Biblical vs Systematic Theology

If someone asked you the difference between systematic and biblical theology, would you know the answer? That's what we're going to talk about today, on Conversations with a Calvinist, which begins right now.

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.

And I have on the program with me today Daniel Burton.

Daniel? Hello, thanks for having me.

It's such a blast to be on here, and to be able to talk about some really fun topics.

Awesome, awesome.

Well, I want to introduce you to our audience, because we really have just met.

We've known each other online for a while.

We have a very good mutual friend.

Yes, yes.

Matthew Hinson, who is my not-yet Calvinist friend.

And I know you're gonna listen to this one, because you're his buddy as well.

Just know that we're working on you.

We're chipping away.

We got people praying for you.

You're our not-yet Calvinist friend.

But you, Daniel, you said before we had a little pre-show conversation, you said you're sort of a...

Yes, so I've kind of joked and told people I'm 85, kind of close to being Calvinist.

I tend to keep all the parts of Calvinism and those things.

I just maybe prune the tulip a little bit occasionally, not too much.

But overall, the thinking, the dogmatics, the structure and all that, I tend to keep to it, just because it's good biblically-based content.

Gotcha.

But the 15's kind of a bear, you know.

I've kind of joked and told people I'd be a hundred percent a Calvinist, except all the times the Bible tells us to choose, and I'd be a hundred percent Arminian, except for all the times the Bible clearly says predestined.

So you got to struggle through both of those at some point, and understand they're coming together in that.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And one day I will squeeze the 15%.

Right, squeeze it right out.

And I'll make you a shirt.

I used to make t-shirts.

I have one that just says 5-Point Calvinist.

It's so great when you wear it to a restaurant, especially when you wear it to a restaurant in Callahan, which is a small town where I grew up.

People will look at you, and they'll go.

They're reading it, and then the light bulb's going off, and it's like, yeah, okay, we'll get you a shirt.

Or they ask, what are the five points? You're like, ah, so glad you prepared me for this.

Absolutely.

I've been waiting for this my whole life.

Daniel, I know that you are ordained.

Yes.

And you are actively preaching, and I've seen a sermon recently where you preached on the law of God from 1st Peter.

Yeah, Galatians.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I taught a Bible study going through the book of 1st Peter.

Okay.

Two different things, both a lot of fun, both good books, the Bible.

Well, how did the Lord save you? How old were you? Oh, gosh.

Okay, so a lot of people, they have those stories of, it was a Tuesday on the January and something.

I'm an overtime kind of person.

I grew up in church.

Parents, they'd been on staff at church.

I grew up going to every everything the church did, I had to be there because my mother.

Okay.

So I did all the church things, the Sunday school, elementary school.

I could do the Bible passages better than anybody.

Ended up joining staff at a church because I inherited a tech booth at the age of 14, and I've been connected to a church after that point.

But you know, going through high school, it was kind of this, it was difficult because I had a speech impediment, so that's always a lot of fun when you're in high school because no one picks on you about anything.

Sure, yeah.

So that gave them a clear target, and I was like, awesome.

And I was at that point of just, I understood all the true things, but I didn't...

It was a thing I understood, but it wasn't my own, and struggled through that probably a good amount of time.

And then, you know, kind of going through a speech impediment, there's a question of asking God, like, God, did you screw up making me? And that's a hard question to ask at the age of 15 because most people at that age are struggling through like all kinds of stuff, and I'm like, am I a mistake? And so I started getting into things and making choices that are temporary pleasure, but not the best of choices.

And then I could always get to a point of, well, I just happened to be there and happened to da-da-da-da-da-da-da, et cetera, et cetera.

And then it got to a place of premeditation of I was thinking through it, and I was just driving, going back home, and I was like, God, I don't get how you could care about me at all, because I don't care about me a bit.

And in that kind of a moment, just praying, I got the impression that God was trying to answer back and say, in spite of all the things you have done, are doing, and will do, I still lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-lo-love you.

How do you not get that yet? And you don't get to have that kind of encounter and be like, I will carry on in the direction I'm going.

And it was kind of a point of, okay, I either need to go all in on trying to follow Jesus and do all the things that Jesus did and be a follower of Christ, or I need to bail on this entirely, but I can't do this kind of a, I'm this person at church and this person at school, and I do this, but I tell people this, and all that.

I had to get to a place of, all right, I'm in or I'm out, but I gotta do that now.

So that was kind of the point that it became, oh, my faith instead of just a thing I grew up doing.

So yeah, that was kind of the turning point of, all right, I'm all in, I'm gonna chase after Jesus with everything I have and go on from there.

Awesome.

Now, how did that lead into the eventual being ordained? Gosh, yeah.

So that was about 17.

Everything I've done is a testament to God is great and I'm an idiot.

So yeah.

That's a good line for today's show.

I'll get a t-shirt for that, God's great and I'm an idiot.

I applied to a college, which if you're applying to college, apply to at least three.

Just as a general, that's not related, but just as a general, don't do what I did.

I got in by the grace of God somehow.

I was a criminology major.

Oh, nice.

Yeah, for a week.

I was a criminology major and I was just praying and I was just like, I don't know, I picked criminology because I thought it'd be cool.

So not a good thing to base whole life decisions off of.

Like Gil Grissom? Yes.

Yes.

CSI.

I got good at puns just for that reason there.

There you go.

There you go.

No, I was going to...

It was actually Jack Bauer that was part of it.

I was going to go catch terrorists.

That was my plan.

And God in the middle of that was like, no, and I'm like, all right, well, what's my major? And they're like, not criminology.

I'm like, got it.

So you'll show me when I get there.

Okay.

And so I ended up getting connected to a church there, picking a major, just kind of random that steered me out of criminology.

And just in that, I felt a call to build the church, to become a pastor.

So I started the process, I got turned down a couple of times just because I was 21, which was pretty young.

Yeah.

I get that.

