Bible Study Blueprint: Biblical Interpretation

Understanding the Bible is important.  It's our instruction manual for life, so its vital that we know and understand its message.

Embark on a journey to decode the mysteries of Scripture as we unveil the principles of hermeneutics, exegesis, and eisegesis guiding us to the heart of biblical understanding. 
We touch on how grammar, context, and the art of cross-referencing Scripture magnify our insight into the Word, transforming our reading into a vivid encounter with the divine narrative.  Genesis 3:15 becomes our map, tracing the silhouette of Christ's redemptive storyline through the ages. This episode doesn't just enlighten; it equips you to embrace the Bible with enriched clarity and live out its timeless truths in your daily walk.

Do you want to learn how to study the Bible? Check out the YouTube channel Faithfullyliven youtube.com/@faithfullyliven

Do you want to read about how to live faithfully? Check out the blog http://lyfe102.org

Get a free Road Map to get started learning how to study the Bible https://mailchi.mp/88f9c9405da0/bible-study-road-map

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast where we learn how to live for Christ in our daily lives.

Speaker 1: 0:12

I am Dawn, your host, and I would like to invite you on a journey with me to explore and learn how to be a faithful follower of Christ. Hi everyone, welcome to Faithfully Living, the podcast, where we strive to encourage you to live for Christ faithfully, but often guidance on studying the Bible, how to understand the Bible better and how to remain faithful to historic Christianity in a contemporary society. In today's episode, we are going to talk a little bit about biblical interpretation. Understanding the Bible is one thing that we all need to know how to do. Well, to some degree, because we're followers of Christ, we should want to know and follow His word. So that's where interpretation of the Bible comes in. I have to say it is by no means am I an expert at understanding all of what the Bible says, but I want to share with you some things that I have learned that will hopefully help you as you're studying the Bible for yourself, and I've started to employ these as I do my Bible study myself. So, within biblical interpretation, we are going to be looking at hermeneutics, exegesis and isoegesis, so our first term is going to be hermeneutics. So hermeneutics is the study of the principles of interpretation. You also can look at it as the process of how one chooses to discover what the Bible means. So hermeneutics and exegesis kind of go hand in hand. So exegesis consists of actual interpretation of the Bible and brings out the meaning of the text, and then hermeneutics kind of establish the process by which you do your exegesis. So some of the principles of exegesis are grammar. So within grammar you're studying the words of the passage and their relationships in the sentences. So it's going to help understand what is being stated.

Speaker 1: 2:38

Our next principle is going to be context. So you're studying the overall theme of the passage, the book, to understand how the verses are related to each other. So you're looking at the verses around that verse, looking at the chapter, and then you're looking at the book as a whole. The next principle is going to be comparing scripture with scripture. So when you compare scripture with scripture, with related topics, you're able to grasp a fuller meaning of what the passage is saying.

Speaker 1: 3:12

Our next and last principle is going to be progressive revelation. So in progressive revelation God does not reveal his message to his people all at one time, so you can see how God is, how God adds to the story as the story goes on. So one example of this is in Genesis 3.15. So that says and I will cause hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and offspring. You will strike your heel and you will strike. He will strike your head and you will strike his head. So this is when God is talking to the serpent and giving his punishment to the serpent, after he's given his punishment to Adam and Eve. So in his passage God is talking about his redentive plan of mankind for Jesus to come and to be the sacrifice for the world. So you can see how God is telling a little bit of his plan, but he does not tell the whole plan of saying that my son is going to come to the world as a baby. He's going to live and teach us and then he's going to die for the sins of the whole world. And all through the Old Testament you can see the prophet's prophesy of the coming Messiah. So you can see how God is adding to the story of Christ's redemption for the whole world, little by little, until you get to the New Testament when Jesus arrives as a baby. So that is kind of an example of progressive revelation. So, proper biblical hermeneutics, you're going to first seek to understand what the passage meant when it was written and then, after this, you're going to try to discover the original intent of the writings to apply to your own life.

Speaker 1: 5:10

All right, so our next term is going to be exegesis. Exegesis is the interpretation of the biblical text by analyzing what the author of the text intended to communicate. So, in other words, we don't read anything into the scripture that wasn't there before. We are studying the meaning of the passage that it was intended for the Pacific audience. So when I'm talking to people, one thing I always like to tell them this is not original to me, so I didn't make this up on my own is that the Bible was not written to us. It was written for us, meaning that we are not the original audience of the Bible, but the Bible is written for us that we may know more about who God is and how that we can obey his commandments. So that is exegesis.

Speaker 1: 5:58

All right, so our last term is going to be isogesis. So isogesis is a process where one leans into study by reading a text on the basis of preconceived ideas of his meaning. So, in other words, you are reading stuff into the text. So isogesis is the opposite of exegesis. So while exegesis tries to listen to the text and let the meaning come from the text itself, based on the original historical context, isogesis brings its own meaning into the text and it's not concerning itself with the original historical context of the biblical passage.

