared, as best as you can, that we're going to always approach scripture with prayer. And number two, try to always bring your Bibles, because this is a book. This is a class about the Bible. It's a class about the Old Testament. collection of books that God's given us through the inspiration of the Spirit. All right, we're going to read Ephesians 1, portions of that, then I'm going to pray, and then we're going to dive right in. How about that? Sound good? All right. So in Ephesians 1, we ask God for his purpose. And we see here in verses 3 and 4 of Ephesians 1 that God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He's chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world. He goes on to praise the Lord. In verse 7 particularly, verses 7 through 10, I'll read to you, that I think are helpful in understanding the biblical theology class, particularly in the Old Testament. Verse 7, in Him, in Christ, we have redemption through His blood. the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time to unite all things in Christ, or in him, things in heaven and things in earth. The ultimate purpose of God's self-revelation that's inspired by the Holy Spirit is for the glory of God, for the redemption of his people, and for the purpose of ultimately glorifying the Son, of uniting in the Son, heaven and earth, to unite all of his people and all things in heaven and earth in a blessed state forever and ever. Amen. So, ultimately, the purpose of the Holy Scriptures, the purpose is to reveal Jesus Christ, as we'll look at today. All right, let's pray. Our Father and our God, we're grateful for your being, your character, that you are good and that you are merciful, that you are just, that you are true. We thank you that you are faithful and that you are trustworthy. We thank you that you are self-existent and you're the great creator of all things visible and invisible. We praise you that you're also a redeemer who has sent your beloved son to redeem your people through his precious blood and to unite a people in him together for all eternity in a new heavens and a new earth. That's your purpose. That's your goal of revealing yourself, of creating even. And we thank you. We thank you that we're a part of that. We thank you for this class. We thank you for the students. We thank you for the teachers. We thank you for this first day of school for many of us, this first start of a new month or a new school time. We pray, Lord, that you would bless us with all that we need in Christ by His Holy Spirit. Send forth your Spirit to fill us, empty us of ourselves, help us to bring glory to you, help us to lift up your name, help us to be those who understand you as our Father and knows that great love and acceptance that you have granted to us in Christ as a Father, but also to know you as an awesome, kind King, as our Lord and Master. Help us both to love you and to obey you to love and serve you and we give you ourselves today for we're not our own We've been bought with a price and so let us glorify you in our bodies Give us help with our minds our hearts our ears to hear so that by your Holy Spirit. We might better understand your word in Jesus If you'll grab the handout the drama of redemption is a class called the drama of redemption because the Bible is a story primarily It's a story. It's a drama. It's an unfolding drama, just as any good story is. It unfolds. It's progressive. You come to understand it as you go through the chapters until you get to the end. And so the name of the course is From Chaos to the Dawn of New Creation. So we're seeking an overview of the Old Testament from the time of the chaos that God said, let there be light over and created all things by the word of his power up to the dawn of the new creation, up to the New Testament books and the fullness of the time. So it's what we might call everything from the time of the promise to the time of the fulfillment. And as you read the scriptures, I just want to invite you to think about these things On this first page that says the drama redemption, this is one of your handouts, I want you to think about first and foremost the importance of prayer as you seek God's holy word. It's written by the Holy Spirit ultimately, and he is the primary ultimate author of the scriptures, and he is also our teacher who graciously helps us to understand, okay? And he does this because of the finished work of Christ. The Lord Jesus has secured the Holy Spirit, the greatest gift that God could give His people is the Holy Spirit. So pray for the Holy Spirit's help. Number two, outline. When you're going through the books that you're reading or rereading during the time of the class, try to outline the books. And it doesn't have to be complicated here. Very simple. Just outline. Genesis comes to mind. And when you think of outlining Genesis, it's quite simple, actually. It'd be chapters 1 through 11 and chapters 12 through 50. And you can do more complex things with that. But I don't want to put too much work on you. I want to teach you, by God's grace, that when you hear Genesis, you might say, there are two main parts. And then however you want to break that down, or however it's revealed, and you're breaking that down, that's great. But so that you'll hear in your mind a theme, a primary point of Genesis, why Moses wrote it under the inspiration of the Spirit, and how it's broken down into two parts, ultimately. And that's the purpose of this. So, I say four to five points, but it could be two. So outline, and this will help you to understand. Next week, I'm actually going to have a very, I hope, helpful, something useful as a practical way of showing you how to do this on little index cards. So your first bit of homework is this. You ready? index cards next time with you, okay? We're not going to go through all 25, but I want to show you what each index card you can do with each book of the Bible we're going to look at. Now, there's 39 books in the Bible, I realize that, of the Old Testament, but we're going to only need about 25, okay? I'll get to that when we get there, okay? So, bring 25 index cards. I'm going to go over with you, step-by-step, how to lay out something that will help you in memorization for the rest of your life. Because again, the reason why we're studying these things is so we'll get them so that we'll know the Triune God better in our relationship with him. And here are some questions to