But I thought I knew everything there.

And that's what 21-year-olds do.

And that's what 21 do.

Eventually, I did go through an ordination training process and started an MDiv program.

My first professor almost caused me to drop out.

It was Dr.

Kaiser.

Do you know Dr.

Kaiser? Walter Kaiser.

The name sounds familiar.

Where's he at? I think heaven now, but sorry.

He's from Gordon-Conaway.

That's a really bleak joke.

I'm so sorry.

No, he was great.

Dude was fantastic.

The fact that you said, I think.

I think heaven now.

I was trying to figure out if he was still alive.

Dude was awesome.

If Dr.

Kaiser's family is listening, we're sorry.

It's your fault.

Yeah.

So that was my first professor.

Dude taught on the Pentateuch.

I was peer pressured into starting an MDiv program at Gordon-Con well, because I had other people going through like, hey, you should join us.

I'm like, okay, sure.

It didn't occur to me like that's a $50,000 decision that I'm being peer pressured into making.

But like, all right, sure.

Yeah, I'll do it.

Whatever.

Dude taught on the Pentateuch.

Didn't bring notes at all.

He didn't bring anything.

I got up to the board, started jotting down Genesis in Hebrew from memory on the board.

And he stopped and said, hold on, this is a 500 course.

You haven't had to take Hebrew yet.

Erased it and wrote it in English.

And people asked what trans, like, is that NIV, ESV? He's like, I just translated it in my head.

And I almost got up and went, I don't belong here.

We out.

Like, I'm not, I ain't doing this.

You win.

I'm like, yeah, I'm in the wrong room.

I need a different class.

I need remedial Bible.

Is there like a step under this? I don't know why that's so funny to me.

Yeah, almost dropped out.

I'm like, uh-oh.

And then I found out this, it was the president of the college at the time.

And I'm like, yeah, I'm super in the wrong room.

But he was a nice guy, encouraged to keep at it.

And I got through it and kind of enjoy it now.

Nice.

Nice.

All right, so, OK.

Yes, sorry.

Now, that was at Gordon, you said? OK, so have you graduated already? I did.

OK.

2017, 15, something.

Is that how you met? Because I know we have mutual friends that were at Gordon.

Now, Matthew didn't go to Gordon.

No.

No, we'll get him there eventually, too.

But Jake? Yes, I met Jake there.

Yeah, Jake Korn.

Yeah, I met Jake Korn there.

He's on the program this week.

Oh, the RPW.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's going to be, yeah.

It'll actually go live before this one.

This one, we're actually doing a recording early.

This will go out a little later.

So those of you who saw last week's program, that's what we're talking about.

He's a great guy.

He is intimidatingly smart.

I'm OK.

He'll see this.

Yeah, but he knows.

It's fine.

So he's a smart dude.

And he's in the Army.

He was a professional interrogator.

Right.

So when he's like, I want to talk to you about the regular principle, I was like, are you going to beat me up? What if we disagree? No, Jake's cool, though.

I've gotten to talk to him.

I still talk to him a little bit, too.

He's a cool guy.

But yeah, I met Jake through there, a few others.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Well, one of the things we were going to discuss today, and this is really the heart of the program, even though it is good to get to know you and good for the audience to get to know you, because I do hope that you come back.

And you live close enough where we can get together and do this in person.

You're not on Zoom.

So it's nice to have you where I can actually touch you.

That was really weird.

That's fine.

I'm sorry.

I'm a weirdo.

Now we're keeping that in.

Yeah, we're going to keep that in.

We're going to keep that in.

So you're personally doing a teaching at your church on the story of the Bible.

Tell us a little bit about that.

So the Bible, there's a pastor stated a thing that changed the way I view scripture, that although there are 66 books in the Bible, about 35 authors, I think, that although those things are true, there is also one author.

And that is the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

And that there is a story being told throughout the entire thing from start to finish, that all things prior point to Christ's coming, and all things after point to Christ come.

And if that's true, then there's the story of God speaking about God to our benefit and to God's glory that is all throughout the scriptures.

And I think people tend to skip over the Old Testament because they go, well, no, it's a New Testament church.

I don't need the Old Testament.

It's like, no, no, no, no.

You have to understand the story of the Old Testament to understand that Christ is on every page of the Old Testament.

And I think people skip over that to their detriment, that all these things are orchestrated by the glory of God to the glory of God.

And if Christ is slain before the foundations of the earth, then that means all things point to him.

And understanding our place in the story, I mean, a major premise of this class is the Bible is not about me.

It's never been about me.

It needs to not be about me.

I am not the person that brings people to eternity.

I point to the guy who does.

At best, I'm a catalyst, and even that I'm not entirely sure about some days.

But the entire scriptures point to the glory of God, and it's understanding that story being told of God drawing God's people to himself.

Awesome.

Yeah.

Now, I do have a—we didn't talk about this before the program, and feel free to not answer if this is controversial.

Would you put yourself in the camp of dispensational or covenant, or do you find yourself in the middle? I know a lot of guys who tend to find that.

And again, I'm not going to draw up a wall of separation if we disagree.

I wouldn't claim I'm a dispensationalist.

I'm probably more of a covenantalist.

Is that right? Yep.

Covenantalist.

If I'm being—a good amount of kind of the stances I tend to keep, I just kind of take a cop-out stance of I'm a biblicist.

If it's in the Bible speaking to that, then yeah, I'll travel down there, see if there's any truth in that.

So I'll go down there, but keeping up to scripture as inerrant, as the God-breathed.

I don't think—no, I'm probably closer to a covenantalist than a dispensationalist.

Okay.

And my reason for asking is when you say Jesus is throughout the Bible, what I am finding recently in my conversations with dispensationalists specifically, and I have some friends that are—some guys who came out of masters and other places, and this is not ubiquitous.

This is just a few of the people that I know.

So I know anecdotal evidence is not always the best.

