Sounding Like The Proclamation Trust

Here, amongst other things, The Revd Dr Peter Leithart makes the point that we want everyone to be able to speak Bible.

The specialised and specific categories of systematic theology have their place, but we should not lose sight of what Bible words mean: they have Bible meanings.

If we already know what 'justification' means, for example, when we come to the Bible, the Bible can never correct our understanding of righteousness and vindication and so on, which are facets of the Bible concept of justification.

This is the Proclamation Trust point that we must not impose our system on the Bible. What does this passage say and mean? It is only when we have truly heard this that we can begin to put it together with what we understand from other Bible passages already (our Systematic Theology, as we call it).

Of course, ideally there is always a complicated interaction (a virtuous spiral) between text and system: our systematic theology helps us to understand the Bible and the Bible corrects our system.

But Leithart and PT are surely right to remind us that Bible must always trump System if we are to be Evangelical Bible believers.