This new article on theological method is stimulating:

I dedicate 40 Questions about Biblical Theology to Dr. Talbert because he introduced me to biblical theology and how it relates to the other theological disciplines (exegesis, systematic theology, historical theology, and practical theology). Dr. Talbert was my professor for six undergraduate courses and four seminary courses, a reader for my first PhD dissertation, and a groomsman in my wedding. My book How to Understand and Apply the New Testament basically repackages the theological method I learned from Dr. Talbert and then from Dr. Carson.

Dr. Talbert’s new article articulates his theological method in a more precise way by distinguishing three levels of systematic theology:

1. Logically arrange and present data from exegesis and biblical theology. (E.g., organize passages that teach that Jesus is both fully God and fully human.)
2. Logically coordinate and coalesce multiple lines of both explicit and implicit data from exegesis and biblical theology. (E.g., demonstrate that Jesus is the God-man—one person with both a divine nature and a human nature.)
3. Logically conclude from level-2 systematic theology what is not expressly biblical nor what data from exegesis and biblical theology necessitate. (E.g., explain precisely how Jesus’s virgin birth relates to his sinlessness.)

When evangelical theologians disagree about whether a doctrine is level 2 or 3, Dr. Talbert proposes that we distinguish between (a) identifying a doctrine as level 2 and (b) identifying your conclusions that such a doctrine is level 2 as level-3 systematic theology.

I like Dr. Talbert’s analogy to show the symbiotic relationship between systematic theology and biblical theology (pp. 21–22):

ST is like turning a piece of wild, raw countryside into a finely cultivated piece of productive farmland with symmetrical patchwork fields and crisp fence-lines and orderly crops and segregated livestock. Without ST we would have less appreciation for the Bible as a holistic, self-consistent, pedagogical vehicle for communicating God’s revelation on every topic necessary for man’s knowledge and welfare. We would tend to view the Bible as a rather loosely fitting collection of historical and literary documents. We would have no clear, organized, refined teaching of the Trinity, the nature of Christ, soteriology, or dozens of other important doctrines. Farms display a manmade beauty and order and structure. At the same time, there are some things you just will not see on a farm that you can see only in a more natural setting.

BT is like the uncultivated countryside that has its own kind of natural order and undomesticated beauty. Its arrangement is not manmade, though wilderness can be explored, and laced with hiking trails to make it more accessible, and even managed to be more naturally productive. Without BT we would have less appreciation for the Bible as a living, organic, multi-dimensional literary vehicle for communicating God’s revelation on a wide variety of non-ST issues intended for man’s edification and enrichment. We would tend to view the Bible as merely a textbook of isolated, propositional proof texts, viewed only in terms of human questions and humanly selected categories. We would overlook Luke’s unique emphasis on women, John’s unparalleled development of kosmos, the hinge-theme of wrath on which the story of Esther turns, and numberless other distinctive thematic emphases with theological import. But again, to return to the illustration, there are some things you will not see in the wilderness that you can find only on a farm.

In short, without thoughtful ST we lose the Bible’s pedagogical/catechetical value as a coherently unified source of self-consistent theology. Without attentive BT we lose the Bible’s historical/descriptive value as a literarily diverse source of multi-vocal theological expression. And without careful ET [exegetical theology] we lose the Bible’s objective guide and guardrails for both BT and ST.

Related: See my talk “How to Do Exegesis and Theology: My Theological Method.”