Family Style Theology

The fact that there is very little systematic theology in the Scriptures we call the New Testament should maybe seem to us as a bush that is burning but not consumed, drawing us to turn aside and discover something mysterious. Theologians have tried to make up the gap by answering all the questions and explaining all the mysteries, but they all disagree with one another, implying that some of them must be at odds with Jesus as well as each other.

Even in the Old Testament, in a passage of Isaiah’s prophesies that was the source of at least one New Testament teaching ministry and the instructional styles several others, “line upon line” seems to be a good, orderly thing. Isaiah brought up the concept as a judgment, though:

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:
For with stammering lips and another tongue will he speak to this people.
To whom he said, This is the rest wherewith ye may cause the weary to rest; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.
But the word of the Lord was unto them precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little; that they might go, and fall backward, and be broken, and snared, and taken.
(Isaiah 28:10-13, KJV)

The overwhelming style of teaching in the New Testament seems to be related to what the messenger instructed Peter and John Luke mentioned in Acts 5:17-21. Here, they were told by the angel who freed them from prison, to “…go tell the people all the words about this life.”

Of course, orderly teaching is valuable and can bring much blessing and good instruction. Yahweh seems to love family-style things the most, though.