Exegesis

Bible Study Mistakes

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

I have recently posted a series of videos on common Bible study mistakes. We have probably all made some, or all, of these mistakes. Please take a look and see if these are helpful to you, or to anyone else you know.

Mistake 1: Proof-Texting – It is just so convenient to find a line of text that says what we want to say. But the danger is that we will not see the richness of the text as it was intended to be understood. It seems obvious once you say it, but it is good to remember that what God made it say is always better than what we can make it say! Click here for this video.

Mistake 2: Collapsing Correlations – When you are reading and you see something that reminds you of something else . . . perhaps a saying of Jesus, or a different epistle, and then you collapse both passages in together, then you are collapsing your correlations together. Easily done, but what if that other passage doesn’t mean the same thing? Click here for the video.

Mistake 3: Ignoring Background – Sometimes it is just easier to read the passage and ignore whatever background may be relevant to your study. Who has the time to think about distant geography, ancient customs, and foreign politics? Well, if we want to understand the Bible, we need to make sure we don’t ignore the background. Click here for this video.

Mistake 4: Genre Override – Apart from sounding like a cool concept, what is genre override? It is when you take some of the rules of interpreting a genre and let those rules run roughshod over your interpretation of the passage. “Since this passage is apocalyptic literature…” is the start of many misleading sentences! Of course, we need to be sensitive to the genre, but that is always a support to our being sensitive to the passage. Click here to find out more.

Mistake 5: Imposing Meaning – Our goal in Bible study is exegesis, that is, drawing out the meaning of the text as intended by the author. But when we impose meaning, we are doing eisegesis. That is, reading into the text what we want to see there. God’s Word is better than yours, or mine! Click here for more.

Mistake 6: Isolationist Confidence – Bible study is something we may do on our own a lot of the time. But we must be wary of isolationist confidence. When it is just me and the Bible, I can easily become overconfident in my own opinion. I may be on the right track, but very superficial. Or I might be wandering off into new (therefore heretical) theological territory. We need to think about the role of the community in our Bible study! Click here for this video.

Mistake 7: Tone-Deaf Reading – The Bible is not just a data store that we are to mine for theological truths or applicational points. It is interpersonal communication and so we need to make sure we are sensitive to the writer’s tone as we seek to make sense of what is written. Here is the link to this video.

I will probably add a few more, in due course. As ever with these things, if you are able to like, share, comment or subscribe to the YouTube channel, it is all helpful in encouraging the algorithm to share this content. Thanks!

Here is the playlist that contains these videos, plus others that are all related!

Is Biblical Interpretation Boring?

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When Paul wrote to Timothy, the senior apostle urged the younger Timothy to do the work necessary to “rightly handle the word of truth.”  The implication is that it is possible to mishandle the word of truth.  You only need to listen to a few sermons online or visit a few churches to start your collection of scary examples! 

Nuanced technical caveats notwithstanding, it is essential to recognize that every passage says something specific.  Our job as we study is to determine, as best we can, what that something is.  That is to say that each passage has one accurate interpretation.  It cannot mean anything, and it does not mean everything.  It means something.

Once we determine that meaning, that one interpretation, we can then begin to evaluate the many potential applications of the passage.

Here is a video on this specific matter:

But if we are going to talk about the rules and principles of interpretation, then are we not embarking on a tedious task?  After all, who wants to memorize rules?

You could say the same thing about other processes too.  Learning to ride a bike feels tedious, but it opens a new world of adventures for a child.  Learning to drive a car safely can feel overwhelming, but it creates new freedom that is a wonderful blessing.  Learning anything will involve some rules or principles.  The real question is this: is it worth learning?

When we learn to handle the word of truth rightly, we start to see the richness God has put in our Bibles.  We get to understand his glorious message to us.  We get to enjoy the beauty of the divine revelation in all of its literary splendour.  We get to experience the life-change that comes from living a Bible-marked life.  The rules of interpretation sound dull, but they are a means to infinite treasure!  Boring is not the word; let’s try exciting instead!

Check out the video to see which Bible passage I use to introduce this point!

Evaluating Exegetical Options

/ Peter Mead / 2 Comments

When you are making sense of a passage, you will often have to evaluate several options. Perhaps two or three possibilities quickly emerge to make sense of a detail in the text. Maybe different commentators offer different explanations. If you take biblical study seriously then you will face this frequently. How can we evaluate the options and weigh the evidence in support of each?

