Systematic Theology and Exegesis
Should your reading of a passage of Scripture be informed by your systematic theology ?
David Murray talks about that here.
One difference between we French and the anglo-saxon mindset is that
I was chatting with the dad of a friend of Gwilym. He works for a multinational aeronautics firm, so he speaks pretty good English (though we stuck to French), he knows that Welsh culture is different from English culture (hurrah !) and ... wait for it ... he has visited Cwmcarn many times. He said, "Of course, one difference between the French and the Anglo-Saxon mindset is that we are very logical while you are very pragmatic." I think I looked puzzled and doubtful... "You must do something", he said, "and if that does not work then you will change and do something else until you find out what does work. We must reflect before we do anything." He's so right. Although the verb 'to reflect' exists in English I don't think I ever used it and I certainly never did it. I MUCH prefer to do SOMETHING than nothing, even if it is the wrong thing. After all, in a crisis to do nothing is usually the wrong thing. However here in France I find that w...
Comments
Yes, I understand what you say, and I have heard similar sentiments expressed by other friends, too, especially by people who have "discovered" Biblical Theology after years of following Christ.
I reflected on my answer as I was brushing my teeth last night, so you can see it's particularly well thought-out.
You know how there are people who preach on the Bible and they seem to consider a book, say Romans, as a loose collection of passages to preach on with no overarching theme to the whole book ? They're good at analysis of the verse or paragraph, but they don't do the work of synthesis of what the whole book is for. I know this is something that you work at at Cornhill.
Well it seems to me that systematic theology is the next level up. It is seeing how each book of the Bible contributes to the overall teaching of the Bible on God, man, sin, salvation, etc... It's the next level up of synthesis.
Now when we read James 2 we read it in the context of James' whole letter, but we also read it in the context of the New Testament letters (including Romans) and also the whole Bible (including Genesis), and that's where systematic theology helps us - it systematises the teaching of the whole of the Bible.
Because the Bible is a very rich book and our understanding is very poor, we do need to reform our systematic theology as we understand better, just as we need to reform our biblical theology. (For example I read a little quote about Romans yesterday, saying how the letter aimed to get the various house-churches co-operating, and I want to set aside some time to think about that...)
That doesn't mean that what went before is worthless. Just like all human knowledge, it's all work in progress ! There's always more to find out !