But a few of the guys I've spoken to, there seems to be a hard push to sort of separate out the stories of Israel and the Old Testament from the Christian scriptures, and the idea of reading Christ into those is a bad thing, and seeing Christ in those is bad.

And so it sort of becomes this—like if you do that—I don't know if you're familiar with the Christocentric versus the Christotelic argument, where they would say we're Christotelic, Christ is the purpose, but he's not there.

Where the Christocentric would say we see Christ in there, and so— I'd probably come at it on a perspective of typology, that Israel is a type of a future and greater thing to come.

Kind of the same parts of the Mosaic covenant, the Noaic covenant, all these things are types of a greater thing that is coming.

Even going to a marriage is a type of a greater covenant to our Creator.

So I do think, as in all those things, there are boundaries that you have to put around it, because not all parts are going to be as strict of a connection, but it is a type of a greater thing, or a taste of it, that is to come.

So as far as—yeah, I know that can get really difficult into some very controversial topics, especially in dispensationalism, and a nation-state of Israel today, I actually think it's important just maybe not to the same cause that they do.

So that's kind of—man, that's a whole kind of a spiral of a topic there that could easily go down.

So is there a future for national—no, not the topic of today.

We'll have you back to let us know whether or not there's a future for national Israel.

Okay, so when we talk about the different types of theology, I brought with me a book today.

This is called The Moody Handbook of Theology.

This is by Paul Innes.

Now, I want to make a distinction.

This is not Peter Innes.

Peter Innes is a quite liberal theologian, and a lot of people are— Yes.

Are you familiar with him? Yes.

I don't remember why, but I've heard him a few times.

Yeah, and I like to tell people, because all it says on the back is Innes, and people see that and go, oh, that's liberal.

No, no, no.

No, not that one.

This is Paul Innes, different Innes, spelled the same but different guy, and very conservative.

This is from Moody Press in Chicago, and what this provides is this book.

I've used it in teaching systematic theology here at our church.

We did a three-year study of systematic theology, and we used this book as our textbook.

I know that there are some of you guys out there maybe freaking out.

That's not a Calvinistic textbook.

That's right.

I didn't use a Burkhoff or Grudem or any of the ones that people might have thought.

I used this one because it almost is like an encyclopedia.

It tends not to take positional approaches and rather it explains— I mean, it firmly agrees with the deity of Christ and things like that, but it doesn't present itself in the Calvinistic or Arminian or whatever, but what it does do is it says that there are five different approaches to theology because what we said in the beginning was biblical theology versus systematic theology.

In a minute, I'm going to get you to sort of define how you understand the difference, but the book actually defines five different ones.

It says there's biblical theology, systematic theology, historical theology, dogmatic theology, and then what it defines as contemporary theology.

Now, what I'd like for you to do, Daniel, if you don't mind, if you could give us just a short distinction between what you would say is biblical theology versus systematic theology.

Because I would say I would probably fall more on the systematic side, at least from the way that I have taught in the past.

Sure, absolutely.

See, I tend to view those two— and as far as the other definitions go, we can definitely get into those— but I view those two as two ends of the same coin, that they're both needed at times.

So biblical theology, as I understand it, is this.

I'm taking a chunk of Scripture and understanding its point and the message that this grouping of Scripture is trying to tell us.

As people talk about a New Testament theology, that's the type of biblical theology that takes the New Testament and kind of gets at, all right, what is the New Testament as a whole trying to tell us? Stop.

Or Old Testament theology, or the theology of Paul books.

There's like hundreds of those.

Yeah, I was going to say, we could even go down and say, what's the theology of Philippians? A hundred percent, yeah.

And then for the systematic approach, it's taking a topic and going through Scripture to determine, what does God tell us about this topic? And I'm cautious to say topic because then people go straight to, so it's topical.

Not quite, although it can get there.

I usually say a subject-based approach.

Yes, that's much better.

But to both of those, I think they're both needed to be able to explore the complete ideas in Scripture.

If I'm studying Christology, which is probably my favorite, I do go through the entirety of Scripture to determine, all right, is this passage speaking about Christ? And if it is, then what does it tell us about Christ? And there are going to be parts that it's not that they aren't talking about Christ, it's that they're not talking about Christ directly.

And I can get stuff by thinking through it, but as a whole, it's going through the Christological passages, so much, much more time in the Gospels, Isaiah 53, those that speak to that.

So I do think they're both important, and they both need to be done understanding the other in order to kind of balance them out a bit.

Okay.

This is a way that I have defined.

I'd like your thought on this, because I— and especially if you disagree, because I would love to hear a counterpoint.

But when I've talked about this, I teach a systematic theology class at a local— it's a men's shelter.

It's a church, but they do recovery ministry.

And so every Thursday I go there, and I do a 12-week theology course, and then we take a break, and then again I'll start.

I've been doing it for about four years, so we just rotate through.

And what I say is, biblical theology is necessary first because it's based on exegesis, whereas systematic theology comes along after that and is based on— and this is a word I maybe you would— I don't know how many other people would use this.

I would say systematic theology is based on taxonomy, putting things in categories.

Because that's what— Yeah, yeah, kind of the kind of topical— Yeah, yeah, like this is the subject, and therefore I've done the exegetical work, and so now—and again, that's the biblical theology.

That's what I do on Sunday morning, because I'm preaching through Genesis.

And when I'm preaching through Genesis, like this week I'm at Genesis 40, I'm going to preach the text.

I'm going to preach the theology that's in the text.

I'm not going to go out and—now, if it addresses a particular theological thing, I may say, okay, here's a cross-reference.

But in general, I'm sticking to what this says.

And so exegesis versus—and again, taxonomy might not be the right word, but it's categorization, putting it in a category.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I do think there's also kind of a middle ground there that kind of is difficult to classify.

Is this kind of a systematic approach or the biblical approach? Because a good amount of biblical theology gets into covenants.

