Or rather, “based on the OT text alone . Covenant theology properly understood rightly identifies the relationship between the testaments.
It is the dispensationalist who gets much of their theology, esp. their views on prophecy, from the OT text taken in isolation from the NT.
from being brought up in the Reformed camp and eventually embracing the Baptist tradition.
That’s an odd connection since most of the Baptists I know are reformed and covenantal and utterly reject dispensationalism. The historic Baptist position certainly was non-dispensational, although many have clearly fallen from those earlier days.
Gotta disagree on that one. Covenant theology imposes a NT perspective on the OT text, plain and simple. You are not able to come to a consistent Biblical Theology of the Old Testament by viewing it through a NT lense because by reading the NT into the OT text you are overriding and redefining the original authorial intent of the OT text. It is inevidable that you are shifting the original meaning by doing this. When discussing the priority of the testaments when interpreting the OT, I would say the OT takes priority ... you would say the NT takes priority; this is the fundamental difference between a dispensational and non-dispensational approach to the interpretation of the OT.
That’s an odd connection since most of the Baptists I know are reformed and covenantal ...
Because I recognize the truth of some of Calvins work does not mean I am a Calvinist. Because I am a escatalogical futurist doesn't mean I am necessarily a dispensationalist. But your statement is a broad stroke of, in my opinion, wishful thinking. There are 4 baptist churches in my immediate area of the Peoples Republic of Maryland and none of them are reformed/covenant in any respect (and 2 of them would be considered hostile to Calvinism).
We could go on and on ... back and forth ...