Speaker 1: 6:41

So many people, myself included, are guilty of isogesis, and this can shape your understanding of God's word. So how can this happen? This happens when you take a verse and take it out of its context and place your own meaning upon it. You also can do this by taking scripture from one part of the Bible, another part of the Bible and then somewhere else, and then putting them together to create an idea that you want to represent. And this is something that you don't want to do. You don't want to put your meaning into what the Bible is saying. You want to draw the meaning out of it. So that was an overview of biblical interpretation.

Speaker 1: 7:33

Now let's go into a little bit more detail as to what is isogesis and exegesis. Let's start with isogesis. So what is isogesis? Isogesis is a process where one leads into study by reading a text on the basis of preconceived ideas of its meaning. So this is where you're reading stuff into the text and as humans we come with our own bias of our understanding of the text. But with isogesis the focus is using those biases to interpret the Bible, and this is something that we do not want to do. So not only can we read into the text with preconceived notions that we might have, but also often means coming to the scripture with a cultural bias that didn't exist during the time that the text was written.

Speaker 1: 8:36

So exegesis is the opposite of exegesis. So exegesis is the interpretation of the biblical text by analyzing what the author of the text intended to communicate. In other words, we don't read something into the scripture that wasn't there before we study the meaning of the passage that was intended for that specific audience. So with exegesis it tends to be more self-focused. So questions you might hear from an exegesis standpoint is how does this passage make me feel, or what does this passage means to me? So you don't want to ask questions like that that are self-focused. You want to ask simply what does this passage mean? And during that, we are not the subject of the Bible and we shouldn't be reading our own experiences into the Bible. Alright. So many of us are guilty of exegesis myself, I have to put myself in that category also and exegesis influences us on how we understand and interpret the Bible. So as a whole, exegesis is a mishandling of the text that leads to misinterpretation of the scriptures.

Speaker 1: 9:54

So exegesis is concerned more with making a point at the expense of the meaning of the word in the context of that verse. So there's a process of exegesis. It is usually has like three categories in it you have imagination, exploration and then application. So in imagination phase you have an idea that you want to present. In the exploration phase you try to think, okay, what scripture seems to fit with my idea. And then application what does my idea mean so it can be? What means to me, or what does it mean to the people I'm trying to present?

Speaker 1: 10:35

So when this happens, there's a tendency to isolate a verse out of its context and then you're placing meaning upon it or you're trying to select different verses from the Bible and try to like mesh those things together. So in exegesis, like, there's no examination of the words of the text, are their relationship to each other? So there's no cross-referencing related scriptures. So with exegesis except, there's a subjective focus approach to scripture that reads into the Bible what the reader wants to hear rather than what the Bible wants that person to hear. So exegesis is going to take meaning from the biblical text that was never there. So you're placing a meaning upon it that the Bible never intended to communicate with us and because of this, this is how false teachings develop and then also harmful applications cause us to try to apply something that the Bible never intended for us to apply.

Speaker 1: 11:41

All right, so to bring this home a little bit for you, here are some examples of exegesis versus exegesis. So the first verse I'm going to use is Philippians 4.13. You all know this. I can do all things to Christ's restricting. So if you look at this from an exegesis perspective, exegesis would try to read into the text that God would give a strength to say, for instance, when that tennis match or close that deal. So exegesis is like focus on us. Exegesis. This is how exegesis will look at this scripture.

Speaker 1: 12:19

Exegesis will have us look at the original context of Philippians 4-13 to see that Paul was under house arrest, who was ready to go to trial and maybe end to the end of his life. But Paul was trying to say. This was Paul's declaration in the context of who was talking about contentment. But despite all of his difficult situations, paul was trying to show us that Christ gave him strength to endure his dire season. Because Paul said he knew what it was like to have abundance. He knew what it was like to be starving. He was trying to say any contentment. God gave him strength to endure his situation.

Speaker 1: 12:57

So our next verse that we can look at, for instance, a person might rightly state that the Bible says there is no God. So, for instance, you have Psalms 14, 14-1. That states explicitly there is no God. However, if you place this there is no God in the proper context, you will find that David wrote a fool says in his heart there is no God. So you can see how just pulling out declarations or quotations from the Bible can lead us to misinterpret the Bible, and this is something that we don't want to do.

Speaker 1: 13:33

It's so important that as we study the Bible, we want to try to draw the meaning of what the Bible is trying to say to us and not place our own meaning upon that text. So as we learn how to study and interpret the Bible, I suggest it is something that we are going to struggle with. But the thing that we have to keep in mind is that, even though we've lived life and we're learning, what we want to do is to try to understand what God is saying through his word, what the author was trying to say to his audience, and how we can apply what he's saying to our lives. So we have preconceived ideas, things that we believe, but we want to pray and ask God that he will help us align what we believe to what God believes in his word, to try to line up our thoughts with what God is teaching us and try to glorify him and obey him, and all that we do Now that we have a better understanding of exegesis. Now let's talk about exegesis.

