Christ in Every Text

Russell Moore posts a commentary with an interesting title over at the Henry Institute; Beyond a Veggie Tales Gospel: Why We Must Preach Christ from Every Text. What’s his point? Much of what is taught in churches today is a form of moralism, or “golden rule Christianity,” emptied of the gospel and the work of Christ. Churches/pastors should preach Christ because Scripture itself tells us that every text of Scripture is about Christ (Luke 24:27, 44-45).

What Moore is writing about is essentially what I have been studying of late, biblical theology. I am planning a sermon series on this very topic, beginning in a couple weeks with the above passage from Luke. I plan to write more about this topic in the future, but let me steer you to a good explanation of biblical theology, under the link, What is biblical theology?

BeginningwithMoses.org is dedicated to biblical theology. One of the best writers on this subject, Graeme Goldsworthy (unrelated to the former Minnesota North Stars player) describes biblical theology in this way:

From the evangelical preacher’s point of view, biblical theology involves the quest for the big picture, or the overview of biblical revelation. It is of the nature of biblical theology that it tells a story rather than sets out timeless principles in abstraction. It does contain many timeless principles, but not in abstract. They are given in an historical context of progressive revelation. If we allow the Bible to tell its own story, we find a coherent and meaningful whole. G. L. Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture, (IVP, 2000)

Biblical theology keeps us from a moralizing approach to Scripture, in which we read Old Testament stories, for example, and merely see a good example to follow or a bad example to avoid, rather than seeing how the passage points to Christ. Biblical theology is a Christ-centered and gospel-centered approach to Scripture. More on this subject in upcoming posts, but you can read more about Goldsworthy and biblical theology from this buzzard blog interview.

(HT: OS)