Now, that's kind of a weird middle ground, because if I'm talking about covenants, then to do that is a systematic approach.

But to tackle that through that, you almost have to back it up into taking it through the biblical type of understanding of it.

So it gets a bit tricky in a few of those, because a major chunk of systematic theology, I would never put covenants as a chunk of it.

It tends to fall under, especially in academic publications, as a type of biblical theology.

In a few of those, I'm like, it's kind of in the middle.

It's kind of a middle ground or a bridge between them that I think is a good thing to kind of keep and hold on to.

Okay, yeah, and that makes sense.

You're right, now that you've mentioned that.

When I think about systematic theology, even though the concept of covenant is within there, we tend to address less the things like the Abrahamic and Mosaic, Davidic, New Covenant, things like that.

Rather, in systematic theology, we look at the nature and person and work of God, the nature, person, work of Christ, and what do we know about the Trinity and things like that.

And again, it's not unnecessary.

It's important.

But I do think if you limit yourself to only one, you tend to step away from the other.

Dr.

R.C.

Sproul was one of my favorite teachers.

He was a lot of people's favorite.

What a mind.

Small guy, probably never heard of him.

He's kind of niche.

So, in his work, he classified himself very much as a systematic theologian.

Yet, at the same time, he has his...

He's more known for his biblical work, almost, than some of his other stuff.

Yeah, but he would say, I'm a systematic theologian, but at the same time...

Sure you are, bud.

Yeah, you look at his foundations course, which is all Scripture, and it's walking through the text.

And certainly, he was exegetical in his preaching.

Even though I recently heard, and this is amazing to me, that his sermons were relatively short compared to MacArthur's 55-minute sermon, and things like that.

As far as the weekly sermon of Dr.

Sproul, not as long.

I don't want to say a number, because somebody will correct me.

You've got to pump those numbers up, whatever they are.

45 minimum.

Oh, boy.

What's the right number? What's the right number? More.

More, okay.

Always more.

That's...

Well, not in all...

Hold on, I've got to walk that back.

It depends on his preaching.

Yeah, yeah, hold on.

As a quick kind of side story, I took a group of middle and high schoolers to a mission trip in the Bahamas.

First of all, so hard to raise money to go to the Bahamas.

People are like, is this a mission trip? I'm like, yeah, to the Bahamas? Sure it is, bud.

There was a guy there, he preached.

All of us were so tired, very tired.

It was day five, we're in church, dude's preaching.

I turn around, because I've been doing church a bit, there's a preaching clock.

This man said it at 90, and I'm like, that's too much.

I'm having so hard of a time staying awake, and I know the kids are, but that countdown clock, it was hope.

I was just like, I have 20 more, and then we're good.

Then that thing got all the way down.

I was like, all right, well, pastors have trouble staying on time.

10-minute buffer, cool.

Dude reset the preaching clock to another 90.

I'm like, can't, we got to go.

Get the bus, kids.

Half of you, wake up, we got to go.

It was also Father's Day, so then they had a special presentation for the fathers.

This was on top of the now 90-minute times two type of thing.

Then it took another 30, and then because it was a Bahamian church, they had a small closing worship set of 30 more minutes.

I'm like, that's my exception to how long should it be.

More, yeah.

Not that.

You should trim that in a quarter.

How about that? When you said, that's too much.

That's too much.

We've jokingly said in our church, because I'm a 45-minute, sometimes 50 minutes, but 40, 45 minutes is my wheelhouse.

We've talked about getting an hourglass.

It's like, brother, if you want, just turn that hourglass over.

I'm like, I wonder how often I can do that.

Yesterday we had sunrise service, breakfast, and then Sunday school, and then church.

By the time I was preaching in the service, people who had been here since 6.30 or 7, their eyes were sort of closed.

I was like, yeah.

That's a 20-minute sermon.

We're going home early, boys.

Jesus loves you.

Amen.

That's right.

He is risen.

He is risen indeed.

Amen.

Still risen.

That's right.

Same thing as 6.30 this morning, still alive, just checking in.

Sorry, I dragged this so off topic.

I apologize.

First of all, this is the funnest.

Is funnest the word? Most fun? Okay.

This is one of the most fun interviews.

I definitely want you to come back because you're just a delight.

Well, thank you.

But I do want to mention from the book, because we've sort of defined biblical versus systematic theology.

Before we get back to this, I do want to ask, do you think – I know you said they're both one side of the same coin.

Yeah.

There are guys, I think, that would automatically say one or the other is superior.

Do you think that that's true? I have my own thoughts.

I want you to go first, and then I'll tell you.

No.

I think they both need each other more than they think they do.

Okay.

I mean, as far as creation of biblical canon, because kind of the systematic approach tends to come at it from a kind of philosophical-type perspective, that was the undergirding of creating the Bible, especially New Testament canon.

It was to come at it and say, okay, if I'm understanding the Old Testament, then these books do or don't qualify to the New Testament because of their contradiction.

That was a type of theology they did that I'd put closer to kind of the systematic approach than the other.

But on the other end of that, proper systematic theology is based on good exegetical content that comes out of the biblical camp.

They need each other.

I think if I grow in this but not in the other, then it's going to the gym and not ever going to leg day kind of a thing.

It's just going to be off a bit.

It's unbalanced.

I agree.

I would just add this thought, and this is because recently, being one who had spent a lot of time in systematic theology and a lot of time in that field, I am finding more value now in the biblical theology, but also realizing it was there all the time, because when I started preaching here in 2005, January 2005 was when I began the full-time Sunday morning preaching, and my first series was an exegesis of the Gospel of Luke.

It took me a couple of years to do that.

And then after that, I've done several books over the years.

I've done Acts.

I've done Hebrews.

I've done 1 Corinthians, James.

I've done a few Old Testament books.

I'm in Genesis right now.

But what I find is as I'm doing that, this is increasing my systematic so much, because like you said, it's based on exegesis.

