Faith

BIBLE INTERPRETATION: THE RIGHT WAY AND THE WRONG WAY

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. Rom 8:19”.

Familiar with this text? What if I tell you that it does not mean what you thought it did. No! The whole creature is not waiting for you to fulfil your purpose….lol…No.

But you might ask me, how come a whole lot of Christians have fallen victim to wrong interpretation of the scriptures? Yes, that is what I intend to address in this post.

How do we come about wrong interpretation of the scripture? How do we/should we study the Bible right?

Before I go into that I must mention that the bible is the inspired word of God.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 2 Tim 3:16

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:12-16

Why is this important? No scripture can be personally interpreted. Neither does the interpretation depend on any academic exposition. It can only be interpreted by the HOLY SPIRIT. But this still doesn’t mean that the interpretation varies from persons to persons, no, it’s the same Holy Spirit.

Right biblical interpretation does not vary from persons to persons. Click To Tweet

2 Peter 1:20-21 expresses this perfectly, “For no prophecy recorded in Scripture was ever thought up by the prophet himself. It was the Holy Spirit within these godly men who gave them true messages from God.”

There are either of two ways you can interpret the texts of the scripture.

  • EXEGESIS – An attempt to discover the meaning of the text objectively, starting from the text and moving out from it.
  • EISEGESIS – to import a subjective, pronounced meaning into the text.

In the Exegesis, you do a critical study after you have asked for the help of the Holy Spirit to see what the text actually means without subjecting it to any external or personal concept or opinion.

Exegesis came from the meaning “to lead out” meaning, the text informs and defines everything, not subjected to anything. In other words, you start with the text and you draw out its meaning. Unlike Eisegesis, where you simply look for text to support/justify a preconceived idea.

With Exegesis, you start with the text and you draw out its meaning. Unlike Eisegesis, where you simply look for text to support/justify a preconceived idea. Click To Tweet

With Eisegesis, you start with an idea or conviction, then search for verses in the bible to prove your point.

The danger of Eisegesis is that even though the conclusion or interpretation might be true somewhere else in the bible (and may not be most of the times) you take the verse out of context to support just any point of view.

Trust me, if you are to study the Bible using the Eisegesis, you will always find a verse to support almost anything, lust, pride, drunkenness, divorce, greed, and countless other sins or habits.

TALKING ABOUT CONTEXT;

Considering the context of a text means considering “the circumstance that forms the seeing for an event, statement or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed

You ask, what led to this event? Why did Paul write this letter? Who was he addressing? And most of the times, you have to start from the first verse of the book or chapter in some few occasions and not just picking a verse in the 8th chapter and giving it a stand-alone literal interpretation. No. Or just flip the Bible open to anywhere and reading the first place your eyes go to, you’ll most likely not get the same interpretation as was intended by God through the author.

Read carefully, start from the first verse of the chapter especially as regarding the epistles (and also the Law and the Prophets). Read with this question in mind, “What is he trying to say”, not just looking for verses that will excite you.

If you had read Romans 8:19 in context, you will know that it is talking about the day of appearing of Christ when all God’s children will assume their true/full identity and take up their unperishable bodies.

Study the Bible in context. Don’t absorb without checking everything you hear your respected Pastor say, read for yourself, in Exegesis and in context. Click To Tweet

Thank you for reading, kindly leave a comment and share.

Read also;

A Lesson on Biblical Interpretation From Harry Potter

HOW NOT TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE

About author

Articles

Tolulope Oludapo is a young Christian who lends his voice through the media by sharing practical wisdom for everyday living in the most experiential and simplified fashion. This has fetched him the direct followership of over 30,000 users on his blog, lifegiva.com. A blog he founded. He loves to write on varying subjects that affect life, faith, relationship...everyday living.
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