New Covenant Theology is (or should be) influenced more by the discipline of biblical theology than systematic theology. That is not to say that systematic theology is unhelpful. However, it does tend to push its undiscerning disciples toward rationalistic, rather than redemptive interpretations.
D.A. Carson has written an excellent summary of how biblical theology should impact our thinking and preaching. Here is an excerpt:
|
|
The habit of thinking through the magnificent diversity of the biblical books—which of course is so much a part
of responsible biblical theology—is likely
to help the preacher devote time and care
to the way the genres of Scripture should
affect his preaching. How do I handle
lament, oracle, proverb, apocalyptic,
narrative, fable, parable, poetry, letter,
enthronement psalm, theodicy, dramatic
epic? Not to think about such things, of
course, may still leave you orthodox: you
may find principles and truths in all of
these kinds of texts, incorporate them into
your atemporal systematic theology, and
preach them. Yet God certainly had good
reasons for giving us a Bible that is shaped the way it is: not a systematic theology handbook, but an extraordinarily diverse collection of documents, with one Mind behind the lot, traversing many centuries of writing, in many different forms. The fact that one Mind is behind all of the documents makes systematic theology both possible and desirable, but not at the expense of flattening out and domesticating the documents that still remain the “norming norm.”
|