What I have found, and I'll get you to comment on this, what I have found at times is when I look at someone systematic, and sometimes it's not based on good theology or good exegesis, especially, and I even hate, I hesitate to mention this because I have so many friends who are confessional, and sometimes they hold the confession even seemingly higher than the Scripture.

Yeah.

Or be careful.

I love my confession.

We hold a confession here, but sometimes I get that feeling.

And I look at the confession, which itself is a systematic.

It's an approach, a systematic approach.

This is what we believe about God.

And it will have these biblical references under it, and I'll go into those references, and I'll say, that ain't what that's talking about.

Yeah.

How did you get here from there? Yeah.

I mean, there have been a good amount of those things.

Well, I'm not trying to compare the two because, again, there's good people on the confessional end.

But a lot of the kind of theology on going to Facebook, you know, like Jesus tells us this, and it's a verse out of Numbers or something.

I'm like, Jesus didn't say much in Numbers.

Like he didn't – he's not a central figure in the book of Numbers, you know.

But they'll put these things down because it puts this authority of – well, it's a Bible passage, and people go like, I better press the share button then.

That's right.

And I think that can get to a place of kind of the danger of confessional.

And all these approaches do have inherent dangers to them, but that tends to be that instead of checking things through the authority of Scripture, I'm just speaking a thing that I've never spent the time to back up and understand through Scripture.

Because a good amount of confessions are great.

I mean, there's the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed.

These are things that have stood the test of time.

Sure.

Because they're built in good understanding of Scripture and applying them in kind of a systematic format.

Also, though, if people go through those, they've also been edited heavily for hundreds of years.

And if they're being edited in the type of manner that they are edited, especially the Apostles' Creed, in dropping things in, taking them out, then it comes out of a place of, hey, this document can be incorrect.

Yeah.

And that's okay because it isn't Scripture.

Scripture gets treated different because it's Scripture.

Creeds are great and fantastic, but they are under the authority of Scripture.

Absolutely.

And if a creed or confession contradicts Scripture, I have to default to Scripture 100% of the time.

That's right.

And I think a dangerous place that I've seen people— and again, I've never heard anybody say this, and so I'm trying to be fair.

And again, I'm not trying to court controversy too much here.

But I think what happens is— well, these were—and I'll use Westminster.

We don't hold to Westminster, and I'm not giving Westminster a hard time.

But the only reason I'm using Westminster is because I know plenty of guys who hold to it.

And what they'll say was, well, the Westminster divines say.

And then they'll quote the text.

And it's as if those men have an authority that's just like saying, well, the Apostle Paul says.

Right.

It's not.

It certainly is not.

Right.

And even in appealing to the Apostle Paul, I think that's good to do until I'm appealing to the stuff of the Apostle Paul that didn't make it into Scripture.

That is a different tier of authority that is under because it's not in Scripture.

There's Apostle Paul in Scripture and then Apostle Paul at home.

I mean— Ultimately, Paul's not the authority.

The Holy Spirit is the authority.

Absolutely.

Who inspires the work.

100%.

But again, though, I do think there is— it's kind of an argument of authority.

And I don't think that's a bad argument if it's kept in check.

I'm going to trust a doctor on a medical thing more than I'm going to trust, you know, any of the kids in my student group.

Kind of a thing at church.

Sure.

They don't have medical training.

Like, they don't have that.

So I'm going to trust a doctor more than them.

So should we be wearing masks? I'm just kidding.

We are not.

And we are not social distancing.

I just want to say, I can— That's twice.

That's— It's going to be super COVID now.

We just met.

There we go.

See? Okay.

For those of you listening— You're baiting me into masks, Israel.

What else do we want to talk about today? I'm trying to court controversy.

We just met.

And I'm like, let's fight.

Okay.

I have a quick story.

I was doing evangelism at the beach one time with a group of teenage students.

And we were filming it.

We were doing our own version of Ray Comfort, right? We were walking around filming people and asking them the questions.

And there was a homeless gentleman there.

He was just sort of a beach guy just sort of hanging out on the beach.

And we walked up and started talking to him.

I said, may we film you? So we started filming him.

Well, little did I know, he had a friend that was like a few yards away.

And he was hearing this.

And when we started filming, he walked up, sat next to the guy.

And he goes, let's fight.

And we were filming.

And he just looked.

He just said, let's fight.

And I was like, no, don't fight.

So I grabbed the camera and started walking away.

You're going to be a different video, but all right.

He was wanting to be the star of whatever we were doing.

He's like, let's fight.

That's a weird choice, because I know that you also teach karate.

That would have been a whole different video.

I'm ready for that one, too.

I'm like, what do you want? Well, he did.

Well, go for it.

Just to take the story another, he did follow us and threaten us with a screwdriver.

He put it in my face, told me he was going to kill me if we didn't leave the beach.

And so we decided it was time to close up for the day.

We're not going to fight.

But yeah, it got really serious really fast.

So let's fight.

I'm just kidding.

I'm in.

Let's go.

All right.

So this has biblical theology, systematic theology.

Yes.

But it also provides, this book provides three other categories.

And I just want to sort of get your thoughts on this, because they define, they distinguish historical theology, dogmatic theology, and contemporary theology.

And the way that they define historical theology is, we talked about this before the show, we read through it, is historical theology is theology as it was, and I don't like the term developed, but I guess we could say that we maybe discovered or systematized over time.

Like we would agree that Christology was understood by the apostles and even the early church, but that it had not been put into the formal language of, you mentioned the Apostles' Creed, and then, of course, the Nicene Creed, and then the more robust Athanasian Creed.

And so that is what historical theology is addressing.

And what's interesting, when I've taught on church history, I've said it's interesting because it's almost as if you have stages where in the early church there was the Christological heresies, and then, of course, the time of Pelagius and Augustine, there's the anthropological arguments.

And then throughout the Middle Ages, you have the arguments over ecclesiology, and the position of Rome, and the church, and the pope, and these things.

