Don’t Miss the Big Picture: Why Biblical Theology is Essential for Deep Bible Study

What’s This About?

If you’re passionate about personal Bible study, you likely already recognize that observing the text accurately—pulling out the true meaning, or exegesis—is paramount. But how often do you find yourself feeling bogged down in Leviticus, or unsure how a particular verse relates to the vast, glorious sweep of God’s plan?

We believe that to truly practice meaningful, participatory Bible study, you need a powerful foundation in Biblical Theology. T.K. Dunn’s insightful book, “Take and Eat”: From Fall to Feast, offers exactly this framework, revealing how the overarching narrative of Scripture is essential for maximizing the deep, experiential methods laid out in Learning and Living Scripture, the book that’s behind this blog.

Both of these books are published by Energion Publications.

The Big Picture: Tracing Redemption through “Take and Eat”

“Take and Eat”: From Fall to Feast provides a fresh, comprehensive resource for tracing the Bible’s story. Rather than organizing doctrines systematically (like rooms in a theological house), biblical theology traces ideas or themes from Genesis to Revelation, emphasizing the storyline of redemption (the metanarrative). Dunn uses the seemingly ordinary yet profoundly significant phrase “take and eat” to compellingly trace redemptive history.

This approach reveals how God progressively reveals his purposes through time, moving horizontally through the storyline (from creation to consummation) and upward in our understanding of God and his purposes for creation.

At the heart of this theological journey is Jesus Christ. Biblical theology uses typology, viewing people, places, things, or events in the Old Testament as signposts pointing toward Jesus, who is their fulfillment. The central theme of the book demonstrates how Jesus, the Final Adam, achieves victory and reverses the consequences of sin—an idea called recapitulation. The narrative trajectory travels “from the Fall to the Feast,” centering everything on Jesus.

The Demands of Deep, Participatory Study

The authors of Learning and Living Scripture designed the Participatory Study Method to invite you deeper into the text, emphasizing that Bible study should be about experiencing God, not just learning doctrines. The goal is to move beyond mere listening and become a “doer of the word,” impelled and empowered by God’s Grace. “For it is God who works in you” (Philippians 2:13).

The Participatory Study Method guides you through a thorough process—Preparation, Prayer, Overview, and the Central Loop (Meditate, Question, Research, Compare). This method specifically demands that you:

1. Read Empathetically: Make a serious, active effort to understand just what the people in biblical times experienced and how they responded. This requires avoiding modern arrogance and trying to understand their culture and circumstances.
2. Read in Context: Precise reading is crucial, but context is multifaceted. Beyond the literary and historical context, deep study requires understanding the canonical context—where the passage fits in the overall canon of scripture.
3. Find Your Place in the Story: The Participatory Study Method invites you to become part of the biblical story, aware of your role in the great drama.

Why Biblical Theology is Essential for PSM Success

This is where the broad, cohesive foundation of “Take and Eat” becomes essential. Without a clear understanding of the overarching biblical theology, specific methods in Learning and Living Scripture are limited:

• Preventing Misinterpretation: The biblical theology approach, focusing on the story line, serves as a crucial guardrail against defective interpretations. Without the broader framework, it is easy to cherry pick a verse, take it out of context, and then put it on social media.
• Providing Canonical Context: The Participatory Study Method explicitly requires studying the canonical context. Take and Eat provides this framework by showing how major biblical events are signposts leading to Christ. For instance, understanding the Passover meal (a key moment explored in T&E) requires recognizing it as a type pointing toward Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice and the New Covenant.
• Enabling Accurate Application: T.K. Dunn explains that the best systematic theologies are rooted in biblical theology, and good biblical theology can refine systematic theology. When applying scripture (the contemplation/living stage of Participatory Study Method), we must ask: “In what ways must the message be embedded in a new and refreshed context to apply to your community?”. The progressive revelation traced in T&E clarifies how God’s commands are updated and adapted in Christ. For example, the original Creation Mandate given to Adam is seen as being updated and adapted into the Great Commission for the New Creation community. This updating and adaptation is not meant to discard what came before, but rather to fill it with new power and deeper meaning. A lay person can gain immense benefit by seeing how themes like sin and grace unfold from the Fall to the Feast.
• Enhancing Empathy and Worship: By tracing God’s deliberate and intricate actions throughout history, we grasp the enormity of Christ’s obedience that unwound Adam’s failure. The entire narrative points back to worship (doxology). Understanding the full redemptive arc, from the Fall (where Adam plunged humanity into rebellion) to the triumphant Wedding Feast of the Lamb, transforms our personal study into corporate worship, which is the ultimate purpose of Scripture.

When you embrace the redemptive-historical journey provided by T.K. Dunn’s biblical theology, you are equipped with the necessary framework to heed the call of Learning and Living Scripture: to read accurately, think contextually, and truly become part of the greatest story ever told. As you “take and eat” of the Scriptures, you are learning to “taste and see that the Lord is good.”