This feels like a preacher’s concern. Of course, it should be. I suspect too many preachers don’t wrestle with their passage enough to notice different exegetical possibilities. But it should not be just a preacher’s concern. What about the people in your church? Where will they get a taste for really wrestling with the biblical text and coming to thought through and informed conclusions?

The approach I use is not a formula guaranteeing results. It is not spreadsheet-based with automatic formulae. It is a guideline that helps me weigh evidence. If I have level 1 evidence then it will generally be given more weight than level 2 or level 3 evidence. At the same time, if I have evidence at several different levels, it may outweigh evidence at a higher level. This is a guide, not a formula. I still need to subjectively do the weighing, even when the guide gives me an indication of the relative weight.

So from most valuable down to the least valuable:

Level 1. Syntactical Evidence – this is support for an interpretational option that is found within the passage’s own structure or grammar.  This is the internal contextual support for an understanding of the passage.

Level 2. Contextual Evidence – this is support for an interpretational option found in the context of the passage.  The closer the context, the higher the value (immediate context is stronger than section context, which is stronger than book context, which is stronger than same writer context, etc.)

Level 3. Lexical Evidence – this is support for an interpretational option found in the specific meaning of words used.  Since the meaning of a word is determined by the company it keeps, this category actually overlaps with both syntactical and contextual evidence, but a lexical argument lacking in syntactical or contextual support can sit here at level three.

Level 4. Correlational Evidence – this is support for an interpretational option found in more distant biblical support where the same word or concept appears.  After all, a different writer may be using the term in a different way.  (Remember that a distant passage that directly influences your focus passage, such as an Old Testament section that is quoted, is highly significant and may be considered as a form of contextual or level 2 evidence.)

Level 5. Theological Evidence – this is support for an interpretational option found in theology, rather than elsewhere in the Bible.  This is like correlational evidence, but the correlation is with a theological creed or system.

Level 6. Verificational Evidence – this is support for a position found in “experts” (i.e. commentators, authors, sermons, etc.)  It is easy to fall into a false reliance on published books. Simply because a published name agrees with a position is of minimal value.  It is so much better to integrate their arguments into the five categories above. That way the commentary becomes a conversation partner rather than a shortcut that always determines your understanding. Much better to weigh the evidence and come to an informed conclusion, rather than reading a commentator and come to someone else’s conclusion.

Remember, this is a guideline, but I think it is helpful.  It pushes us to look for understanding within the text itself and within the context. 

I do see a lot of people who either don’t wrestle with the meaning of the text in any meaningful way or else are too quick to accept the conclusions of others – either their preferred system of theology or their favourite commentator or preacher. Looking up a passage in two or three commentaries does not equate to exegetical effort.

We have to recognize the spiritual gravitas and countless other personal and ministry benefits that only come from diligent exegetical labour.

Handling God’s Word With Genuine Humility

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Hermeneutics matters massively for us preachers.  It also matters for the people to whom we preach.  How we interpret the Bible makes all the difference in every aspect of faith and life. 

When hermeneutics is taught, you will typically find some standard elements.  There will be a foundation in bibliology – establishing the unique nature of the inspired Word of God.  There will usually be a set of general hermeneutical principles – guidelines that work whatever passage we may be studying.  Then comes the special hermeneutical principles – guidelines for each specific type of literature or genre.

I want to suggest that we need to include humility in our hermeneutics.  I don’t just mean humility that we may be misinterpreting a passage – although that is always helpful.  I mean humility as a foundational attitude. 

Humility or Hubris?

We live in an age when many believe it is not right to claim any definitive interpretation of a text.  Most people in our increasingly subjective age dismiss the idea of authorially intended meaning that retains any authority.

Many will see this subjectivity as a source of genuine humility in biblical interpretation.  Bombastic declarations of a definitive biblical interpretation have always been the antithesis of humility, have they not?

The logic of this position seems to make sense.  After all, people will say, there are many interpretations out there in the wider church world.  Furthermore, nobody has the right to claim to be right in their interpretation and thereby critically evaluate the interpretation of others.  And so, the logic goes, we are free to make of each text what we think best in our context.

