Biblical Theology

What is Biblical Theology? (Definition)

Kirk E. Miller

Biblical Theology – A discipline of Biblical studies concerned with doing theology according to and stemming from the contours and categories presented within the Bible itself (i.e., attending to scriptures diachronically rather than synchronically, tracing its themes, and considering the unique contributions, perspectives, and voices of particular Biblical authors and corpora).

There then seem to be three major forms of Biblical theology that stem from these general concerns (as defined above):

  1. Systems of redemptive-history — how the Bible fits together (“whole-bible” Biblical theology).
  2. Tracing themes across scripture, e.g., a Biblical theology of temple or land.
  3. Studying the particular theology of a given author, book, or set of books, e.g., a Pauline theology, a theology of Romans, an Old Testament Theology, etc.

The Presence of the Future: The New Testament’s Inaugurated Eschatology (with G.K. Beale)

Kirk E. Miller

The Old Testament tells a unifying story of God working to restore his creation and establish his kingdom. This would finally happen permanently and irreversible at the end of history, the “last days.” But the New Testament presents this time as already having dawned in the arrival of Christ. We are living in those “last days,” as Peter said (Acts 2). Premier New Testament scholar, G.K. Beale, visits the Church Theology podcast to talk about the New Testament’s “inaugurated eschatology,” or as George Eldon Ladd put it, “the presence of the future.”

Access the episode here. (Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.)

Understanding Typology (with Mitch Chase)

Kirk E. Miller

Jesus is the true and better Adam. He’s our Passover Lamb whose death brings about a new Exodus. Indwelt by God’s Spirit, Christ’s church is the end-time temple of God. And on and on we could go. The Bible is littered with types, “prophetic patterns,” that anticipate and find their fulfillment in Christ. But what exactly is typology, and how does it function? What are its underlying assumptions, the theological operating system if you will, on which it runs? And should we be imitating the apostles by practicing typological interpretation even today? Mitch Chase joins us to help us answer these questions.

Access the episode here. (Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.)

Jesus, the Fulfillment of Israel’s Story (Matthew 1:1-17)

Kirk E. Miller

Jesus, the Fulfillment of Israel’s Story (Matthew 1:1-17)
CrossWay Community Church
November 6th, 2022

Podcast link.

See all other content in this series.

A Christian Assessment of News Consumption (with Jeffrey Bilbro)

Kirk E. Miller

In a world in which our consumption of news is increasingly polarized and sensational, and disinformation is all too common, how do we combat such unhealthy habits to form a better relationship with the news? And what, after all, is the news even for? What is a particularly Christian mode of engaging and consuming news? In his book, Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry Into the News, Jeffrey Bilbro provides a theological, even historical, perspective on the function and impact of the news in our lives, a diagnosis of our problem, and a reframing of how we might construct alternative practices.

Access the episode here. (Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, and more.)

Some key concepts and ideas from the book:

  1. “Macademized minds” (or fragmented attention)

Our attentions are overloaded; we are unable to attend in meaningful ways because there’s too much to attend to.

As a result, presentations of the news become competingly sensational in order to compete for our distracted attention.

Thus, we need to develop better habits for shaping what we give our attention to.

Continue reading →