And then toward the Americas in the time post-Reformation, you have the eschatological positions, the Adventist movements, and things that began to grow up.

So it's almost like there's a systematic theology in history.

Sure.

Okay, yeah.

And what are your thoughts on that? Do you think that's helpful? I hadn't actually thought about it in that manner.

I see that one I view closer to a study of history more than theology, although that is good to understand it.

It's good to get a perspective because if I'm talking to a bunch of modern scholars, all of us are coming out of the same bias of 2022.

If I'm talking to that, then that kind of cultural understanding of theology isn't going to change.

And getting other perspectives on that throughout time can kind of bring balance to those things.

I mean, the ecclesiological kind of the movement during medieval times.

I'm bad with dates.

Well, yeah.

Like 1200s to 1500s.

Technically, the Middle Ages.

When are the Middle Ages? I'm better at other things.

Well, we would say prior to the—well, you have the rise of Islam in the 7th century.

It would probably be about then when you begin the Middle Ages, and also the rise of the Holy Roman Empire, which moves all the way into the Renaissance, which is prior to the Reformation, but only by a little.

So that whole midsection, you could say almost like 600 to 1400.

Sure.

So it's an 800-year period, which is middle.

And I think the big struggle during that time, it was what is the place of the church, and in specific, the pope.

I think there were people struggling through that question until it became dangerous to ask the question.

Because there were way too many beheadings for a Christian organization to justify.

How many beheadings are justifiable for—? None.

The bar is pretty high on that one.

Not even one? Not—no.

Okay.

The standards are high.

You heard it here, folks.

The Christian organizations are allowed zero beheadings.

It's these hard stances that I come down on.

But that was kind of their place of as the Roman Catholic Church is growing, people there trying to understand their place in the Church and the extent of the Church, because there is that chunk that the Catholic Church got a bit more into politics than it did into Jesus.

I mean, kind of the whole span of like 1200s, the pope was barely Christian.

Oh, I would say.

Like, there were very few that are like, I don't even know who Jesus is, but I am in the highest office of the Church.

I'm like, hey, that's— And I'm the vicar.

Yeah.

I'm the vicarious of Christ.

And that is an overextension of bad ecclesiology that I think people—they needed to struggle through that a bit.

And I think our cultural context does kind of define the theological trend of the day.

You know, I know a lot of people, especially in modern day, are still into eschatology, because what plague are we in currently? Yeah, exactly.

I mean, that is an increase anytime a thing happens.

There's World War I, World War II, Great Depression, Vietnam, Korea, any of the Middle East.

I mean, all these things, people go like, oh, this must be the end times.

If COVID would have happened in the 90s, people would have lost their mind.

Right.

Were you in church in the 90s? I was in it, mostly awake.

I remember back then, things like Left Behind.

Yeah, Left Behind.

And then there were the judgment houses.

There was a church right at the street that had a play.

In the play, they beheaded teenagers.

I mean, not real.

Because you're allowed none.

Zero.

Zero beheadings.

Zero tolerance on beheadings.

Zero.

We've heard it here.

That's going to be the tagline for today's show.

Zero beheadings.

We offer zero tolerance for beheadings.

But no, literally, there was like three teenagers, and they were having to go through the tribulation.

Right.

And they drug them up on the chancel.

Right.

I don't even call it a chancel.

It was a stage.

Right.

Drug them up on stage, put them on a guillotine, and it was one of those fake magician's guillotines, so that it looks like the head comes off, but it doesn't, obviously.

Right.

500 people in the audience saw a kid.

Right.

Boom.

And everybody was like, and then the pastor gets up, it's all dark and red, and he stands up and he goes, are you ready to face this for Jesus? And I was like, no.

I'm 10.

No, I'm not.

I'm not.

Stress me out.

When my age group has anxiety, these plays are in here.

No, I'm not.

So, yes.

I know we got off topic.

I'm sorry.

No, but I mean, it's that type of understanding of the things going on in culture that I think balances out if I'm able to go back to the older scholars, the older Christians, the older saints, in order to say, all right, if I understand it in this manner, and in a cultural context, most of us are going to be in the ballpark.

All right, they're in a different culture, a different age, a different kind of a context.

Did they understand it in the manner that I am also? Because that can give it a bit of extra authority.

That's probably not the best term, but it's a good indication that I'm going in the correct direction, I guess.

Yeah, it's awesome when I read Augustine, and he says something that totally connects to what I'm feeling and dealing with, knowing that you're looking 1,500 years ago.

Here's a guy who's totally removed from anything contextually.

This is before my whole country was a thing.

This is way back in time, and yet he's writing about things.

And you can even move that forward to the time of the Puritans and things like that.

When you look at a historical perspective, you say, this person's in this, but they're dealing with the same stuff I'm dealing with.

That's amazing.

And so I do think historical theology can have some value.

But again, it's all...

Go ahead.

It's important, but I think that the only thing it's doing is taking that coin that has two ends and just putting it in a different time frame.

Yeah.

I'm not going to go so far as to call it distinct, because it's going to be an expression of the other two, just in a different time or different culture.

Gotcha.

So in that, I'd still go back to it's just a two-ended coin and not a five-ended dice or anything that ends as...

I agree.

And I don't...

Yeah.

And I don't even think...

I think that he is actually, in this book, and we're not really reviewing the book, but just as a thought, I think that he is prioritizing.

Yes.

Because biblical theology then goes to systematic theology, which we said is dependent upon exegesis, depending on biblical theology.

And then historical theology is how has these things worked out over time.

Then dogmatics or dogmatic theology is a way of saying, okay, we've come to some conclusions and therefore we have some dogmas.

So, if you and I were to sit down and we were to say, we're going to discuss the five points of Calvinism.

The one that's never controversial, of course, is limited atonement.

So, if we said we're going to do that, that at least you would know that as a Calvinist, as a person who identifies as a five-point Calvinist, that I've taken a position.

