Culver Quotes

Before the quotes, however, I want to bring attention to another encouraging post from Bob Robinson at Vanguard Church. After identifying popular, contemporary evangelicalism's misuse of Scripture (yet again), Bob closes his latest post by reminding us of the cosmic significance and scope of the work of Christ in the Gospel. Why do we continue to force the Scripture to speak from the perspective of American Nationalism? After reading his latest post, scroll to the post entitled: American Patriotism and the Bible and read Greg Boyd's review of the latest "gimmick Bible" that has hit the shelves. This "Bible" would be absolutely ridiculous if it wasn't so potentially dangerous.

Christopher Culver quotes from his book, "Speak Lord: Learning to Listen to the Bible".

God’s self-revelation is historically framed and conditioned. The Bible is not a collection of religious, doctrinal, and theological statements; rather, it is an inspired record of and commentary upon God’s ongoing interactions with the world through the movement of human history. The Bible is an historical account, spanning all of history from the point of creation to the end of the present world and into the eternal state.

At the same time, it is not a haphazard and disconnected collection of historical events and people, as one might expect to find in a classroom history text. The Bible has a cohesive and purposeful storyline: From the opening verses of Genesis, it has a specific destination in mind, and everything it contains is recorded precisely because it contributes to the development of its “story” as it advances toward its predetermined goal (pg. 12-13).

The biblical text demonstrates that divine revelation is incarnate in history. It doesn’t simply occur in history. It has its identity and lives, grows and matures in history. Indeed, history is itself revelatory, for it is nothing except the observable outworking in time and space of God’s eternal and sovereign purposes (pg. 13).

To paraphrase Vos, Biblical Theology is the theological discipline concerned with God’s self-revelation in the Bible, but specifically from the vantage point of the organized and harmonious process by which God progressively unfolds it within the upward movement of human history (pg. 15)

…Biblical Theology seeks to examine God’s self-revelation in the Bible according to the structure and form in which the Bible presents it. Systematic Theology is concerned with categories of theological truths and the content that belongs in those categories; Biblical Theology is concerned with theological content as the Bible reveals and develops it within the movement of its own inspired storyline (pg. 15).