September Intermission: From Biblical Vocation to Biblical Theology

Fall has arrived, and death is in the air. The equinox has passed, and billions of leaves on millions of trees are turning colors and departing. It’s getting colder. And creation continues to groan under the weight of sin’s curse.

We have groaned, too. The untimely deaths of two allies and brothers in the faith shocked us. We did not initially plan to write on these men in our month on vocation, and yet the legacy and work ethic of Charlie Kirk (1993–2025) and Voddie Baucham (1969–2025) are worth celebrating and remembering. And while all our labors on this side of the new heavens and earth will culminate in death, our great hope lies beyond the grave in a living savior.

What do we do when a luminary’s light fades? We get to work, even as the days are getting shorter.

It takes work to understand what the Bible teaches about our labor, but by God’s grace, we got a lot done. This past month we defined how our vocation includes more than just our job, and we painted a picture of what faithfulness in our vocation looks like—which includes a rejection of Marxism and a long obedience in an “ordinary” labor. We outlined the needed attributes of godly ambition and risk-taking, and considered practical wisdom on how to work harder. Not everyone’s job aspirations will look the same, and thus we addressed particular considerations for single women, aspiring pastors, and Christian businessman. If you missed any of our articles or podcasts, you can find them below, with the longforms in bold.

• August Intermission: From the Four Gospels to the Doctrine of Vocation by Kevin McClure • Concise Article • Join us as we transition from the person and work of Christ in the four gospels to the work of grasping the doctrine of vocation.
• Faithful in All Things: Vocation and Christian Callings by Rod Martin • Longform Essay • Every calling is itself sacred, every task a trust, and every laborer accountable before the throne.
• 4.39 Rod Martin “Faithfulness in All Things: Vocation and Christian Callings” by Rod Martin • Longform Reading • Every calling is itself sacred, every task a trust, and every laborer accountable before the throne.
• Pouting Pulpits and Part-Time Pastors: Projection over Proclamation by David L. Bahnsen • Concise Article • When pastors model a mediocre work ethic, their example carries through to their congregation. Inversely, when a pastor has a servant-heart, is industrious, productive, and diligent, and does so without complaining or entitlement, he sets an excellent example for his congregation.
• The Calling of the Christian Businessman: Vocation and Capital Allocation as Worship by Jonathan Wellum • Concise Article • What does the Bible have to tell us about business and investments? More than you might think! Read as Jonathan Wellum draws on decades of business experience to show how Christians should use their capital well.
• Christianity Vs. Marxism by Jonathan Wellum • Concise Article • Can we combine a theory such as Marxism with our Christian faith? In this article, Jonathan Wellum displays how Marxist thought proves antithetical to the Bible’s witness concerning wealth, property, and labor.
• 4.40 Rod Martin, Trent Hunter, & Stephen Wellum “Faithfulness in All Things: Vocation and Christian Callings” by Rod Martin, Trent Hunter, and Stephen Wellum • Interview • Listen in as Trent Hunter and Stephen Wellum interview Rod Martin on his COA Essay “Faithfulness in All Things: Vocation and Christian Callings”
• Ambition, Careers, and Marriage: What’s a Single Godly Woman to Do? by Abigail Dodds • Concise Article • You’re a single godly woman, and you want to be married, but you’re not. What should you do?
• Brothers, Play the Tortoise: A Word to Aspiring Pastors by Sam Emadi • Concise Article • The young man hopping as fast as he can through seminary often short-circuits the necessary growth and wisdom he needs to have a long pastorate. But there’s a better (albeit slower) way.
• We Can’t Replace Charlie Kirk, But We Can Honor His Legacy: Five Ways to Amplify Truth, Freedom, and the American Way by Colin Smothers and David Schrock • Longform Essay • Charlie Kirk, who influenced a generation of young men, is gone. What do we do now?
• 4.41 Colin Smothers & David Schrock “We Can’t Replace Charlie Kirk, But We Can Honor His Legacy: Five Ways to Amplify Truth, Freedom, and the American Way” by Colin Smothers and David Schrock • Longform Reading • Charlie Kirk, who influenced a generation of young men, is gone. What do we do now?
• 4.42 Scott Polender, David Schrock, Trent Hunter, and Stephen Wellum “Grieving with Hope and Getting to Work: A Tribute to Charlie Kirk” by Scott Polender, David Schrock, Trent Hunter, and Stephen Wellum • Interview • Scott Polender of Turning Point Education joins our COA Roundtable to reflect on life, work, and ministry of Charlie Kirk.
• Stay-at-home Moms, Stay-at-work Dads? A Plea for Better Thinking on Vocation by Andrew Ballard • Concise Article • When little Sally is asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” we need to have categories that go beyond a nine-to-five job. We need to think in the Bible’s categories about vocation.
• The Turning Point of a Generation: Remembering Charlie Kirk by Scott Polender • Concise Article • What God is stirring in this generation is bigger than any one man, and yet it bears the mark of Charlie’s faithfulness. It seems we are standing at a true turning point: A moment when the Lord Jesus is reviving His church, raising up young people, and calling everyone to repentance.
• Sanctified Self-Interest or Subtle Greed? A Pauline Guide to Wealth Management by David Scott Kotter • Concise Article • Work for Christ, not greed. Every purchase asks: am I honoring God—or feeding subtle idolatry? Discover Paul’s balance sheet for the heart.
• Working As Unto the Lord: Seven Ways to Work Harder and Be Better by David Schrock • Longform Essay • In Ephesians 6:5–9, Paul shows that good works don’t happen by accident. Christ motivates, sanctifies, and coaches believers to work harder, be better, and glorify Him in every sphere of life.
• 4.43 David Schrock “Working As Unto the Lord: Seven Ways to Work Harder and Be Better” by David Schrock • Longform Reading • In Ephesians 6:5–9, Paul shows that good works don’t happen by accident. Christ motivates, sanctifies, and coaches believers to work harder, be better, and glorify Him in every sphere of life.
• The Risk in Getting and Giving by Jason Glas • Concise Article • No risk, no reward. Risk is essential to the Christian life, and it’s essential to turning a profit. This is a call for more risk-takers in the church.
• Why Young Men Wither: A Call for a Revival of Ambition by Tyler Cox • Concise Article • The strength of young men to serve the church and build the world is being sapped, and a recovery of godly ambition is the dire need of the day.
• A North Star for Our Generation: A Tribute to Voddie Baucham by David Schrock & Trent Hunter • Concise Article • We give thanks to God for one of his faithful servants, Voddie Baucham (1969–2025), and we remember his life with honor.
• 4.44 Trent Hunter, Stephen Wellum, & David Schrock • Interview • “Working As Unto the Lord: Seven Ways to Work Harder and Be Better” by Trent Hunter, Stephen Wellum, and David Schrock • Interview • Listen in as Trent Hunter and Stephen Wellum interview David Schrock on his essay, “Working As Unto the Lord: Seven Ways to Work Harder and Be Better”.
• Which Way, Christian?: A Contrast of David Platt’s Radical and Michael Horton’s Ordinary by Chad Lawrence • Concise Article • David Platt’s Radical is a corrective against the secular American Dream—but it swings too far the other direction. There is a better and more ordinary way.

