“You don’t have to interpret the Bible; just read it and do what it says.”

A lot of people read the Bible and they think, perhaps naively, that they immediately know what the text says. That’s not always the case

most of us assume as we read that we also understand what we read. We also tend to think that our understanding is the same as the Holy Spirit’s or human author’s intent

Although the word “hermeneutics” ordinarily covers the whole field of interpretation, including exegesis, it is also used in the narrower sense of seeking the contemporary relevance of ancient texts

Exegesis is the actual interpretation of the Bible, and hermeneutics consists of the principles by which the meaning is determined

The English word interpret is used at times to mean “explain” and at other times “translate.”

This is called exegesis, reading the meaning out of the text, and is the opposite of eisegesis, reading a meaning into the text.

The goal of exegesis, you remember, is to find out what the original author intended.

In everyday communication we determine the meaning of a whole utterance that we hear or a text that we read (and thus gain information) by means of all the clues contained in the message

The aim of good interpretation is simple: to get at the “plain meaning of the text,” the author’s intended meaning

In observing what the Bible says, you probe; in interpretation, you mull. Observation is discovery; interpreting is digesting. Observation means depicting what is there, and interpretation is deciding what it means. The one is to explore, the other is to explain.

Granted, some passages of the Bible, as already stated, are difficult to understand. And yet the basic message of the Bible is simple enough for any person to comprehend. The Scriptures are not obscure in themselves.

So why should you think [that] in the few minutes that you sit with an open text, you could do better than someone who, say, has spent twenty or thirty years working in a passage and developed a specialty about it?

Let it be said at the outset—and repeated throughout—that the aim of good interpretation is not uniqueness; one is not trying to discover what no one else has ever seen before

We will always take our presuppositions and prejudices to the text. That does not mean that disagreement is good or desirable. But we should not be alarmed that it occurs.

Becoming aware of our cultural assumptions and how they influence our reading of Scripture are important first steps beyond the paralysis of self-doubt and toward a faithful reading and application of the Bible

When the master of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.

If our study of the Bible only confirms what we already believe, we have not allowed it to speak.

This is the practice of interpreting Scripture by quoting a verse without regard for its immediate context or larger context in its literary unit. This removes the verses from the original author’s intent and usually involves the attempt to prove a personal opinion while asserting biblical authority.

At its highest level, of course, exegesis requires knowledge of many things we do not necessarily expect the readers of this book to know: the biblical languages; the Jewish, Semitic, and Greco-Roman backgrounds to much of what is written; how to determine the original text when early copies (produced by hand) have differing readings; the use of all kinds of primary sources and tools

Those who read the Bible did not need to read into, beyond, or between words for some “deeper” or other-than-normal meaning. God communicated truths about Himself in the languages of the people who first read the Scriptures—languages they knew.

The words were immediately understandable. The readers knew immediately the concepts being conveyed by the sentences in the Bible. They understood them in the way they would normally understand other sentences written in their languages. They did not need to call on a wizard, a sorcerer, or a person with unusual spiritual insight or mystic intuition to convey its meaning.

Of course that language included idioms, unusual expressions unique to that language, and figures of speech.

At its highest level, of course, exegesis requires knowledge of many things we do not necessarily expect the readers of this book to know: the biblical languages; the Jewish, Semitic, and Greco-Roman backgrounds to much of what is written; how to determine the original text when early copies (produced by hand) have differing readings; the use of all kinds of primary sources and tools.

A good commentary lets you know first of all what the passage might mean, and then helps you sort out to determine what it does mean and, importantly, why it means that—why that meaning is better than the alternative meaning

what you’ll find when you start to use commentaries is that commentators don’t always agree on what’s going on in the passage, and they discuss the options. They may make different choices between one another

Differences in interpretation are fine as long as we keep in mind that the conflict is not in the text, but in our limited understanding of the text. God is not confused about what He has said, even if we are

So whenever you study a verse, a paragraph, a section, even an entire book—always consult the neighbors of that verse, that paragraph, that section, that book. Whenever you get lost, climb a “contextual tree” and gain some perspective.

Once the text is given priority and once the interpreter ceases to erect a barrier between himself and the text, he will find that as he seeks to interpret the text, the text will, as it were, interpret him. When this happens, the authority of Scripture is being taken seriously; God’s word is not a dead letter to be observed coldly but a Word which speaks to me in my situation