Now I will turn to option b, doing topical studies in the Bible. Again, I would point to the length of the Bible and how many things are said in it. By just picking verses at our leisure we can make the Bible say whatever we want it to say. Also we can make the Bible emphasize whatever we want it to emphasize. For example, it wouldn’t be abnormal to spend a lot of time talking about how God is everywhere or how he knows everything. Believing these things is good, but I would point out that there are only a total of three verses in the Bible to support these two truths. Compare this with the time spent talking about the poor or the age to come. These are subjects that have literally hundreds and even thousands of verses on them, but that are not discussed very often.

My point is that we have to let God speak on his own terms, not on ours. The only way to do this is to read the Bible as it was given to us. It seems to me that some people think what God really meant to give us was So and So’s Systematic Theology, but he tripped and the pages got scrambled and now we are stuck trying to put the Bible back how God should have given it to us. Doing systematic theology is only okay after you have a good idea what the Bible says. If you don’t, you are going to pick the topics and verses that strike your fancy and ignores the ones that don’t.