Ruled Reflection: Learning Restraint from a Little Book

Seldom do I read 2 John, but I was struck by this word of instruction included in the apostle's plea for the church to resist Gnostic teaching:

"Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God.  Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son" (2 Jn. 9).  

We're meant to abide in Christ's teaching for his disciples and so the task of theology is not to forge new intellectual ground but to explicate and elaborate the gospel.  If we stray from ruled reflection, metaphysical-conceptual reflection in service to the sacra doctrina of the Bible, and cast out into the high seas of speculation, we generate significant risks for ourselves and for those who listen to us speak of God.  Hence Calvin, for example, warns multiple times against the danger of vain curiosity.  Let us know and love the gospel and its prophetic and apostolic unpacking in Scripture such that it rules all our thoughts of God!