Right.

And this is my opinion, that this is what this says.

Right.

And therefore, it doesn't become the lens through which I see everything, but it does mean that I have drawn a line in the sand.

And that's not bad.

It's just where I'm at.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think to me, that's taking that coin instead of putting it in time, it's putting it in context.

Yeah.

If I'm keeping to an Arminian type of understanding, then...

How dare you.

Yeah.

Then how do I do that? And through the understanding of kind of the first two, of those two things.

And so, if there's Arminian theology or Calvinistic theology, Catholic theology, these are things that the Bible doesn't come out and go, guys, it's total depravity, period.

That would solve so many debates.

That'd be so cool.

Here's the appendix to the Book of Romans.

Yeah.

It actually is TULIP.

So, I mean, those things are good, and I think they do give a kind of a frame of understanding that people can go to, but they're still going to be kind of dependent on that coin of biblical and systematic theology.

I agree.

So, again, and I know Karl Barth is probably the best at dogma, or maybe not the best, but the longest as far as dogmatics go.

But even that is just in a context of expression.

I guess I think the other term is applied theology.

Is that kind of the same thing? Could be, yeah.

Kinda, sorta? Yeah.

Saying this is...

Yeah.

If this is true, then it expresses in this manner.

Yeah.

So, it's kind of a step out, but not really.

Well, the last one in the book, and this will start drawing us to a close, because, again, this is just sort of our outline for today, is what is referred to as contemporary theology.

Now, the way that they define contemporary theology in the book, and you said it before the program, you said the wrong ones.

The way...

Because if you don't actually...

If there's no interest in doing theology, you do this, is get your conclusion and then make the Bible fit it.

Yeah, and so...

I teed you up to say something terrible next.

So, which one of those do you wanna say first? Well, for instance, I'll give you the list here.

It's liberal theology, which, honestly, I think you and I would agree on this.

When we talk about liberal theology, we're referring to, at least when I say the liberals, people look at it, but for some...

Like, you're strong IFB people.

I'm the liberal, because I don't use a King James, right? So, that's a spectrum.

Right.

But when I say the liberals, I'm referring to guys like John Dominic Crossan, John Shelby Spong, guys who have come out and said Jesus didn't rise from the dead.

His bones were buried in a shallow grave.

He was eaten by dogs.

These are pretty hardcore guys who are not taking the Bible in a historical or redemptive sense.

They're taking it as mythology at best.

Right.

And so, that is its own...

Past dogmatics, that's its own framework.

Right.

And so, liberal theology, neo-orthodox theology, radical theologies, which, if you look in the book, that's defined as things like black liberation theology, which there's liberation theology, and then there's black liberation theology.

Black liberation is a subset of liberation theology, which actually, I think, began in South America.

It wasn't even within the black community.

It was within, I think, an oppressed South America.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Yeah.

Gosh, I haven't read on that in a while, so you're probably right.

But there's a lot of...

Yeah.

Because of a lot of oppression and things like that.

So, liberation theology is the idea that we're not...

The salvation of the soul is secondary to the salvation, the liberating people from oppression, slavery, mistreatment, things like that.

So, that would be under the radical.

And then, historicist theology, socialist theology, which...

Not really.

Not really theology.

Theology at all.

Yeah.

But, of course, socialists have a...

Whether it's an atheistic perspective, which is a theology, it's just interesting that I think the book goes there.

They even include Catholic theology, which obviously ends as Protestant, and he would see much of Catholic as being unbiblical, and so he talks about here.

But he also addresses conservative theology in the sense that there are things that are conservative that aren't necessarily biblical.

Wait, go back to IFB.

Exactly.

Oh, goodness.

IFB churches have a weird end on, no, this, this, and this.

Those are things that are added to Scripture.

That's right.

And dangerous to proclaim in the manner that they're proclaiming.

They've created a works-based type of understanding, even if they don't claim it's that anyway.

Sure.

No, I agree.

Yeah, I think for contemporary kind of theologies, those get into trouble because they get their conclusion and then, or try and understand Scripture through their made conclusion.

Yeah.

And that's dangerous, because Scripture gets to speak first and gets to speak the loudest.

And I think if I start at that, then a lot of the other stuff gets taken care of.

Those almost take dogma and put it above the other two of, well, no, I'm doing this, and I'm justifying it in Scripture by doing this.

That's right.

And a fair amount of those, I think, kind of the thing I've struggled through is putting the adjective prior to the noun of, it's theology, but by putting an adjective prior to it, I'm trimming off a thing because I've qualified it now.

Okay.

And if it's a kind of black theology, well, then it's in essence kind of claiming, well, all right, this doesn't apply to anything beyond that scope.

And I don't think that's how Scripture works.

Yeah.

If all Scripture is God breathed and in Christ there is now no longer Jew, nor Gentile, slave, nor free, all those in the eyes of God don't matter, the adjective isn't important to God.

I mean, it is important, but it's not a qualifier of this person's better than this.

Then if it's true in this kind of theological context, the core truth in that has to be able to be applied in any of the other contexts.

Yeah.

The context of culture can change, as I mentioned, for the dogmatic and the historical treatments.

But if it's just true to this group of people, but not this group of people, that's a part I think can get really dangerous because it just splits us up.

Yeah.

As Christians, it splits us up instead of draws us closer together.

And all throughout Scripture it's just, there is one body of Christ.

There isn't this group over there, this group over there.

It's all of us are following after one God in Jesus Christ, made flesh, and all of us come together as a body of Christ instead of as a, well, there's these people here and those people there.

Sure.

Absolutely.

And again, getting, if we were to go back up the list and go back up to the beginning, we would say, like you said, not only does Scripture speak first, it speaks the loudest, and therefore our systematic theology must be first and foremost based on the Scriptures and must be what the Scripture says.