We move on now from our labor on vocation to work on biblical theology. Biblical theology is “a way of analyzing and synthesizing the Bible that makes organic, salvation-historical connections with the whole canon on its own terms, especially regarding how the Old and New Testaments integrate and climax in Christ.”^[1]

1. Andrew David Naselli, How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017), 235. Or another way to describe it, biblical theology “proceeds with historical and literary sensitivity and seeks to analyze and synthesize the Bible’s teaching about God and his relations to the world on its own terms, maintaining sight of the Bible’s overarching narrative and Christocentric focus.” (Brian S. Rosner, “Biblical Theology,” in New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, ed. T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2000], 10.

Biblical theology is indispensable to understanding the Bible. It rightly presupposes that the Bible is a divinely-authored diverse-yet-unified book with a true and consistent narrative that spans all of history. Jesus Christ is the ultimate climax of this true story of history, and biblical theology seeks to relate each biblical text in textually-warranted ways to him. Thus, biblical theology employs a Christocentric interpretation.

Typology

How does one do biblical theology? One primary aspect of biblical Theology is typology. “Typology is the study of the Old Testament redemptive historical realities or “types” (persons, events, institutions) which God has specifically designed to correspond to, and predictively prefigure, their intensified antitypical fulfillment aspects (inaugurated, appropriated, and consummated) in New Testament redemptive history.”^[2] So, for example, Adam is a type that prefigures Jesus, who is the antitype, or fulfillment (Rom. 5:14). God’s presence in Eden is a type that is fulfilled in God’s presence through the tabernacle (Exod. 40:34–35), the temple (1 Kings 8:10–11), through God the Son (Col. 1:19), through the gathered church (Matt. 18:20), and ultimately in the new heavens and earth (Rev. 21:3). Types are rooted in history and in the text of the Bible and they are predictive; types also involve repetition of a person, event, location, or institution, they escalate in significance, and they are developed through the covenants.^[3] Some aspect of typology is found on virtually every page of the Bible, as typology interweaves the major themes of the glory of God, creation, sin, covenant, law, temple, priest, sacrifice, exile and exodus, the kingdom of God, sonship, the city of God, prophets and prophecy, death and resurrection, people of God, wisdom, holiness, justice, wrath, love and grace, the gospel, worship, mission, shalom, the consummation.^[4]

Jesus and the apostles understood the Old Testament in typological ways. They saw that God had written a true story that culminated in the Son’s person and work. Jesus teaches in Luke 24:44 that “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”^[5] Paul likewise teaches in 2 Corinthians 1:20 that “all the promises of God find their Yes in him [=Jesus],” (and this includes Old Testament promises within the greater context of 2 Corinthians [see 7:1]).^[6] If all of the three parts of the Old Testament (Law of Moses, Prophets, and Psalms) write about Christ, and if all the promises from the Old Testament find their fulfillment in Christ, then he must be the climax of the Old Testament.^[7] Thus, if we don’t read our Bibles in a biblical theological way, then we will not understand the scriptures.