ask. These are friendly questions that you can ask and use for the rest of your life. This is on your outline at the bottom, number three, ask. Ask the following questions and try to briefly answer these in a journal or on these index cards I'm going to show you about. But you're trying to ask, what is the main theme of the book in one to two sentences? You can even do it in one. I'm going to sketch this now and then more fully look at this with you next week. This is just to get us into introductory things to think about as you're studying in the next week or so. Ask then how God the Father is particularly revealed. Ask then how the Son of God or Christ is revealed. And as we go through this class, you'll learn how to see the Son in promise or in type, that sort of thing that we're going to look at. or in the person, a pre-incarnate Christ in that passage, you want to consider those things. The third is how is the Holy Spirit revealed? And so you're working with a triune understanding of our God and seeking to find the ministry and person of each person of the triune God as you're going through each book. I find this to be very helpful, and I think you will as well. Then we'll ask, what is the type or genre of the book? And we'll look at genre more specifically next week when we look at the diversity of scripture. But let me say that genre is just simply a reading strategy. It's to know how to read the book. Is it a story? Then read it like a story. Is it a poem? Then read it like a poem. Expect imagery, if it's a poem. Expect, if it's a story, that there are going to be sentences, and there's going to be, you know, prepositional truth, that sort of thing. So we'll talk about genre next week, Lord willing. Find any echoes. What you're looking for in a book are repetitions of words, repetitions of themes. That's something that's quite helpful. How is man revealed? Ultimately, you're learning about God and his self-revelation in the scriptures, but you're also remembering the scripture is a mirror for you, for us, to see how you're revealed, how mankind is revealed in the passage. So how is sin highlighted? One of my teachers, or several of my teachers, used to use this very helpful FCF to remember that there's a fall in condition focus. A fall in condition focus, when you're looking at the Bible, and you're looking at what is the fall in condition focus being addressed, what is the particular sin, it leads you directly to an application. Very helpful, isn't it? All right. How is the end or goal of the story revealed in this book? And we will talk about that in a moment, Lord willing. How then should I live? How should I then live based on the truth that has been revealed here? How can I live? And those last two questions are connected very, very well because the first one will show you the fallen condition focus and what's being addressed about the sinfulness of mankind. It might be the implications of Abraham taking Ishmael rather than waiting on God's promise. And you're seeing in that the tendency for us, even as people of faith, to run ahead of God, okay? There's a fall in condition focus, and we'll talk more about that. And in that fall in condition focus, how can that then help you to live better, knowing that ultimately, God answered Abraham's prayers and kept his promises, and God is a faithful God, all right? So those are just some things by way of introduction to interpretation that we want to think about. Ultimately, when you're doing interpretation, there are just three very easy steps. And I told you that some of you will find this to be extremely elementary, and some of you might find this to be new. But however you find it, it's always good for me to review. I think it's good for all of us. But remember, think about interpretation. Think about the questions that we went over. But think about just three easy steps. Your observation. your observation, you're just observing what's there, remembering prayerfully that it's the Holy Spirit who has written this and the Holy Spirit who is teaching you ultimately. So observe with the Holy Spirit. The second step is interpretation. That's when, you know, if observation is what do you see or what's there, interpretation is what does it mean? What does it mean? And then application. You never want to forget the application part. And beloved, I got to say something about application, application is not necessarily 10 steps to a better Christian life, and it's not man centered. People get confused by that. They can listen to a sermon or a teaching. It's all about the glory and beauty of Christ. And they say, where was the application? Beloved, that is the application. You're to meditate on the glory and beauty of Christ. That's the whole Bible, is the display of the glory and beauty of Christ. So application is, how do I live that out? And sure, someone can take the time to say, OK, well, here's 10 ways to maybe live that out. But that is ultimately up to you and the Holy Spirit. That is how the Holy Spirit then says, you know, I am looking at the things of the world too much when I should be looking at beholding the great things of God in Christ. You know, I'm trusting in myself when I've got a Savior who loves me so. That's application. And that can come across in pulpit or in lectern. But it's most important to understand application is about the person and work of Christ. You'll find that all through Scripture. That all through Scripture, the purpose of God's self-revelation is to point to Jesus Christ. And if you get that, you're on the way to your personal application. So that's a very basic way, OIA, observation, interpretation, application. Because when you're doing the work of Old Testament biblical theology, when you're going down to look in the scriptures at all, you are necessarily doing the work of interpretation. And this is not just the work of those professionals or those who are pastors or teachers, professors. This is the work of the whole church. So we're all called to search the scriptures. Remember in Acts, the Bereans were all called to hear what Paul had said and compare that with the holy scriptures they had, which were their Old Testament. There's three cycles of the class. Is that on your last page? I believe it is. Maybe not. Did I give you? Oh, yes. Yes. On your second page of the class, you may have noticed this, but the first two classes, this is the one that begins at the top, Fall 2018. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this. The first two classes are introductory. The unity of scripture today, the diversity of scripture next week. And then we're going to look, the first cycle that we're going to go through, you notice, goes through November 2nd. That first cycle is what we'd call theological or topical. So we're going to do a theological, topical study of the Old Testament. We're going to look at the primary highlights of the theology or topics revealed. The second, if you notice, November 9th through December 7th or November 30th, actually, we're going to look at themes. All right, so that's the second cycle. We're going to look at themes. And then the last cycle, January 11th through the end, through April 19th or so, through the end of April. we're going to look at canon, or what would be just called a survey, like more of a survey book, looking at particular dates and overviews, and interacting more fully with ancient Near Eastern myths and religions. Part of my purpose in teaching the class throughout will be to interact with ancient Near Eastern myths and religions. Because I believe that that is why a lot of the scripture has been inspired and written Genesis 1 as we'll look at when we get there is in many ways not just a it's not merely a self-revelation of God the one true God and how things began because of the grace and the power of this one true God, but it's also a polemic against the ancient Near Eastern myths and religions that were part of Israel's broader larger culture And so as we go through, we're going to look at that together. So those are the three cycles of the class. Let's write them down so we can see what we're doing here. So the first is theological, topical, all right? So topical, theological. The second is thematic, persons, places, and things. The third is canon, or like a survey, all right? So those are the three cycles, the three cycles. the three cycles. All right. Well, let's get our Bibles out. We're going to look at a few things now. We're now moving to this place where we're going to look at what is biblical theology, OK? And biblical theology means more than just the theology we draw out of Scripture. It does mean that, but I hope it will mean more to you as we go on. But before we do that, let's read a few scriptures that hopefully will focus us on the unity of Scripture. So what we're going to do right now is we're going to open our Bibles to Luke 24, and we're going to consider the larger question, what is biblical theology, while looking at particularly the unity of Scripture. In Luke 24, beginning in verse 24, this is the road to Emmaus. This is post-resurrection appearance of Jesus Christ before his ascension into heaven. These are the 40 days he spent revealing himself further to his disciples and preparing them for the advent of the Holy Spirit. So they were being prepared for his enthronement at God's right hand and the advent, the coming of the Holy Spirit to be with them in a special way. And he says this in chapter 24, verse 24, some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see. And he said to them, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary? that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory. And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." So what we want to say, first and foremost, and we're going to unpack this for the rest of this class, is that the primary The unity of Scripture is a unity of character. It's about the person and work of Jesus Christ. And again, we're going to unpack this more and more as we study. But the Lord Jesus is telling, he's admonishing, even rebuking them for not understanding their Old Testaments. And I want you to note that what he's calling the Holy Scriptures, there have yet to be written the canon of 27 inspired books we call the New Testament. So when the Holy Scriptures are used in the New Testament, particularly in this place in the New Testament, we're talking about the Old Testament. What Jesus is saying is that beginning with Moses, that is, beginning with creation, beginning with Genesis, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. So just the unity of Scripture, the drama of Scripture is about the person and work of Jesus Christ, and the Old Testament then is an unfinished book. It's a book or books that are inspired by God without an ending, that await a final chapter or a final book to the story. And so Jesus is saying, ultimately, I am the purpose and I am the ending. I am the meaning. of the whole story. That goes back, doesn't it, to the OIA. The application is all about finding Christ first and then application. We're going to look at that together. So in any application, you want to glorify and worship Christ first when you find him in the Old Testament. And then you want to find out what that means for you today. But always find Christ first. Where is he at? And again, that's one of the purposes of the class, right? Look down further. When Jesus says in verse 44, this is an important verse that we will return to. Verses 44 and 45. Let's do that together. In verse 44, Jesus is appearing to his disciples. He's asking if they have anything to eat. It's a wonderful place because he's in his glorified body, and he's showing that even a heavenly body is a hungry body that's made for food and enjoyment. So it's wonderful to see a little taste of heaven. We're going to eat, beloved. We're going to eat. We're going to eat the best stuff. Maybe it won't make us fat either, but anyway, verses 44, he says, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Everything written about me. Now, if it was anything other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that would be the height of arrogance. Can you imagine if I came and told you everything in the Old Testament about me? Now, some people live like that, okay? And sometimes we even, uh-oh, we use our application like that. All right, come on. It's about you. So let's find out what that application is. Give it to me quick or I'm going to turn you off. That's not right. You're looking for Jesus because it's about Him. I want to note a few things here. The unity that we're talking about when we're talking about biblical theology, and we're going to get to a definition in a moment, is a unity of purpose. So the unity of Scripture, the Old Testament is to have the purpose of revealing Christ Jesus. In fact, Jesus gives us our interpretation