Many people will feel this approach is the epitome of humility.  In reality, the tone may feel humble, but the core posture here is hubris, not humility.

Any Fixed Points?

Let’s be simplistic and imagine two marks in a diagram.  One represents the Bible.  The other represents you or me.

The Bible is a fixed point.  I know the Word of God is active, but hear me out.  The biblical text is an objective and fixed point.  God inspired the Scriptures so that every word in the original manuscript of each document is precisely what he wanted it to be.  We may release new translations, but the original text does not move.  And it still has absolute authority. 

We are not fixed points.  When I come to the Bible, I bring all sorts of assumptions.  My culture, my place in time, my worldview, my experiences, etc., will all influence how I understand the biblical text as I read it.   

Human nature, and the tendency of our time, is to subject the Biblical text to my subjective evaluation.  So the Bible becomes “unfixed” while I sit fixed in my position as the evaluator.  Chronological arrogance creeps in.  I start to evaluate what the text should mean in light of my great cultural insights.  Rather than acknowledging my arrogance, I can avoid the problem of sounding proud if I simply declare my interpretation to be personal to me. Then I won’t tread on any toes by declaring it to be the truth for anyone else. 

The reality is that the Bible is not subject to us; we are subject to it.  We are the moveable ones in the diagram.  Swayed by every wind of fashionable thinking, we don’t know as much as we might think we do.  So wherever we live in the world, or whenever we live in history, we are subject to evaluation by the Bible.  The Word of God comes against our assumptions.  It speaks against the spirit of the age.  It opposes the arrogance of our minuscule knowledge. 

On a horizontal level, our tone toward others may be humble.  But vertically, our subjective approach to God’s Word is the height of arrogance. 

Humble Hermeneutics

So what does it look like to interpret the Bible with humility?

  1. Let us be humbly thankful for God’s Word.  What a privilege we have to read, in our language, an accurate translation of the Bible.  What an honour it is to have this gift from outside of our world.  What a blessing to be able to read God’s self-revelation – we would be grasping in the dark without it.  What an encouragement it is to have God shepherd us through His Word.  He knows what we need and works in our specific circumstances, by His Spirit, and through His Word.
  2. Let us be humbly responsive to God’s Word.  Instead of arrogantly evaluating the Bible against what I think I know to be true, let’s humble ourselves.  Humbly respond to God’s Word as He challenges your thinking, beliefs, attitudes, habits, and every possible aspect of your life. 
  3. Let us be humbly confident interpreting God’s Word.  As we carefully apply a sound hermeneutical approach to the Scriptures, we can confidently assert the meaning of the text.  Always humbly recognizing that we could be wrong, or there could be a better way to state it, we can speak the Word of God as God’s Word.  This does not mean our tone should become bombastic or unloving.  But let’s not settle for the pseudo-humility of subjectivity in our Bible reading.

We need a humble hermeneutical approach to the Bible as we prepare to preach. Our hearers need to learn that same posture and approach. We live in an era of subjective pseudo-humility. Let’s pray that God will raise up generations with a genuine humility in handling God’s Word and a courageous willingness to respond to it and proclaim it!

Rigor and Response

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

hardwork2Last week I had the opportunity to interview John Piper.  At one point we were talking about the preacher’s emotional response to the text.  I appreciated John Piper’s perspective on this.

Gordon Fee, as well as others, have pointed out that we don’t want the people in our churches having devotional engagement with the Bible that is not exegetically on target.  And that our people don’t need preachers who are exegetical without being devotional as they study the Bible.  All true biblical interpretation should be devotional as well as exegetical.

But John Piper’s perspective was helpful to me.  Absolutely, the preacher should have their heart stirred in the study.  However, he said, there will be times when the exegetical rigor is not heart-stirring.  You may be wrestling with technicalities in the Greek construction of a sentence for a couple of hours.  You may be wading through technical commentaries weighing up interpretive options.  The exegetical rigor may not be heart-stirring during the process, but the fruit of it had better be heart-stirring!

Do we make sure we are not transitioning into message preparation until we are not only thinking clearly of the passage, but also feeling deeply moved by it?

The Four Places of Preaching

/ Peter Mead / Leave a comment

There is a journey from text to message.  A journey consists of a sequence of locations, so I’d like to lay out the four places of preaching.  Perhaps this will be helpful to someone.

