From Seed to Glory
What Is Biblical Theology?
Have you run out of steam in your Bible reading yet?
If you are anything like me, it happened when you missed one or two days in your Bible reading plan, and felt like there was no way you could keep up. I am here to tell you it’s going to be okay. Because as helpful as Bible reading plans are, they are not enough.
Reading large portions of Scripture does not automatically mean we are understanding what we read. Without a sense of where we are in God’s story, a reading plan can become little more than spiritual box-checking. We may finish the chapter, but miss the meaning.
Biblical theology, however, gives shape and direction to our reading, teaching us not just to move through the Bible, but to read it with awareness of how God reveals Himself, His gospel, and His purposes from beginning to end.
And just so we are clear, Biblical theology is not a tool reserved for the seminarian. Rather, it is the way Christians learned to read their Bible well.
What Is Biblical Theology?
If I were explaining biblical theology to a member of my church, I would say this:
Biblical theology is the way we read the Bible by paying attention to how God reveals Himself and His salvation over time, so that each passage is interpreted as God intended. It helps us see where a text fits within the unfolding story of redemption and how it ultimately points us to Christ.
This definition matters because the Bible is not a flat book full of proverbs and prooftexts (although it does have both). Nor did Scripture fall from heaven all at once, complete and fully formed. As Peter tells us, even the prophets searched and inquired carefully into what they were writing, knowing that the fullness of what they longed for lay ahead of them (1 Pet. 1:10).
Biblical theology teaches us to ask a simple but essential question before we rush to application: Where are we in God’s story?
Reading Scripture the Way God Gave It
When we ignore this question, we tend to misread the Bible in one of two ways. We either flatten Scripture into a collection of lessons that we can apply to our lives, or we force later truth into earlier texts in ways God never intended. Biblical theology guards us from both errors by honoring the movement of redemptive history.
This is why biblical theology cannot be defined as merely tracing themes. Tracing a theme like marriage, temple, or kingship is certainly a biblical-theological task, but biblical theology is more than cataloging ideas. It is about seeing how those ideas grow, mature, and reach their intended end as God reveals Himself.
Drawing for Vos, Andrew Naselli uses a helpful image here, explaining that Biblical theology is like watching a seed grow into a tree.1 Scripture indeed contains many seeds planted early in redemptive history. Over time, those seeds grow, branch, and bear fruit, and Biblical theology follows that organic growth. From a wide-angle view, we begin to see not just individual trees, but the forest of redemption taking shape.
Christ at the Center, Hope at the Ends
This way of reading Scripture also shows us the continuity of faith across the ages. Old Testament believers lived looking forward to the coming Savior. New Testament believers live looking back to His finished work and forward to His return. Both live by promise, both are shaped by hope, and both are sustained by the same gospel.
Biblical theology refuses to treat the Old Testament as a Christian preface or the New Testament as a disconnected sequel. Instead, it shows us one people of God, trusting one gracious Lord, moving toward one glorious end.
Why This Matters for the Church
It matters because it teaches the church how to read the Bible as a unified, Christ-centered story. It helps believers see not only what God commands, but who God is. It trains us to behold the character and beauty of God as He reveals Himself through covenant, promise, fulfillment, and glory.
Most importantly, biblical theology keeps the church oriented toward Christ. It reminds us that we are a pilgrim people, living between promise fulfilled and promise yet to come, sustained by the gospel as we journey toward the return of our King.
Jason S. DeRouchie, Oren R. Martin, and Andrew David Naselli, 40 Questions About Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Kregel Academic, 2020), 36.