Resurgence and Reception

There are many laypeople that have never heard of biblical theology, and especially those in non-reformed and non-denominational churches. But biblical theology, and especially Christocentric interpretation, has had a resurgence in the past couple decades. From the 2000s onward, there has been a great multiplication of resources advocating Christ-centered hermeneutics, which is an outworking of biblical theology. Graeme Goldsworthy’s According to Plan (2002) and Christ-Centered Biblical Theology (2012)^[8] along with Dennis Johnson’s Him We Proclaim (2007)^[9] provided additional hermeneutical support for Christocentrism. Sydney Greidanus has written many books helpfully applying this method to particular texts,^[10] while Tim Keller—for all his cultural missteps—has also popularized the method.^[11] Beyond these resources, many institutions have advanced this hermeneutic, including Westminster Seminary, the Charles Simeon Trust, ReachGlobal (the missions arm of the Evangelical Free Church in America), The Gospel Coalition, and 9Marks, to name a few.

There are others who have moved on from biblical theology, and who no longer see it as relevant to the interpretive enterprise. Some of these voices confuse the discussion by conflating typology with allegory (which is not right!). And some are more warm towards the medieval fourfold method of interpreting scripture—literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. The problem with this four-fold method is that there are few textual controls; who is to say that my allegory of the Good Samaritan is more valid than your different allegory of it? In this context where competing interpretations exist, a magisterium—a type of “Supreme Court” to authoritatively rule on what is valid—is needed to adjudicate between different options. And thus, the four-fold method ultimately leads to a Wild West where each free-floating and subjective interpretation vies against others, or it leads to Roman Catholicism and its magisterium.^[12] But there’s a better way, and it’s found in a close reading of scripture that does typology by means of close verbal and textual connections within the biblical canon.

This month we have a lot in store. We plan to write on what biblical theology is, how it relates to the theological interpretation of Scripture (also known as TIS), and give an overview of the current state of biblical Theology. We plan to remember the pioneers and popularizers of modern biblical theology, and to unpack some of the concepts and interpretive methods. Finally, we hope to show what biblical theology looks like in action through examples. All in all, we hope to prove that biblical theology is essential to proper biblical interpretation.

12. Knox Brown, “The Wild Wild West, The Sirens of Rome, and the Hermeneutics of Christian Platonism,” Christ Over All, August 7, 2024.

News and Notes

First, September Was Our Birthday Month!

We just recently celebrated our three year birthday in September 2025. We are grateful to God for all of those who generously gave so that we might continue our mission of helping the church to see the Christ’s lordship is over everything. By God’s grace, we will steward these funds well and

Second, the Christ Over All Swag Store Is Here

Many of you have been asking for this in the past years, and it is now here. For those looking to get Christ Over All shirts, mugs, hoodies, stickers, and hats, our apparel store is up and running!

And for those who have asked for print-friendly versions of our articles, we have been working on putting all of our monthly themes into a beautiful and downloadable pdf file that can be purchased for a small fee. Lord willing, we plan to launch this by the end of October 2025.

Third, Be Aware of Our Upcoming Months.

We receive submissions from faithful Christians who have thought deeply about our topics. If you have expertise in one of the following topics in bold and are interested in writing for us (in line with our doctrinal distinctives), feel free to shoot us an e-mail to tell us what you are thinking.

• November 2025: Do the Reading: Selections in Political Theology
• December 2025: Christmas Buffet
• January 2025: Abolishing Abortion
• February 2025: Engaging Islam 
• March 2025: Can Anything Good Come from Nashville? An Investigation of Denominational Structures and Stewardship
• April 2025: The Cross, Resurrection, Ascension

Fourth, We’d Love To See You Face to Face in the Next Few Months.

On Monday, October 27th, Steve Wellum and Trent Hunter will be speaking in Mauldin, South Carolina at the Pastors Encouraging Pastors Conference. This conference is hosted by Christ Over All author Brad Baugham at Emmanuel Bible Church, and will focus on how the Bible fits together.

Also, David Schrock will be hosting a Simeon Trust Preaching Workshop in Woodbridge, Virginia at Occoquan Bible Church on October 14–16. If you are a pastor, preacher, or aspiring minister of the gospel, this hands-on workshop is well worth the time. Come and study the book of Zechariah with David Schrock, Mike Bullmore, and Erik Raymond. Or, if October doesn’t work, you can join Trent Hunter, David Helm, and Ryan Kelly in Greenville, SC, from January 28–30, 2006, for a Simeon Trust Workshop on Leviticus.

From November 18–20, 2025, all the Christ Over All editors will be at the Evangelical Theological Society in Boston. If you are there, please let us know, and keep an eye out for a late night meetup on Tuesday, November 19.

In 2026, we will be visiting Southwest Florida to join the Founders National Conference in Fort Myers on January 22–24. That week David Schrock will be one of the speakers, and we will have a booth. Sign up here to join us.

That’s all for now. Until next time, let’s remember that Christ is over all, so in all things we ought exalt him!