A few weeks back, I saw the opportunity to be involved in a blog tour. A new book was being released, Evangelical Theology by Michael Bird. I was intrigued, I applied, and I was chosen. The deal is that I got a copy of the book a week before it was released. And I have to write an honest review here and on Amazon.

So I’m talking theology this week. You can tune out for the week, if you would like. I probably would have a few years back. I may not be a Biblical scholar, in the Michael Bird sense of scholar, but I have studied the Bible a lot. My focus has been on Bible as story. My degrees are in rhetoric which helps me with the story, and are from a state university, not a seminary, which gives me a different way to look at the texts.

This is in contrast to the study of systematic theology which is, as best as I can understand it, a topical, thematic, structured approach to the study of God. For me, Biblical study is looking at a story book, systematic theology is looking at a catalog. In fact, when I was going through my ordination, I had to buy Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology to understand the context of some of the questions. Which I then answered from my Bible as conversation perspective.

So why did I want to even try reading this book? Before I heard about the tour, I watched a video of Dr Bird talking about why a Biblical scholar wrote a theology. I was curious. Maybe, just maybe, this book could help me find theology a little more interesting.

I’ll be talking about the book for the rest of this week. I’m engaged in the writing, if not the always in the material.

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By the way, the 25 days of Advent start December 1. I wrote a reader which is available for the Kindle: Anticipation: an Advent reader.