The drama of doctrine is about refining the dross of textual knowledge into the gold of Christian wisdom by putting one’s understanding of the Scriptures into practice. Like medicine, doctrinal truth is of no use unless it is apporpriated. But how ought one to take doctrine? Intellectual assent is not enough; doctrine needs to capture not only the mind but the emotions and the imagination as well – what the Bible calls the “heart.” We need to appropriate, embrace, even indwell doctrinal truth. The proper end of the drama of doctrine is wisdom: lived knowledge, a performance of the truth.
Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology, p. 21