And however we look at that in a historic context or whatever positions we land on, if I, and I'll say this to my Calvinistic friends, let's say you do believe in limited atonement.

Let's say, like me, you hold to the five points of Calvinism, but you start with that, and then you go find your verses that agree with you.

Then you've gone backwards.

Right.

Then you've come at it from the wrong perspective.

Right.

I will say this from my own experience.

I was convinced as a Calvinist by my friend who made me look at the Scriptures, and he says, I want you, because I had never even considered, because I had been told something prior that I just accepted.

Right.

And the position that I was told was, well, God looks down the corner of time, he sees what you're going to do, and that's how he chooses you, and that's what predestination means.

And so for a couple of years, I just assumed that was what it meant.

Yeah.

And then when my friend challenged that, he says, is that really what the Bible says? Is that what 4 New means in Romans 8? And I said, I think so.

It makes sense to me.

And when I approached Scripture, and I would hope to think more open-mindedly and say, okay, what is this saying? And Paul clearly says, for whom he foreknew.

And I'm not trying to convince you of anything.

You're already there, 85%.

I'm mostly there.

But when he says, whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, and whom he predestined, he called.

And then you say, okay, wait a minute.

The calling comes after the predestination.

And so in the order of events, what we call the golden chain of redemption, which I had no idea that's what it was called then, but in the order of events, the calling is after this thing, this called predestination.

And then you say, okay, so wait a minute.

Does that mean he doesn't call those who are not predestined? And that produces a question and an exegetical question, and we begin to address that from other places.

But it's from the Scripture.

It's not from, well, I've got to prove this or not.

I think that's the same thing as people that will quote John MacArthur more than the Bible on things.

And I know even John MacArthur, he would disagree with that.

He's like, no, go to Scripture.

I'm not as good as Scripture.

You heard it here, folks.

John MacArthur is not as good as Scripture.

Got some hot takes on this one.

And we are zero tolerant for any beheadings.

Yes.

But those things, though, I think especially in, I mean, as Young, Restless, and Reformed got started, it was this appeal to this kind of age of people that they were trying to find answers and got very charismatic answers being given to them.

And so they just quoted those people instead of actually going back to Scripture.

One of my biggest issues, and you just nailed it, is people who they're satisfied that they're Calvinist because Paul Washer's a Calvinist or because James White's a Calvinist or because John MacArthur's a Calvinist.

That can't be our reason.

Right.

And those people, they would all tell you the same thing.

That's right.

Please do not be any, like, I am not the cause of these things.

It's a person interpreting Scripture in the context of good exegesis by the power of the Holy Spirit in us to illuminate Scripture 100%.

But we have to be okay to go back to Scripture to challenge those points.

And even in the Calvin-Arminian kind of debate, I think there's a fair amount of that debate I just chuck out because the other side isn't paying attention to the other side.

Yep.

They're both coming at Scripture.

They're trying to make a point in Scripture, and there are good questions brought up on both ends that the other end just ignores and says, well, I just think you don't understand.

Okay, then help us understand instead of the debate and the hot take and the Twitter.

Give me the clip that I can throw out there.

Instead, all right, take time, understand, is this person approaching Scripture in a proper manner? And if they aren't, then that is the point of the debate to say, actually, I don't think that passage states that.

I think this does.

Even the whole point on God calls those that are predestined.

Well, if there's a proper understanding of that and it's in context and understood, then the Arminian debate gets a lot harder if they acknowledge that part of Scripture.

But too many people, they get their boots dug in.

It's like, well, no, I have to hold to this.

I'm like, you really don't.

You're able to bail on a dogma because of the biblical or the systematic.

Yep, yep, absolutely.

Well, brother, I have really super enjoyed our conversation today, and I know there's a lot more that we could get into, and I hope we do on a future program.

And I'm going to go ahead and begin to draw us to a close, but I want to thank you again for taking time away from your busy schedule.

And I know that also you are a part of a church that's far enough away that I'm going to let you tell people if they want to come visit you.

Sure.

Because if you were right down the road, I wouldn't let you even say anything.

We're planning a new campus right next door.

I'm just kidding.

I would let him say even if he were there.

No, I'm a part of a Switzerland community church.

I will say whenever I tell people I'm in Switzerland, they're like, that's a far drive.

I'm like, ha-ha, that's funny.

And you have to just smile and say that.

And it's not, but you have to smile and say that anyway.

But it's in— It's about 45 minutes from here or more.

Yeah, about 45 minutes.

A good small church.

I have fun doing it, and it's an honor and a blast to be there.

And you are with Matthew Henson, one of my favorite people, and he's there as well.

Well, again, if you're in that area and you're looking for a church where the gospel is proclaimed and good guys like Daniel Burton and Matthew Henson are there, then reach out to them.

Do you guys have a website that they can find? We do.

Switzerlandcommunitychurch.com.

Oh, boy.

Is it a .com? You know, I really hope so.

Try the .org if you don't find it.

SwitzerlandCC—oh, no, .org.

Yes, .org.

Okay, all right.

Yikes.

Well, thank you again, Daniel, for being here.

And thank you, viewer, for watching us today and being with us.

I hope that you've enjoyed this.

I hope this has been educational as we discuss the subject of systematic and biblical theologies and other approaches to looking at theology.

And here at Sovereign Grace Church, we say theology matters because it does, and I hope that this was a way of showing you how important it really is.

Also, I want to mention, if you are watching this on YouTube or Facebook, please like and subscribe to this video because that helps.

It will help us to reach more people and help our content to be able to be seen by a wider audience.

And if you have a question that you would like for me to address on a future episode or an interview of someone you'd like me to interview, please send me that information at calvinistpodcast at gmail.com.

And especially if you have a question about today's topic and you'd like to have Daniel back, please mention that to me in the email, and we'll get back together in a future episode and be able to get together on your question.

Absolutely.

So again, thank you for being with me today and being with us, and thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

May God bless you.

I'll see you next time.