right there in Luke 24, very important passage. Those are very important verses to understand interpretation. He tells them that starting with Moses and the prophets and the writings of the Psalms, he told them everything about himself. Everything had to be fulfilled that was written about him. All right, now again. Don't get ahead. That's one of the points of the whole class is to get this truth and then unpack it for the rest of the class. So the second is a unity of story or drama. Jesus is saying that while there's a diversity that we're going to look at next week, ultimately the story is the same. The drama of redemption is about Jesus Christ from beginning to end, from Genesis to the New Testament through Revelation. All right. And then, finally, the unity of author, because the author ultimately is the Holy Spirit. And I would give you two more scriptures. We'll look up John 5 in a second, but 2 Timothy 3.16 just says that all scripture is God-breathed, right? And it's given for correction, for rebuke, for encouragement, for training in righteousness so that the man God the person of God would be thoroughly equipped for every good work and so he's saying there that the scriptures the holy scriptures He's speaking there Primarily of the Old Testament that he had before him saying in the Old Testament that the holy scriptures now the New Testament is inspired to will do that next year Lord willing, but the the the the primary author of that we want to understand about unity when we're looking at biblical theology is the primary author is the Holy Spirit, because all scripture is God-breathed out. And so the Spirit not only authors, ultimately, through real men that we'll look at, Lord willing, next week. but he illuminates our understanding. In fact, it's interesting that in this passage, notice in verse 45, after Jesus says this in Luke 24-44, he says, everything written about me and the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled, verse 45, then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. So he gave them helped by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was on the son in his fullness at the time. The son would pour out his spirit on his church on Pentecost and give the church, the illuminator, the chief teacher, interpreter, the Holy Spirit, to look at the scriptures and learn. All right. So I want you to notice Three things, or not three things, I want you to notice something about this, what he says, and we're going to follow this, and we're going to look at this more next week, but just to say it now. I said there's one story or drama, right? It's true, all right? But it's in four volumes. Now, if you were here for Calvin, some of you said, wow, I can't believe that the Lord helped me to read a book that was over 1,500 pages. That's a big deal. That's 17 chapters of a lot of theological text, right? That's a lot. One book, 17 chapters, that's a lot. All right? If you're here for the Westminster Confession of Faith, that was 33 chapters of a lot of good theology, right? Well, what our task is for this class is our 39 books. That's a lot. That's a lot to try to understand and learn. It's going to take a lifetime. That's exactly the point. It's going to take eternity to understand all of it, but we're going to try our best to skim, sketch the surface. But there are 39 books, but here's where I think there's help. If you take the 39 books, you may think of the way that you've memorized the books of the Bible, and that's wonderful. But here might be a simpler way. Jesus organized the Old Testament in this way. You ready? When Jesus says, everything written about me, he says that everything written about me in these three volumes, Moses, I'll translate that in a second. Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms are writings. Psalms are one thing standing for all the writings because the Psalms start the section known as the writings. So in Jesus' mind, the Old Testament is organized into three volumes, Torah, or Moses. And Torah doesn't mean strictly law. Torah includes law. But Torah, a better definition or a better translation of Torah is instruction. It just means instruction. Instruction. So instruction. So when you hear That instruction, of course, includes law, but there's different genres even in Torah. So in Moses, the prophets and then the Psalms and the writings. And next week, we'll look at this more. So what that means is the fourth volume is the New Testament. And what you've got here is one unity, one story, one drama of redemption in four volumes. So what happens on the road to Emmaus is Jesus is basically saying, go back and reread the three volumes that you already have in your heart and your mind. How slow to believe what they've written, the prophets, the writings. The Psalms start the writings in the Hebrew scriptures. And so Jesus says, then, showing us, by implication, that there's still a final volume to be written. And that's the New Testament. And that's what gives us the very particular knowledge that all three of these volumes are about Jesus Christ. All right? Now, next week, we're going to do something fun. All right? Got to have a preview, right? But next week, we're going to look at how Jesus organized his Bible. And I'm going to encourage you, based on Jesus's organization of his Bible and his understanding of the organization of the Bible, I'm going to encourage you to memorize that. And I'm actually going to use Luke 24, 44 as our paradigm or pattern for doing this class. If you've looked on the outline, you'll see that I have a section called Law or Torah on the outline. You see that I have a section, then you see the look particularly at starting in January 11th. You see that? There's the Pentateuch, and then the prophets, and then the writings. And so we're going to look at it in the organization that Jesus would have had it, and I'll talk to you more about that next week. What's the advantage of doing that? If it was Jesus' organization, then it's a good thing, all right? Canon, the arrangement of the canon is not an inspired thing, all right? So it's good to think about it, first of all, but what I find, without contrasting it with the canon we have, what we call the Protestant canon in our Bibles, is what I find is helpful about that organization is it emphasizes the storyline of Scripture, okay, which I'll share with you next week, okay? So there's a coming soon. But just