Tag: exegesis

Better Bible Study Tip #76: A Text Cannot Mean What It Never Meant

On By Tyler BoydIn Better Bible Study

It is very important not to read into a text things that were not intended by the original author. Let the text speak for itself rather than reading into the text things that aren’t there.

Keep in mind that the question of what a text means is fixed by the the author, and is not open to reinterpretation. The goal of the Bible student should be to determine the author’s intended meaning. A text cannot mean what the text never meant in the first place. Meaning is determined by the author, and discovered by the reader.

A common practice in Bible classes and small group studies is to go around the room after reading a passage of Scripture and asking, “What does this verse mean to you, Susan?”

Susan says, “You know, to me this verse really seems to be saying _____”

And the leader will say, “Oh, that’s interesting. I’ve never thought of that before. What does this verse mean to you, Larry?”

“To me this verse means something entirely different. It makes me think about _______”. And Larry goes on to give an entirely different interpretation.

To treat the interpretation of scripture as subjective by asking “What does this mean to you?” is completely wrongheaded. The question we need to be asking is “What does this verse mean?” Period. Or to be more precise, “What did this verse mean to the author?”

Someone may object, “But isn’t it possible for a text to have more than one meaning, beyond the original, intended meaning, such as in Old Testament prophesies that were never truly understood until the time of the New Testament?”

I’m not ready to shut the door completely on this line of reasoning as a logical possibility. After all, 2 Peter 1:20-21 seems to suggest that if Scripture is inspired by God, there may very well be times where God’s intended meaning transcends the human understanding of the prophet himself.

But (and this is very important) this is no reason to begin ripping Scriptures from their original contexts. Even though God might communicate through human language in terms that humans failed to understand, he still communicated through human language. The more I study Old Testament prophesies in their original context, the more I find myself discovering that the New Testament author’s didn’t rip those scriptures out of context and assign new meanings, but rather they began to connect the dots to recognize contextual truths that were there all along. Although I have more studying to do, I suspect that no prophecy ever had a new meaning assigned to it, but rather a newly recognized meaning that was there in the original context, yet often overlooked until the time of Christ.

The real issue with assigning a new non-contextual meaning to Scripture is a simple one: Who among us can speak for God? For this reason, we should be properly concerned anytime anyone says that God has revealed to them a deeper meaning to a text that goes beyond it’s original meaning. If God wanted to inspire a New Testament author to recognize a deeper meaning to a Scripture, fine, I can go with that, since God himself was the Divine author of the Scripture in the first place. But since none of us speak for God, we do not have the right to assign new meanings to Scripture. Scripture cannot mean what it never meant in the first place.

Better Bible Study Tip #75: Never Stop Thinking Exegetically

On By Tyler BoydIn Better Bible Study

Exegesis is the process of drawing out the meaning from a text in accordance with the context. The goal of exegesis is to uncover the original meaning intended by the author.

Eisegesis, on the other hand, is the process of interpreting a text by reading ones own ideas or biases into it. This subjective approach is used to make a text conform to the interpreter’s own ideas or agenda, often disregarding the original context and meaning.

It should go without saying that exegesis should always be the goal of those who love God’s inspired words. Exegesis doesn’t require expert training, but it does require humility and effort. It is true that eisegesis can be easier, but that does not make it better. Reading one’s own desires, ideas, or hopes into a text can be tempting, especially if we approach the Bible with a strong preexisting ideological commitment. Sometimes it’s the urge to make a quick modern application, or to prove a quick point tempts us to use scriptures out of context.

Even so, good Bible students should always strive to think exegetically. ALWAYS. Exegesis is not a study method we should use only when it’s convenient. We must think exegetically all the time.

The problem with selective exegesis is that it opens to door for us to read our own, sometimes completely foreign, ideas into a text, thus making God’s word something different from what God actually said.

For example, it is not uncommon to hear Matthew 18:20, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am among them,” used to prove that wherever two or three believers are gathered for worship, prayer, or fellowship, that Jesus’s presence is assured among them. This in turn is used to suggest that small gatherings of only two or three Christians can have the same significance of assembling with the larger church.

