"Biblical Theology relieves to some extent the unfortunate situation that even the fundamental doctrines of the faith should seem to depend mainly on the testimony of isolated proof-texts" - Geerhardus Vos, Biblical Theology (Carlisle, reprint 1975) 17.

With the prevalence of emerging/ent theology in the American church the concept of propositional theology is commonly decried as obsolete. To a certain extent I am sympathetic to this view after doing time at a fundamentalist Bible college where systematic theology was often nothing more than the memorization of proof texts for various doctrines. Yet a real alternative to propositional theology is confessional theology that is undergirded by the sort of biblical theology that would be developed by Vos a couple hundred years after the Westminster Divines. "What is the chief and highest end of man?" asks WLC 1. The correct answer does not rely on chapter and verse, using Scripture as some kind of divine dictionary or key. Instead, we find the answer from Genesis to Revelation and reply "Man's chief and highest end is to glorify God, and fully to enjoy him forever."