Rightly dividing the word of Truth (I)

In this quote from 2 Timothy 2:15, Paul is telling Timothy to be diligent to make sure he is "accurately handling and skillfully teaching the Word of Truth (AMP). So clearly there is a right way and a wrong way to handle the Scriptures. This morning I want to talk about exegesis and eisegesis. Exegesis is the process of drawing out the meaning from a text in accordance with the context in order to discover what the author is saying. Eisegesis, on the other hand, is reading into the text our own ideas or interpretation. When we go to the Bible to try and prove what we already believe, we are likely to engage in Eisegesis. There’s a lot of it going on! It’s difficult, because we all come to the text with baggage, with our own traditions and preconceived notions. Too often we read what we want to see in the text, rather than what is actually there.

An example of eisegesis in the Bible can be found in 2 Corinthians 3:14, 15. Paul speaks of a veil that is over the spiritual eyes of unbelieving Jews when they read the Old Testament. Speaking personally, I remember well an incident years ago when a certain church in the city told some people we had led to the Lord to “come out from among them” (2 Corinthians 6:17). This church identified "us" as the the “them!" A closer examination of the context however shows this to be nonsense. In particular, Paul is expounding on what it means to “not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers” (verse 14), and so clearly the “them” are unbelievers. This begs the question of what it means to be unequally yoked, but we will not go into that here.

The interpretation of “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1) as “let there be no disagreement period,” is another example of eisegesis. If we are to do an exegesis of this verse, then we need to know exactly what Jesus means here. I mean is Paul contradicting Jesus when he says “Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge” (1 Corinthians 14:29). What is happening here is that the word “judge,” has two different meanings. In the last quote, the idea is to discern between what is of God and what is not. In other words judging here is discerning. In the context of the Matthew passage Jesus says “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged…. it will be measured back to you.” In other words if you judge harshly as in self righteous condemnation (rather that discerning that something is wrong), you can expect to be judged harshly too.

Father, we who are spiritual cannot go to one who is overtaken in a sin to gently restore him, if we are not allowed to discern (judge) that he is overtaken in a sin (Galatians 6:1)! You do not condemn us Lord (Romans 8:1), so neither should we condemn. But neither can we be salt and light if we are not allowed to address issues. We need to speak the truth in love Lord (Ephesians 4:15), and it’s far too easy to get these things out of balance. We need your help Lord, in Jesus Name Amen