to make clear that when we're talking about these three volumes, they're not complete without the New Testament. And Jesus is giving us this truth by implication. So what we're talking about, the unity, The organization of the Bible up to Jesus's time, all of those things have to do with doing and understanding and doing biblical theology. So let's do that now, OK? Let's take a view. Oh, I told you I'd read from John 5. Let me do that real quick. John 5, 39 and 40 is a fantastic scripture to supplement. By the way, all of your memory scriptures that I've given you up through January are scriptures that will stress the unity. that stress the unity of the holy scriptures, the unity of the story, the author, the person and character of Jesus, that sort of thing. OK. All right. So in John five, he's talking to the Pharisees and in verse thirty nine, he says, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life. You see, beloved, these were those who thought the scriptures were the end. That's what leads to legalism, is just merely looking at the scriptures as an end in themselves, to get knowledge of God. But it's not a relationship, or it's not a knowledge that's based on a relationship. And so what they would do is they search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life. So they thought that just by going through the scriptures, they were necessarily encountering God. But it's they that bear witness about me. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. So someone can have great knowledge of the scriptures. The Pharisees are living, you know, examples of this and not have, not see them as means through which we have a deeper relationship with the covenantal Lord, with God. Okay. And so it's very important to emphasize that, but it's also important to emphasize that what did he say, but that scriptures were to find Christ. That the whole point of the Scriptures was that you might not merely find eternal life in the Scriptures, but you'll find Christ, and through Him, find eternal life. So he's saying that the chief goal of the Scripture, again, to emphasize what we've talked about, the unity of Scripture, is that they bear witness about Jesus. They bear witness about Jesus being the one who gives eternal life to all who believe. All right. Biblical theology is a definition. Are you ready? Let's do it. All right, we're going to change gears. Okay, so biblical theology is a definition in light of what we've talked about, about the unity. Continue as you're memorizing and meditating on the Scripture, the memory verses, to see how often you see that that unity of purpose, the unity of character, the unity of the story, that sort of thing. All right. So biblical theology, what is it? The one teacher, and I'll just say this, and if you want to know the teachers, they're for further reading, or you can ask me particularly who wrote that. That's interesting. I'm just going to read right now to tell you. One very, very helpful teacher said that what we find in the New Testament is a Christ-taught spirit-inspired biblical interpretation, and that is biblical theology. A spirit-inspired, a Christ-focused, spirit-inspired biblical interpretation. So, biblical theology is, again, looking for Christ, knowing the unity, and interpreting the Bible in that way. It's a spirit-inspired biblical interpretation. The reason why the professor is saying it this way is just what we read in Luke, just what I tried to prove to you from Luke 24 and John, is that it's Jesus' words himself to tell you, this is how you understand the Scriptures. This is how you understand your Old Testaments. And that's what we call biblical theology. So then we're going to look at a couple of other definitions. One definition was that it's a theological interpretation of Scripture in and for the church, because it always ends in application. So you note again that there's a consistency here in both the professors, both of them faithful biblical scholars, are saying that it's another way of interpreting Scripture. So when you're talking about biblical theology, you're talking about interpretation of Scripture. It proceeds with a sensitivity to the history and the literature of the Bible's teaching about God. And it always has a Christ-centered focus. So the two things you can remember there is another professor testifies to the fact that there's a Christ-centered focus, and it's a theological interpretation. It's looking for Christ. In other words, let's say it like this. It's like the fun game, where's Waldo? Or you have the pictures where you're looking for certain things in the picture. It says, find the fan in the room, the green room, and find the green fan, the dark green fan in the green room. What you're doing is you're looking for Jesus in every passage. And so when you see David, for instance, in the books of Samuel, you are not looking first to David's faith or even his person. You're wanting to look through David to see how as king he points you to Jesus Christ. And that's just one example. But we'll talk about those kind of things more. Another definition was that biblical theology is to study the Bible and all reality with Jesus Christ as the center. So you notice this from another scholar. The point is to study the Bible. So it's interpretation, right? And it's also what? to focus on Christ. So it's about finding Christ in the story. So again, another writer said biblical theology is to study the Bible, recognizing Christ and his kingdom at the center. So recognizing Christ and his kingdom at the center. So again, it's about Christ. Graham Goldsworthy, the book you're reading, that's quite helpful. And it's a wonderful introductory book. All of Graham Goldsworthy's books are really helpful in understanding how to see the big picture of Jesus Christ throughout the Bible. He's a good teacher. He says two things about biblical theology. He says, biblical theology is the study of the unity of the message of the Bible. So we have theological interpretation, we have Christ-centered interpretation, and we have unity, which we've already established biblically. So it's about unity. It's about recognizing the unity of scripture. Now, again, Next week's talk is on diversity, right? So there is a diversity that we'll look at, but it's primarily about seeing the unity. And then he says, biblical theology is a means of looking at one particular event in relation to the total picture. So one