Introduction to Biblical Theology

A one-semester introduction to biblical theology: reading the whole Bible as a single, unfolding story that moves toward Christ rather than a collection of proof-texts arranged by topic. The course does not survey every doctrine; it traces one storyline - creation, fall, covenant, kingdom, cross, resurrection, and new creation - and shows how each stage sets up the next.

Chapter 1 defines the discipline itself: what biblical theology is, how it differs from systematic theology and exegesis, and why reading redemptive-historically changes how a preacher handles a text. Chapter 2 lays out the Bible's plot as a whole before chapter 3 argues that the kingdom of God is the storyline's organizing center. Chapters 4-5 cover creation (the imago Dei, the cultural mandate) and the fall (sin, guilt, and the misery it brings). Chapters 6-7 work through the covenants in canonical order - Adam, Noah, Abraham, then Moses, David, and the new covenant promised in Jeremiah - as the mechanism by which the kingdom storyline actually advances. Chapter 8 walks the Old Testament's redemptive-historical arc from primeval history to the intertestamental silence. Chapter 9 lays the foundations of messianic prophecy - typology, the Pentateuch's seed-promises, the coming king, the suffering servant - before chapter 10 traces how Jesus announces and enacts the kingdom's arrival. Chapters 11-12 hold the hinge of the whole course: the cross (atonement, justification, reconciliation) and what follows it (resurrection, the Spirit, the church). Chapter 13 closes with the kingdom's consummation - death, the intermediate state, the return of Christ, judgment, and the new heavens and new earth.

Scripture is quoted from the World English Bible. Where the Christian tradition genuinely disagrees - on the millennium, the extent of the atonement, the nature of the intermediate state, infant versus believer's baptism as the covenant sign - this course names who holds what rather than picking a winner for the reader.