However, if we would learn to think exegetically all the time, we could easily learn that Jesus never used this teaching in this way. This is Jesus’s final phrase in much longer teaching about reconciliation between brothers. In Matthew 18:15-20, Jesus outlines steps for addressing a brother who sins, culminating in bringing the matter before the church if the individual does not repent. Verses 18-19 discuss the authority of binding and loosing given to the church. The promise in verse 20 (“where two or three gather in my name”) is specifically tied to the authority of gathered believers to make binding decisions in matters of discipline.

To make this text mean something God did not intend is to abuse the text, not use it. To avoid making such mistakes, one needs to learn to think exegetically, and to do so with every text.

Better Bible Study Tip #73: Never Base an Interpretation on a Presumed Truth

On By Tyler BoydIn Better Bible Study

Far too often, people will presume their beliefs are true, and that they are taught in the Bible, instead of letting God’s word dictate what their beliefs should be.

For example, you’ve probably heard about the three wise men who came to visit at Jesus’s birth. This idea of three wise men is readily accepted by so many people. We see it displayed in nativity scenes, Christmas cards, Christmas specials, and even in Christmas carols (“We Three Kings of Orient Are…”).

But the idea of “three” wise men is nowhere in the Bible. Yes, the wise men brought three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but the Bible never specifies how many wise men there were. We imagine that the Bible says there were three wise men, but our imagination about the text is based on what we presume the Bible teaches.

Using one’s imagination as a means of interpreting the Bible is not a good method of Bible study. It lacks the necessary limitations to prevent flawed interpretations. To illustrate further, consider this passage:

And he [King Jotham] did what was right in the eyes of the LORD according to all that his father Uzziah had done, except he did not enter the temple of the LORD.

2 Chronicles 27:2

Let’s suppose we want to teach a lesson on why church attendance is important. We stumble across this verse, and we think “King Jotham was a good king, except for one thing. He didn’t go to the temple!” This passage seems to support our idea, and so we use it in our lesson. Just because King Uzziah was a good king who went to the temple every week, that doesn’t mean his son would continue the practice. Tragically, our young people make this same mistake when they don’t go to church like their parents did. Good lesson, right?

Certainly there is nothing wrong with encouraging people to assemble with the church each week, but the interpretation of the above verse is totally wrong. Why? Because it is based on a presumed truth.

If we had taken a step back from our presumption about the meaning of the text, and studied the surrounding context (2 Chron. 26:16-23), we would learn that King Uzziah was a good king, except that he entered the temple to burn incense on the altar of incense. This is something only the priest was allowed to do. As a result of his disobedient worship, King Uzziah was struck with leprosy until the day he died.

When the passage says that King Jotham “did not enter the temple of the Lord”, it means that he did not repeat the mistake of his father by entering the temple to worship in a way that was contrary to God’s will. Because we assumed we knew what the text meant, we missed a very important lesson about the importance of worshiping God only in those ways which he has commanded.

Some mistakes, such as assuming there were three wise men, may be of very little consequence. But this habit of assuming we know what the Bible is trying to say can end up leading to some dangerous and divisive teachings.

When we base our interpretation of the Bible on presumed truths, we risk distorting the meaning of Scripture to fit our own personal cleverness. We run the risk of minimizing or ignoring passages that don’t fit what we think the Bible teaches. We struggle to understand those verses that don’t fit our preconceived beliefs. When our belief isn’t clearly communicated in a particular passage, it’s easier to just give up, and let trusted commentators or preachers explain those “difficult” passages to us in a way that affirms our beliefs.

We must remember that every passage in the Bible is there for a reason. If it seems confusing because it doesn’t sound like it teaches what we think it should teach, we first need to examine our own assumptions. If we really want to do better Bible study, we need to let God’s word be what it is, study it in context, and discover it’s true and intended meaning. We must submit our beliefs to the word of God rather than making the word of God submit to our beliefs.