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Definition of 'Exegesis'

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The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines ‘exegesis’ as: critical explanation or interpretation of a text or portion of a text, esp. of the Bible.

This is often called the ‘grammatical-historical’ interpretation method.

Thus, when someone reads the words of Scripture, and interprets them on the basis of context and the type of literature etc., then this would be an example of ‘exegesis’—reading out of Scripture what the writer clearly intended to express.

In Genesis 1, the Hebrew word for day (yôm), as used for each of the six Days of Creation, would be looked at in regard to context and the type of literature. Genesis is written in typical Jewish historical narrative—this is important to understand when interpreting the words of this book. Any reputable Hebrew lexicon (one-way dictionary) will list the different meanings given to a word (like ‘day’), and the various contexts that determine these meanings.

One will find that whenever the yôm (day) is qualified by a number or the phrase evening and morning, it always means an ordinary day. Thus, critically looking at the text and then reading out of Scripture, one cannot come to any other conclusion except that these days were ordinary (24-hour) days.

When church members and their subsequent generations are trained in this method of thinking (interpreting Scripture in context), they have a respect for God’s Word and then judge the ‘world’s’ fallible theories on the basis of what the Word of God clearly states. When they are taught to use exegesis in Genesis, they usually consistently apply this method of interpretation throughout the rest of the Bible. They have a solid faith in absolute truth. Especially when they then see how, starting with the history given in the Bible, they can make better sense of the same evidence which was previously used to undermine the Bible. They are not tossed ‘to and fro’ by the world’s fallible ideas, but by and large stand firm on the authoritative Word.

The ‘world’ then recognizes that Christians do take God’s Word seriously and believe it as written. As a result, the ‘world’ is often challenged to question its fallible theories and listen to God’s Word—instead of the other way round.
Understanding the difference between ‘eisegesis’ and ‘exegesis’ is really the key to the effectiveness of the church in today’s culture.