Place 1 – The Study

The first place the preacher needs to go is the study.  Just the preacher, the Bible, perhaps a desk, whatever study resources may be available, and a prayerful pursuit of the meaning of the text.

What is the goal in this place?  To be able to accurately state the main idea of the passage in a single sentence summary as a result of prayerful historical, grammatical, literary study of the passage in its context, with a heart laid bare before God.

Who is involved?  This place is where the preacher is in prayerful pursuit of the meaning of the passage.  So there is a historical focus, a sense in which the preacher is seeking to go back then to the time when the human author wrote the passage.  There is a deep concern with making sense of the text as it was intended, as inspired, with the historical and written context, the inspired choice of genre, the content of the passage in terms of its details and its structure or flow, and the intent of the writer.

So the preacher is studying, exegeting, interpreting.  Yet in that quiet place of wrestling with the text, the text is also wrestling with the preacher.  This is not some sort of abstract and entirely objective study.  The preacher is there.  When the Bible speaks, God speaks, and when God speaks, lives change.  So the preacher has the privilege of being marked by the text as the Spirit of God first applies the passage to the life of the preacher.

The study is a place of deep fellowship between the preacher and God.

Why, then, the study?  Should this not be the library, after all, studying involves resources?  No, this should be a study, because a library is a place of people pursuing information for a variety of purposes.  The preacher’s study is a place where the preacher meets with God as the biblical text is studied both exegetically and profoundly devotionally.

Should this not be the office, after all, ministry is a complex business these days?  No, this should be a study (whatever the room actually is), because an office is a place of action and interaction, of incoming emails and phone calls, a place where multiple plates are kept spinning.  No great and profound preaching can come out of an office.  (If your study is too much of an office, then study elsewhere – borrow a room and leave your phone behind, study in your car in the woods, but go somewhere where you can be with the Lord in a “study”.)

Tomorrow, place 2 . . .

7 Dangers of Fanciful Interpretations

/ Peter Mead / 3 Comments

Fanciful interpretations get great feedback, but they do great damage.  Fanciful interpretations get some people very excited, but those who know their Bibles, or have been to Bible school tend to look glum in the midst of the hysteria. Is this because all who have training are killjoys?  Or is it perhaps because they see through the hype like a parent watching children getting excited about excessive amounts of sugar?

You can usually spot the indications of fanciful interpretation.  One big red flag is when people are saying, “I would never have got that from that passage, wow!”  Or even, “That was so rich, deep, original, (you choose the description)!”

But if people are so obviously blessed and encouraged, what is wrong with it?  Let me offer seven problems with fanciful interpretation:

1. Fanciful interpretation teaches listeners bad Bible study. You may have convinced yourself that that particular reference to a boat has a deeper meaning relating to postmodernism, or that the name of the valley is an anagram of a suburb of Manchester, or whatever.  But let’s say, for argument’s sake, that your clever interpretation doesn’t seem to do any harm and is motivating for the listeners on a spiritual level (perhaps a spiritual theology of David’s brothers’ names, or the significance of a geographical feature for the Christian life).  Surely no harm is done?  It is if the listeners then copy your way of handling Scripture and come up with an application you find objectionable (the cults do this all the time).

2. Fanciful interpretation offers nutritionally empty fare. Perhaps you’ve come across the notion of empty calories?  Something made with highly processed sugar and white flour and unnatural ingredients.  These things tend to taste good (temporarily), but have no nutritional value.  In fact, over time and in excess, they can do great harm to you.  The same is true of overly sweet, overly processed Bible fancies that stir excitement but offer no nutritional value.

3. Fanciful interpretation may cause listeners to give up on their Bibles. After all, if they can’t see how you got there, maybe instead of copying your approach, perhaps they’ll just feel inadequate and give up on their Bibles.  They may look forward to hearing you again (which is the motivation for some speakers), but their Bibles will gain dust in the meantime.

The rest of the list tomorrow . . .

Abort Sermon! Abort Sermon?

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

On one level it is a feeling that can come for any reason.  A little moment of doubt.  An unexpected event, or listener, or conversation, or comment . . . and suddenly the temptation is there to give up on the planned message.  Some may have this feeling every time they preach.  Others may never get it at all.  But is there a genuine reason to abort the message and switch to something else?

