by Barney Wells, DMin
Director, The Fred Craddock Center for Preaching Excellence
Last week we looked at the beginning of the process of preparing a sermon, simply reading the text in its broader biblical context and letting the text itself soak into our minds and hearts, generating both insights and questions. This week we look at the next step, the exegesis and interpretation of the passage.
Before we get into the details, here are two cardinal rules. First, pray. Pray for God to guide you and to help you approach the text humbly to hear what He is saying and not just what you want to say. Second, the Bible is not a fortune cookie. With the possible exception of parts of Proverbs, you can’t pull a verse out of the Bible and let it stand by itself. Each verse fits in a paragraph, each paragraph in a larger section of a narrative, poem, speech, or letter. Each of those sections is part of book, and each book is part of the entire flow God’s revelation in the Bible. That doesn’t mean that you can’t preach from one verse, but it does mean you can’t understand the meaning of the verse outside of its broader context.
So next, let’s look at context. We have already considered the literary context—what genre of biblical literature is the passage and how does it fit in the broader message of the book and all of Scripture. We must also consider the historical context. Who wrote it? To whom was it written, and when? What was going on with those people in that place at the time? Were the original readers rich or poor, Jews or Greeks? What political and cultural issues surrounded them? What other religions were present? What can you tell about why the book that contains your passage was written? You can find help answering those questions in Bible dictionaries, introductions, and other biblical background tools, but you probably also found some answers by reading all those cross-reference passages we talked about last week.
Now turn to the vocabulary and grammar of the passage. If you can read the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, you have a leg up here, but even if you can’t there are a variety of resources to help you, both in print and online. Study each noun and verb, looking for where it is used elsewhere in the book, in other books by the same biblical author (e.g. if your passage is in Romans, how does Paul use the word other places in Romans and in his other letters), and in other parts of the Bible. Grammatically, look for indicators of logical units (words like “therefore,” “so that,” “then,” “first,” second,” “also,”).
Armed with all you have gleaned from your study, you should now be able to determine what the main idea or proposition of the passage is, and how each sentence of the passage supports that central idea. You should also understand how that idea fits into and supports the central idea of the section, and of the book. You should now have a clear understanding of what the biblical writer was saying to his original audience, in light of their circumstances at the time the passage was written. If you don’t feel that is the case, work through the process again. If you are satisfied you have that understanding, on to the next step.
Only now are you ready to look at commentaries to see what the scholars have written about this passage. Consult a few commentators that you agree with theologically first, to see if your conclusions align with theirs. Even if it doesn’t, that doesn’t mean you failed in your exegesis. You may find that you missed a key piece of linguistic or background information, but you may also find that there are different ways to understand the passage, and even the commentators may not agree. It’s also a good idea to consult a commentary or two who author doesn’t agree with your theology. There may be good insights into the text from people with whom you would otherwise disagree.
With your exegesis done, you now know what the text was saying to the original audience thousands of years ago. You have the original message, so are you ready to preach it?
Nope. There’s more work to do, and we will dive into that next week.