Speaker 1: 14:53

Exegesis is the interpretation of a biblical text by analyzing what the author of the text intended to communicate, which is why it's so important that as we study the Bible, we pray for the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what a pastor scripture is saying. So exegesis is carefully reading the Bible to draw meaning out of the text. So an example of exegesis would be say, for instance, you got a piece of mail or email from a family member you haven't heard from in a long time You'll read that letter or email carefully to understand what that family member or friend meant. So it detects that they wrote means what the text author meant. So whatever they wrote is what they mean. They're not trying to imply anything into it. So exegesis seeks to interpret a text in the Bible by discovering what the author meant. So it's going to help us bring meaning to the symbiotic language we often find in the Bible. So exegesis is utilized when we explain why we don't pluck out our right eye or cut off our right arm if it causes us to sin.

Speaker 1: 16:05

You can find that verse in Matthew 5, 29, 30. Or we have this bizarre description of Jesus by the apostle John in Revelations. Try to picture what this would look like literally. So it says, his head and hair were white as wool, as white as snow, and His eyes like a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters. He had in His right hand seven stars and of his, out of his mouth, a two edges word, and his countenance was like the sun shining in Its strength. And that's in revelations one fourteen to sixteen. So you can see why extra Jesus is important to understand God's word in the fullest, because we want to actually see what the author of these passages meant within the whole context of Whatever letter or the book that he was trying to say.

Speaker 1: 17:06

So here are some components of the aspects of Exegesis you want to consider. So you have John tree, grammar, historical, cultural contacts, literary contacts and you have word studies. So in John tree we're establishing guidelines for interpreting a passages, style of literature, with grammar, your understanding, sentences, how they communicate by words, phrases and clauses, especially the Bible, from the Bible's original language since it, since it is a translation from Greek, hebrew and Aramaic. Next, we have historical, cultural contacts. This is where we try to understand the situation in which the author Compose the literature and then any historical, cultural details that the author mentions and already assumes of his audience. Next, we have literary context understanding the role, the path passages plays in the whole book. And then we have word studies. This is where we try to impact key words, phrases and concepts.

Speaker 1: 18:12

All right, so to bring this home, I'm going to give you an example of bad exegesis taking a verse out of context, so the verse is going to be flipped in 4, 13. This verse is misused a lot of times. I've done it myself, so don't feel bad. Is that declaration of Paul that says I can do all things to Christ which strengthens me? So take it out of context. Ever you could draw the conclusion of what Christ will help you do, so you could claim that this promise that God could help you be a superstar athlete, christ is going to give you that business out of me. Become extremely wealthy. Our Christ is going to perhaps help you fill that lifelong dream of flying to the moon, but that all things must be qualified or it becomes a license to do anything in the name of Christ. The Christ is not going to strengthen you, is to anything that it's going to be outside of this wheel. So this verse, we often look at it out of self-centered ambition and not out of desire to obey Christ. So looking at this verse in context, we see that Paul is actually talking about being content in all circumstances. Paul says in his verse that he has no a life of abundance. He's also had to endure hunger and suffering through great need, but he says yet Christ has given him strength for all circumstances and his relationship with Christ has brought him Continue.

Speaker 1: 19:39

The key to good exegesis is to read the Bible carefully and baffling. You want to ask yourself questions of the text to try to understand and discover what God is saying to these human authors. We don't want to take any of these verses, scriptures, out of context, because this can lead you to believe that God has said something that he has not said, or you would claim a promise that God has not promised to us. Exegesis is going to be a rigorous process but as you take the time to try to understand what the author is trying to relay to the audience, you get a better understanding of what the passage of the Bible is talking about as a whole.

Speaker 1: 20:33

One thing I'd like to end with is that biblical interpretation is something I have become careful and studious about. I've learned over the years that many of the interpretations that I have Learned about certain verses in a Bible have been misinterpreted Misinterpreted, or I have learned the misinterpretation of that particular Bible verse. I've learned that there are no, like in quotes, new revelations in the scriptures, which is why I learned, why I've started to learn more and more about church history and why it's important because Sound doctrine that we have today and many of the false doctrines that we have today have been addressed hundreds of years ago and in later episodes we'll talk more about church history and how it's shaped the doctrine that we have now and how Foss doctrine is shaped false doctrine that we. That has continued today. So that will be for another episode.

Speaker 1: 21:36

So I pray that this episode was helpful for you and until next time, remember God is always good and he's always faithful. Thank you for listening to the podcast. Do more favorite by following the podcast and leaving a review to help spread the word. I look forward to hearing from you. You.