particular event, David versus Goliath, as a total picture. And so let's do that for a moment. Let's just plug that in. David meets Goliath is not about how we go out and fight our giants first and foremost. That will get we'll get to that application. But it's first and foremost about God's beloved champion, a man after God's own heart, the shepherd anointed one from Bethlehem who stands on behalf of Israel and defeats the dragon giant. in place, in the stead of his people. That's finding Jesus in the story, and we'll talk more about that. But it's seeing that event, that that's the giant event, is an event that has to be interpreted as, whoa, we look back, we look forward, that's the serpent, that's the dragon behind them. The giant's an awful giant that's the seed of the serpent. And he becomes more fully revealed as the dragon in Revelation 12. So you're looking back, you're looking forward. Well, let me do it now. I've always found this is very helpful. If it's useful, use it. When you're looking at the Bible, what you're doing in talking about biblical theology is, you ready? You look circumspectly where you are, then you look retrospectively where you've been, and then you look prospectively where you're going. That's what you do. Circumspect where you are, understand the passage in its historical context, then look back where you've been, what's been revealed so far in redemptive history, and then look forward and upward to what it's pointing to in Jesus Christ. Because you've got the answer key. With Luke 24, you've got the answer key to find all the scripture. But do it in that order, because in that order, you'll find Christ, and then you'll find the application that you should that should encourage your soul. All right. So when we're talking about biblical theology, sometimes it's nice to have a contrast, to say what it's not. And we know other disciplines in theology. So let's talk about other theological disciplines real quick and compare them. So what's the difference, for instance, between biblical theology and exegetical theology, or biblical theology and systematic theology? OK, let's do that. Exegetical theology is just simple, careful reading. It's drawing out from Scripture. It's being circumspect, like I just said. It's just looking at the context, understanding grammar, understanding the history to the best of your ability, understanding the culture at that point, right? Grammatico-historical, right? You've heard that term, maybe? So it just means looking at grammar. It means remembering one word as part of a sentence, and a sentence part of a paragraph, and a paragraph part of a chapter, and a chapter part of the whole book and then the whole book part of the whole story. So it's going from there out and back in. That's circumspect. Look around, look around, look around. That's exegesis. And so exegesis is connected to biblical theology because you have to start there. But exegetical theology are those who will find, draw out the truth. Biblical theology then shows you that truth in the big picture. Okay? So there's the relationship. You ready? So exegetical theology are people who know the grammar, know the original languages, for instance, or those who don't know the original languages, who just read a good translation carefully and prayerfully. Okay? That's exegesis. It's drawing out. Simple as that. You're drawing out truth. But your work's not done until you see the big picture. All right? So it's being circumspect, just to focus on that. Biblical theology and systematic theology now. Systematic theology is just a topical arrangement of scriptural truth. And we'll have a topical arrangement of the biblical theology. But a topical arrangement like systematic theology would be topics that you find in a one-volume systematic, like God, and man, and sin, and redemption, and salvation, and the church. They're just topics where you're taking the truths of scripture and putting them under a heading, under a topic. So you can lay them out clearly. Historical theology is interpreting in community. It's basically just saying, what does the confession and other Christians before me teach on this? Historical theology is just saying, what have other Christians said about this? Good and bad. Error and truth. And then finally, pastoral theology is how this should be applied to my heart. So you get there. There's a picture that I think is helpful and useful that shows the interaction of biblical theology with the other disciplines that I think is helpful. Let's have a circle, okay? And let's start with exegetical theology. Why would I start with exegetical? Okay, so you're asking what the scripture says. Then go to biblical theology. What does it say about that in all of Scripture? What's the big picture? What's the big idea? How is Jesus Christ revealed in the bigger picture? Then, historical theology, what has the church said about this before me? That always reminds you you're interpreting in community ultimately. Systematic theology, that's where you're arranging it. And then, pastoral theology. I think this right here is very helpful for doing your interpretation. You're always starting with the Word of God, with the help of the Holy Spirit. You're then trying to find out retrospective, prospective, upward. Retrospective, prospective, upward. Circumspect, retrospect, prospective, upward. That's the chant. Get it all. Show it all. So if you find Leviathan. Just kidding. In Job, he's this evil creature of the sea. He's a monster, all right? Before you try to apply modern-day understanding of scientific thought to that passage, ask if Leviathan's mentioned anywhere else in Scripture first, and you'll find that he is. And he is a metaphor for evil, the embodiment of evil. And he's oftentimes the metaphor for not only Satan, but of evil kings and pharaohs. He's a sea monster, but he's one God created and under his control. So there you go, Leviathan. It came to mind because I've been studying Leviathan lately. But biblical theology doesn't leave it just looking at Leviathan because, I mean, come on, how are you going to exegete that? In Job, you're going to go, Leviathan, what is he? And you're naturally going to say, must be something I've seen at the zoo. If Job is poetry, and it is, then it might be metaphor. And if it's metaphor, and it is, then it might be that we look at all the scripture and it defines itself for us. That's biblical theology. Then