Explanation

On Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

See previous post:

• Introducing Biblical Theology and Redemptive History (LDBC Recap 1/24/16)

Recap / review

Yesterday we talked about why redemptive history and Biblical theology matter. In other words, we talked about its significance and relevance.

Caveat

However, a caveat is needed. As noted yesterday, we do this not because somehow we are responsible for determining what in scripture is worthy of our attention. In other words, we are not making note of this study’s relevance in order to somehow justify the importance of this Biblical material. Scripture—and specifically for our purposes, its Biblical theology and account of redemptive history—is important regardless of whether we sense its important.

The goal of scripture (and, by extension, Christianity) is not to meet “felt needs;” but to address needs that ought to be felt. We are not the determiner of what in scripture is worth attending to. We may have our felt needs. And these may be fine—sure. But we must recognize that God knows what we need more than we do.

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Explanation

On Sunday, January 24th, 2016, I began a Core Seminar on Redemptive History & Biblical Theology at my church, Lake Drive Baptist Church. During the course of this series I’ll be sending out emails recapping lessons and directing recipients to resources for further study.

Rather than just share these recaps with my church family, I’ve decided to share them here on the blog for anyone else who might be interested. I will be posting them occasionally over the next couple of months on a weekly basis or so.

Introduction

First, we talked about how the historical nature of Christianity distinguishes it from other religions. Many other religions are based on what we might call “timeless (better: non-historical) truths” (e.g., a way of reaching Nirvana [Buddhism] or a set of rules about how we might survive God’s judgment [Islam]). In contrast, Christianity stands and falls on historical realities. Salvation in Christianity is not merely about something that happens between me and God, but it is quite importantly about historical events, e.g., Christ’s death and resurrection. For instance, whereas Islam does not stand and fall on the figure of Muhammed (God could have delievered the Koran through anyone, so they believe), Christianity does in fact stand and fall on God acting in history, specifically in the person of Jesus. What makes Christianity so unique is that we actually see God acting in history, not only as creator of it, but also as the one directing it and continually intervening in it to bring about his saving purposes.

Defining terms

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