Daniel Kirk and the Quote of the Day

Over on Storied Theology, Daniel Kirk discusses the history of interpretation of the phrase 'Abba, Father.'

Anyway, he provides an interesting quote towards the end of the post which states:

Say what you need to say for your own time and place, realize that the people who came before you said what they needed to say for their own time and place, and don’t worry about saying something that will be viewed as correct for the next five centuries of Christian faith and practice.

I find this quote quite freeing in that scholarship should be approached in just this manner. Often times, we are encouraged to stay within the box of the history of interpretation, and in some cases, I get this. But, how are we supposed to make inroads in our scholarship if we are constrained by what has been said before us? It's not that we need to be right in what we suggest (although this is a plus!), but it is more important for our scholarship that we keep the conversation going, so that ideas do not become stagnant and settled. Otherwise, scholarship would become intellectual laziness, which in truth, is not scholarship at all.