Biblical theology involves understanding the storyline of the Bible, but it is more than just a march through the pages of Scripture sequentially. It takes work and discipline and intentionality in every step along this march through the biblical narrative to see how the parts of the story are connecting, how continuity of God’s work and promises is maintained, and how God is progressively revealing his glorious saving plan and redemptive purposes to his people in the world he has made. This is why one wonderful way to engage in biblical theology is to trace theological themes or ideas, examining their development from Genesis all the way through Revelation.

Divinely Inspired Words
The Bible doesn’t come to us as an academic textbook, with carefully delineated topical headings organized according to theological themes. Certainly, God could have chosen to reveal himself differently. He could have given us a long lists of rules. He could have given us something like an encyclopedia of theological doctrines.
But, as we know, that is not how God has chosen to reveal himself to us in his inspired word. In the pages of Scripture, we discover stories, poems, and songs. We find prophecies, visions, parables, and letters to early churches and individual Christians. God’s word, divinely inspired through at least forty different human authors over thousands of years is artistically and beautifully composed and wonderfully literarily diverse. What a gift for us to discover our God through the pages of Scripture and through all of the distinct human authors and different biblical literary genres!
Systematic Theology
However, from the earliest days of the Christian church, biblical scholars and faithful pastors have discerned the important benefit of bringing careful organization and explanation to the theological truths and doctrines that the Bible clearly teaches God’s people. Some of the earliest articulations of what today we would call “systematic theology” emerged in and through the church councils of the third and fourth centuries as the early church fathers battled various heresies (particularly relating to the person of Jesus Christ), and early creeds were formed as fundamental summaries of Christian doctrine.
The Nicene Creed, as one example, affirms clearly both the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ (doctrines which had both been under attack by pernicious false teachings), as well as the glorious authority of both God the Father and God the Son, from whom God the Holy Spirit proceeds. To put it simply, systematic theology is the careful organization and articulation of the theological truths of Scripture.
Systematic theology uses human categories to summarize what the Bible teaches about all kinds of things. What is God like? What is the nature of sin? What can we know about creation, the church, about human beings, and about the end of the world when Jesus Christ returns? When we engage in systematic theology, we systematize (or organize) our theological understanding of the clear truths and doctrines that God’s word teaches us.
Biblical Theology
Biblical theology is a different way of studying and organizing Scripture’s teaching of core Christian doctrine. Rather than utilizing categories and topical organization, biblical theology involves tracing the development of theological truths throughout the pages of Scripture in conjunction with the development of the biblical narrative.
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Written by R. A. Miller |
Saturday, November 19, 2022
In one short paragraph, we see a great portrayal of Christ’s kingship. The Hodges’ main idea points to Christ’s rule over all the world. Since God cannot lie (quoting Numbers 23:19) and the reign of Jesus is promised, the children reason that the people should not be working against Christ. Instead, they should work to establish the Lord’s Kingdom in India by throwing out their idols and loving the true God. This depth of theological understanding is not only remarkable for a child to have but also foreshadows the theological prowess that the Princeton theologian would later exhibit.

If you know anything about A.A. Hodge, it’s probably that he was a Princeton theologian like his father, Charles Hodge. Being the son of such a notable Christian scholar, A.A. had a sharp yet Christ-centered mind, even at a young age. When he was just a boy, he wrote a touching letter with his sister addressing people of the great mission field of India. The letter was titled “Friends of the Heathen,” and was featured in the July 1887 edition of The Homiletic Review. The article is as follows:
The following is a most touching reminiscence of the late Dr. Hodge and his sister, when they were children: “A letter, yellow with age, lies on the table. It bears date June 23, 1833, and was sent to India in the care of Rev. Dr. James R. Eckard, then a missionary in that far-away land. It was written by a boy ten years old. That boy became a missionary himself—was a pastor in this country—and was esteemed the most eminent theologian of his day. Recently he heard the summons to a higher service; and “was not, for God took him.” Subjoined is the child’s note—suggestive of the impressions which youthful minds are capable of receiving:
“DEAR HEATHEN: The Lord Jesus Christ hath promised that the time shall come when all the ends of the earth shall be His Kingdom. And God is not a man that He should lie, nor the son of man that He should repent. And if this was promised by a Being who cannot lie, why do you not help it to come sooner, by reading the Bible, and attending to the words of your teachers; and loving God, and, renouncing your idols, take Christianity into your temples? 
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Our natural man within us is very selfish and self-indulgent. We need to be on guard at all times to put to death the inclination to seek our own above that of others, especially when it comes to the difficulties of sinful men and women working together for God’s purposes. We may not always realize how we come off. But if our heart’s goal is to put the Lord’s will above all things we have the assurance that it will all come out in the wash.

As we continue to walk through the Larger Catechism one of the blessings of God’s grace that we see in them is the way in which our Lord has provided for us in His life, death, and resurrection to be strengthened by Him and through Him Alone. Every part of the Christian life is what it is because Jesus is the foundation of faith and the source of our obedience to His word. Whenever we start to talk about the things Christ did in His earthly life it is important for us to remember that there were no wasted movements, words, and actions as He walked and talked for three solid years. Each thing Jesus did in His ministry was for a purpose that had long-standing implications for His mission and for the future of His Church. A key aspect of this for today’s study is His coming to this world from Heaven itself.
The monumental work of the Son of God taking on flesh, the Second Person of the Trinity becoming man is a rich place for us to go in helping us to see more clearly, and worship more distinctly and openly and less selfishly as we put ourselves last, and Christ first. Here are the Q/A’s for this week:
Q. 46. What was the estate of Christ’s humiliation?
A. The estate of Christ’s humiliation was that low condition, wherein he for our sakes, emptying himself of His glory, took upon him the form of a servant, in his conception and birth, life, death, and after his death, until his resurrection.
Q. 47. How did Christ humble himself in his conception and birth?
A. Christ humbled himself in his conception and birth, in that, being from all eternity the Son of God, in the bosom of the Father, he was pleased in the fulness of time to become the son of man, made of a woman of low estate, and to be born of her; with divers circumstances of more than ordinary abasement.t
Q. 48. How did Christ humble himself in his life?
A. Christ humbled himself in his life, subjecting himself to the law, which he perfectly fulfilled; and by conflicting with the indignities of the world, temptations of Satan, and infirmities in his flesh, whether common to the nature of man, or particularly accompanying that his low condition.
Q 49. How did Christ humble himself in his death?
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