Biblical Theology, Biblical Exegesis, and Why They Matter to You

            Someone once quipped, “It’s the questions you ask in life that will direct what you do.” That statement holds quite a bit of truth. “What do I enjoy doing? Where should I go to college? Whom should I marry? Where do I want to live? How many children should we have? How much do I have to save to retire?” By posing these and other similar questions, we spend our lives attempting to answer them.

Our understanding of Christianity is no exception - we will seek to comprehend the Christian faith based on the questions we ask in relation to it. Two questions come to mind that remain foundational to knowing rightly the God of Scripture. The first question is, “What is the Bible?” The second question being, “How can I understand it correctly?” Our answers to these questions will capture the heart of how we will live out our relationship with God in relation to what he has said to us through his Word. Consequently, how can we address these questions with confidence? I hope to provide a strong answer to you through the use of two tools: 1) biblical theology and 2) biblical exegesis.

What is Biblical Theology?

            Put quite simply, biblical theology derives theology from the Bible. In other words, biblical theology sees the Bible as one whole story rather than a set of unrelated stories that are almost randomly thrown together. In addition, biblical theology teaches that the Bible unifies its story around one main character with one ultimate activity. Particularly, the Bible’s main character is God, revealed in the person of Jesus Christ (Matt. 11:27; John 1:18; Heb. 1:1-3) and his ultimate activity is redeeming sinners to himself for his glory (John 1:14; 3:16; Rom. 6:23).  What this implies is that the Bible is not a collage of miscellaneous moral stories that want to teach you “just-behave” lessons such as, “Be like Joseph. He ran away from fornication and became Egypt's prime minister. Be like David. He had courage and defeated Goliath. Be like Daniel. He disobeyed the government so he could worship God.” Though these propositions are true, they do not depend on the perfect work, crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of the living Son of God for their power and application to our lives. Biblical theology, on the other hand, focuses on how all of the revelation of Scripture guides our lives in relation to Jesus and his saving person and work.

What is Biblical Exegesis?

            Biblical exegesis seeks to provide a careful, informed interpretation of a specific text for the purpose of understanding the author’s original intent. Imagine you pick up a letter while walking down a street, and you read the words, “I hate you.” Initially, you would think the writer is not in good standing with the letter’s recipient. But as you read more of the letter, you come to find out that it’s actually a script for the local school play, and one of the lines is, “I hate you.” Now that you have the context, you have a much better idea of what the original writer intended through his words. It’s the same with the Bible. The original human author had an initial audience in mind when penning the content. Moses, for example, was writing a lot of his content with the wandering Israelites in mind, for they were the audience who would receive the letter. So, when we read one of his books, take Exodus for example, we need to keep in mind how his original audience would most likely have understood what Moses had to say.

To elaborate, biblical exegesis includes several different studies. The first study homes in on an analysis of the grammar, syntax, and word meanings of the passage as displayed in the original language of the text (for the Bible, that would be Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek). The second study would perceive the passage’s immediate literary context, such as the text’s surrounding passages, its chapter, the book it is couched in, and related historical-cultural background. The third study would assess the passage’s genre, such as poetry, narrative, epistle, and prophecy.  Finally, the fourth study would examine the passage through textual criticism, translation analysis, and structural outlining. The bottom line is that we can’t read our own meaning back into the text. For example, people have said that Matthew 18:19-20 teaches that God will be present in the midst of two to three Christians, as if going to a coffee shop for a devotional is a small church service. The context, however, makes clear that Jesus is confirming the act of church discipline to preserve the church’s purity (see vv. 15-18). Consequently, it’s our job to best understand what the biblical author meant when he first wrote the book so we avoid inaccurate interpretations at best and heresy at worst.

            In short, using biblical theology to understand the main storyline of Scripture helps us comprehend each individual passage more thoroughly and accurately as we see how all of Scripture points to the redeeming work of God in Christ. In addition, biblical exegesis helps us understand what each human author meant when writing his content. This practice helps us avoid asserting our own meaning into the text so that, instead, we capture what the Holy Spirit meant when inspiring the human authors. We the church cannot forsake these two tools, for it is in the original intent of each passage where the authority of God’s Word for our faith and practice ultimately stands.

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