One of the best buys I've ever had was in a bookstore called Logos. In the used section was Lewis Sperry Chafer's Systematic Theology. It was the older 1976 set for around 3$ ea! Kregal consolidated the 8 vol. set into 4 and it is available @ amazon.com.
"Systematic Theology is the collecting, scientifically arranging, comparing, exhibiting, and defending of all facts from any and every source concerning God and His works. Theologians have no permission from God to restrict the field of theology to the material found in the standards of their respective denominations or the more or less restricted) teachings of the uninspired leaders who formulated those standards. The divine revelation in its entirety, and not merely the portions of it which harmonize with accepted dicta, challenges the student of doctrine" (Chafer, Lewis Sperry. “Preface.” In Systematic Theology. (Dallas: Dallas Seminary Press, 1947), 1:x-xi).
Systematic theology is an important tool for studying and understanding scripture. Here are three important disciplines for any student of the Bible:
1) Isagogics - Seeing the Bible in it's original historical context.
2) Exegesis - Approaching the Bible with rules of interpretation and handling the text in it's grammatical context.
3) Sytematic Theology - Seeing the Bible passage in light of what the rest of the Scriptures say in light of that particular subject.
*Many of my friends call this the "ICE principle" (i.e. Isagogics - Categories - Exegesis).
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