historical theology says, what's the other scripture? What's other commentators? What's the church said about that before now, about Leviathan? And then systematic theology, I'm using Leviathan now. It'll just plug in. Systematic theology would say, The embodiment of evil, Satan. The creation of all creatures good, but one who was fallen and rebelled against God, Satan. So this might be under sin and Satan. And then pastoral theology, to realize there's real evil inside now. And go back then to exegetical again. So it feeds on itself, right? You're always doing it over and over and over and over and over, and it will help you. Drawing out of Scripture, big picture, what does the church say about that? How is the church erred on this maybe even? Then systematic, how do I put it into topics or categories? And then back to exegetical again. So that's another thing we're going to be doing. So that's biblical theology as a distinction. Now, everybody following me OK? Everybody all right? OK. Yeah, good. Now look, introduction classes for me, all right, let me just say, means that I'm going to give you a lot of seed stuff, and then we're going to unpack it as we go, all right? So it's not that I don't think this is going to be the last time you see this. So these are things that we can work with beginning now. Are there any questions that you have so far before I go to the final thing? I want to do one more thing. All right. OK. All right. So all right. So what we're going to do now is we've talked about circumspect, retrospect, and prospect upward. It just tells us that there's a primary storyline. I'm going to go here first and then go to the meadow story monomyth at the end. I'll leave you with the meta story. But again, we're stressing unity today, right? Stressing unity. Well, the unity of the creation of the story is the primary storyline of the Bible that I wanted you to memorize is a pattern throughout scripture that you'll see that is a primary pattern that shows the unity of scripture. And it begins with creation. And then what's next? What happens next? The fall. And then what happens next in Genesis 3.15? Redemption begins. Redemption and then two aspects of redemption. Old Covenant redemption would be what category? Good. Yep. Type, shadow. All right. And promise. Okay. This would be fulfillment. Fulfillment, reality. OK, so if this is earthly type, this is the heavenly reality in Christ. Let's put heavenly reality in Christ, OK? All right? So type, shadow, promise. So promise, that looks like a star, not an arrow. All right. OK. So redemption, both promise and fulfillment. And then, finally, new creation. All right. You know how you can find that out? You know how you can find out the storyline? Well, you can do it by sketching through the Bible, which is what biblical theology does, and seeing the unity of the drama of the story. You can also look at the bookends of Scripture. What are the bookends of Scripture? Genesis 1, creation. There's a purpose to it. And that's Revelation 21, 22, a new creation. And so everything in between is God's perfect purpose and plan to glorify himself and to redeem a people in Christ Jesus. To glorify himself in Christ Jesus by the Holy Spirit and to bring a people to himself. It's an incredible thing. But you can, as part of your circumspect, retrospect, prospect, you can see that this works together, right? So you might be exegeting a passage and looking for the biblical theology will tell you of this big pattern of scripture. And then you want to look around. You want to look back to where you've been. So for instance, you find that your Give me a topic. What are you studying? Give me a person or a place or a thing. What are you studying? Tell me. Bethlehem. Who? Bethlehem. All right. Bethlehem. Excellent. So Bethlehem was going to fall somewhere between redemption and the fall. And so you're going to have this place called Bethlehem. All right. And so say you're in Samuel with Bethlehem. All right, so you would then look around you and find the passages in the book of Samuel that would have to do with Bethlehem and find out who's from Bethlehem and why that's important. And then you might look back to see if Bethlehem plays an important part in Holy Scripture from Moses and the prophets, or from Moses particularly, from creation to fall. Does Bethlehem play a special part? If in your first look, Bethlehem made you think of kind of a place where God's promises come to fulfillment. You might then trace other promises that God had made that's come to fulfillment. You might look back and see. Then you would look forward in the prophets, see if Bethlehem's mentioned anywhere in the prophets. Do any of the prophets mention Bethlehem? Micah does. And so you might write that down. And so you're looking back. You're looking forward. And then you're ultimately seeing how that would culminate in Jesus Christ. And that's where the incarnation happened in time and space. So that's how you would do that. And that's how we're going to be proceeding in this class. So I want to teach you one other thing. I want us to look at one other thing, and that is when we see the unity, when we're interpreting and we see the unity, we see the three volumes and the one to be published that is our New Testament now, but at Jesus' time was the one to be published. We see the primary storyline, creation, fall, redemption, new creation that we'll be following. We even see the interaction between the exegetical theology, the biblical theology, the historical theology, systematic and pastoral theology. What we're wanting to note during our reading of Scripture, and especially the unity of Scripture, is what's called the meta-story or the what literary scholars call a monomyth. Now, I want to say first, and this is going to be very basic, and then we'll look over this at another time. But what is, I want to encourage you to think about, is the meta story is the real, and the monomyth is the copy. And we're going to be talking about this quite a bit, especially when we talk about ancient Near Eastern studies. The pattern that God has laid out, the storyline, the drama that God has told is, if we were to put that meta-story, if we were to draw a picture of it, it would look like this. You ready? I'm going to do my best here. This is a paradigm for understanding the storyline of Scripture. or the plot line of scripture, however you want to put that, OK? All right. So