I think it always remains important, especially for those who are more “intellectually” predisposed, to remember that an application of that can never be an end in itself; everything, until the eschaton, is instrumental. That is to say, Christian doctrine, because of the dynamism and organicism of its reality in Jesus Christ and the triune God, should never 
became a calcified given and received. It is, indeed, both, that is, ‘given and received,’ but only as an organic lively reality wherein the receivers take what they’ve been given, speak with the Lord about it, fellowship with the communion of the saints around it, and allow the fresh breath of the Holy Spirit to breathe new life into it, constructive life, such that the hearers who receiving the realities of God’s Word now, can understand it in a language that makes sense to them. Even so, in this dialogical process of receiving and then giving, giving and receiving, it isn’t, or it shouldn’t ever be “contextualized” by the period it is received within, but instead by the pressure of the One ultimately giving it as gift, by His Son, Jesus Christ. That is to say, as Torrance would impress, that the organicism of the theological endeavor ought to always be conditioned by its ‘kataphysical’ reality. Meaning, that the subject/object under consideration should always be the given, that gives us the categories and conditions and context through which we continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. It isn’t the culture shaping the theology, but it is the theology that serves as culture’s prius; it is the theology that precedes its reception, and thus determines the final shape, and authoritative imprint that genuine Christian theology ought to always have. In this frame Christian doctrine, by definition, cannot become an end in itself, but only a given that keeps on giving afresh anew by the living God who has freely chosen to be for us in Jesus Christ. Old Lutheran theologian, Martin Chemnitz (as cited by Barth) gets at these matters this way:
We must always keep in mind that the reason the Son of God came down from the hidden throne of the eternal Father and revealed heavenly doctrine was not to furnish material for seminary debates, in which the display of ingenuity might be the game, but rather so that human beings should be instructed concerning true knowledge of God and of all those things which are necessary to the pursuit of eternal salvation.” Martin Chemnitz, Loci theol. ed., 1590, Hypomnemata 9 cited by Barth, CD I/1, 82.