In his excellent chapter on Charles Simeon in Preach the Word, J.I. Packer states the following:

Simeon would go on to remind us that expository preaching should be textual in character.  The preacher’s task, according to him, was not imposition, giving texts meaning the do not bear; nor was it juxtaposition, using texts merely as pegs on which to hand general reflections imported from elsewhere (“preachments of this kind are extremely disgustful”); it was, precisely, exposition, bringing out of teh texts what God had put in them  “I never preach,” said Simeon, “unless I feel satisfied that I have the mind of God as regards the sense of the passage.” (Preach the Word, 147)

There may be more than one reason to abort a sermon, but this one alone is worth pondering.  If we are not satisfied that we have the mind of God as regards the sense of a passage . . . we should not preach it!  Better to preach an unprepared sermon at a moment’s notice on a text we do understand, than to preach a prepared sermon built on shaking exegesis.  If you really don’t get, don’t preach it.  Abort sermon!

Limit, No Limit

/ Peter Mead / 1 Comment

When it comes to preaching there are fewer rules than people might think.  Some like to impose significant amounts of structure on the preaching event, but in reality there are few limits involved.  There may be some limits imposed by the culture and heritage of a church – congregational traditions – and it is wise to think carefully before smashing through those expectations in an attempt to be creative.  However, these limits vary from place to place and it is possible, once trust is established, to carefully adjust such expectations.

However, putting aside the idiosyncracies of specific congregations (and the key change monitors who might take it on themselves to preserve order!), the whole issue of limits seems to come down to two principles:

1. To have integrity as a biblical preacher, I must be constrained by the true meaning of the passage I am preaching. This is the one limit that must be in place.  We commit to preaching the true meaning of the text.  To the best of our ability we must strive to understand what was intended in the preaching text.  We cannot preach on anything from anywhere in the Bible.  Sometimes the pursuit of being “interesting” and “relevant” undermines the exegetical integrity of our ministry.  We need this limit firmly in place.

2. To be effective as a biblical preacher, I have freedom in the formation of the sermon and its delivery during preaching. What shape should a sermon take?  What style of delivery should be used?  Matters of form are matters of freedom for the preacher.  Different texts, different circumstances, different occasions, even different listeners, can all prompt different sermon shape and delivery style.  At this level our goal is effectiveness in communication.  We do not need unnecessary limits in place to hinder our effectiveness.

Sadly too many preachers settle into a predictable pattern where there is freedom – in form and delivery.  And too many choose freedom where there is a limit – in the meaning of the text.  Let’s be sure to get our limit and our no limits the right way around!

Exegesis Homiletics

/ Peter Mead / 4 Comments

I am currently preparing a course that I will be teaching at the end of October – Hermeneutics for Preaching.  I came across this very important reminder in Grant Osborne’s Hermeneutical Spiral (p343):

“The hermeneutical process culminates not in the results of exegesis (centering on the original meaning of the text) but in the homiletical process (centering on the significance of the Word for the life of the Christian today).”

To some of us it is obvious that there must be a direct link between exegesis and homiletics, but we all need the reminder.  C.R.Wells, in Interpreting the New Testament (edited by Black and Dockery, pp506-523), writes the final chapter on interpretation and its connection to preaching.  He warns of some critical approaches that will produce “tempting” content for sermons, but content that should not be included.  However, critical methods that deal with the “text-as-is” have great potential as tools of the preacher.  According to Wells, “Every preacher should and must be a critic, but no preacher should ever forget that critical study serves homiletics.”

Accurate interpretation governs expository preaching.  So two simple implications:

1. Don’t allow interpretation and exegesis to be an end in itself. Study in God’s Word must run its course, not only to personal application, but to communication for corporate application.  If you have opportunity and ability to preach the Word, do it.  If you don’t, then find another way to share the truth and its implications with others.

2. If you ever preach, then be an ever-improving interpreter and exegete of God’s Word. Don’t try to preach without the foundation of biblical interpretation under your efforts.  Preaching is more than sharing the fruit of exegetical work out loud, but it cannot be less.  Skill in communication, relevance in content, personal spirituality and prayerful preparation are all important, but without effective biblical interpretation undergirding your messages, don’t call it preaching.