here you have this blessedness. Here you have cursedness and sin and death. Across here on this trajectory, on this side, I'm going to put it here, you have comedy. It's a paradigm of plot. Here you have tragedy. It's a comedy tragedy. The whole Bible's plot line or storyline put on this meta story, on this paradigm for plots, is one that goes from blessedness to fallenness. And by God's grace, comes back to blessedness. So it's a you. a U-shaped storyline. Wow, almost fell. So the Bible begins as a state of blessedness, enters into a state of curse and cursedness and death, and then by the grace and redemption of the Lord, ends in a state of new creation of blessedness. So you have the blessedness being creation. You've got the fall then of mankind from that. You've got redemption occurring because of God's grace and back to new creation. And that is the main storyline. And you can look on this in different ways. I mean, if you're a writer, for instance, you can use this paradigm for plots of all kinds. You think about it, if you start here on this plot line, on this paradigm, you've got a rags to riches story, if you're going upward. You've got what's a comedy, because you're starting in the state of cursedness and blessedness, and you're going up here to the riches story. So you're starting from cursedness and coming up to blessedness. All right. Here, you've got the tragedy would be someone who's gifted, a great person, great reputation, but they have little character quirks that you see is going to end in tragedy, and their lives end in failure and in death. There are two men you can use on this. You start here with blessedness and end in curse with Saul of Gibeah, and start here and in there with Saul of Tarsus. Unbelievable stuff, right? Unbelievable stuff. You've got this whole paradigm in microcosm You ready? Throughout the Bible. Job, Joseph, Jonah, storyteller. Well, guess what? As a polemic against literary studies, literary studies and criticism people who are not believers have come up with something called the monomyth, which is a copy. And essentially, it is this paradigm that God originates. And it's just that common grace has caused them to see that in every great story, by the way, the hero story, the journey story, or you can put this on this paradigm. You can put those on the paradigm as well. Star Wars, right? The original Star Wars. It's nothing but this. And it's brilliant because it reveals that God's the originator of the grand story. He's the storyteller. He's the great singer of songs. And he's the great storyteller. And that man in God's common grace would come up with this, that every great book that you've read. I'm going to use Star Wars. Are you OK if I use Star Wars? Is everybody OK with Star Wars? The reason the original Star Wars trilogy, because Luke left a place of blessedness and then had to go through this cursedness of trial. The trial stage has to be there. And then through the trial stage, there's redemption, usually through weakness, and destroying evil in order to come back and find dad, who happens to be a guy who wears black. You might know him. His name is Darth Vader. But the reason why number eight didn't settle with folks is because it left us down here. It didn't follow the proper plot line. The hero was left in death, incursedness, and not blessedness. And no one can understand that story because they're made in God's image and God has made us those who are hopeful for redemption. And redemption has to be there if it's a good story or if it's a good, ultimately, a film. And that's what we're going to do in this class. I want to leave you now by saying this, that we're going to look at the monomyth again. Or it's called the monomyth. It can also, I'm calling it the metastory because I'm saying that's the real story that scripture reveals, that every other story is a mere copy or shadow. And to what degree it lives by that story or lines up with that story is to what degree it's successful in the history of mankind. So, this is to help us to see that biblical theology, looking at the story, is ultimately for the glory of God. It's ultimately for us to grow, but it's also for us to counter false ideas that are in this world. And to remind us that everything we're going to read in Scripture was originated with God. Now, when you get to ancient myths, right, and stories, they're going to look like Bible stories to some degree. but they're going to be perverted. And we'll get there further. Next week, beloved, Lord willing, we're going to look at the diversity of Scripture. Are there any questions today about what we've looked at? Any thoughts that you'd like to add? A lot of stuff on there. I'm going to photograph this, photograph it. I'm going to take a shot of this and we're going to put it online. Any questions about it? All right, so would you know what biblical theology has to do with, if I ask you, going out the class today, what would you say? What are a couple things getting at the definition of biblical theology? What would you say first and foremost? It's about? All right. Good. Second? Sure. What's that? Oh, yes, the unity of scripture. I thought you said, do you need any scripture? And I said, yeah, sure. Give me some scripture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on. I need some scripture today. Hallelujah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the unity of scripture. Good. All right. So that's what we're looking at. And all of this has been to show that there is a unity. This was to show, just so you don't forget, this exegetical, this was to show the distinction of biblical theology with all the rest and how it's in harmony with all the rest. This was to show the unity of the drama and how it's imprinted in all image bearers and all good storytellers. Okay? All right. Shall we pray? All right. Our Father, our God, we thank you so much for this opportunity to study your Word and to study biblical theology. We pray that our goal would be to know you and to know you better through your Word and to give glory to you and live those joyful lives that you've promised to us in Christ by your Holy Spirit. We pray that you would help us to understand these things and live them out faithfully, knowing that you're our king. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Thank you so much for coming, and we'll look forward to more next week, okay? The diversity of scripture next week.