Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 83:1 (Spring 2021)
Article: “Have You Never Read?” Biblical Theology In A World Of Wolves, Foxes, And Griffins
Author: Brandon D. Crowe

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“Have You Never Read?” Biblical Theology In A World Of Wolves, Foxes, And Griffins

Brandon D. Crowe

Brandon D. Crowe is Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary. This address was given at his inauguration as professor on October 14, 2020.

This article, which originated as an inaugural professorial lecture, considers three challenges to biblical theology from those who read the Scriptures selectively (wolves), those who do not read the Scriptures in accord with the rule of faith (foxes), and those who find problems in Scripture where there are none (griffins). To counter these dangers, it is suggested that biblical theology must be focused on the whole Bible, and must be robustly theological. Illustrations of and how to avoid these dangers are taken from NT examples, including the puzzle of Johannine ethics, the NT convictions regarding Christ, and discrete theologies of subsections of the NT. The article concludes with four implications: the need for the tools of biblical studies, the need for both biblical and systematic theology, the role of biblical studies in a seminary context, and the practical nature of biblical studies.

Sometime around the year 57, while sailing to Jerusalem, the apostle Paul stopped in at the port of Miletus. There he met the leaders of the Ephesian church and spoke to them one last time. The stakes were high; he warned of the wolves that would come for the sheep, and he urged the leaders to hold fast to the whole counsel of God (Acts 20:27). To ward off the attraction of false teaching, the people had to be equipped with the teaching of all the Scriptures—not a selected, attenuated set of texts that would lead to an insufficiently nuanced and insufficiently thorough understanding of what God has spoken. Paul’s parting words emphasized the need for biblical theology done rightly.

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About 120 years later, and almost 1,700 miles to the northwest,1 another church leader stepped up to counter those who were twisting the Scriptures. In the city of Lugdunum2 in Gaul (in modern-day France) Irenaeus faced head-on the problems Paul warned about: wolves had infiltrated the church and twisted and taken a selective approach to the Scriptures.3 There, in the western regions of the Roman Empire, heresies abounded.

In response, Irenaeus engaged in whole-Bible biblical theology. He clung to the ancient rule of faith that summarizes the hypothesis of Scripture, and pointed readers to the centrality of Christ and h...