The Importance of Good Exegesis

This is a copy of my first Seminary paper(!!) It's a paper for my Greek Language Tools course about the importance of using exegesis when interpreting Scripture. Exegesis means drawing out of the text the meaning, as opposed to adding in a meaning you feel belongs there. With that short definition, here is my explanation on why it is important (and how bad I have been at it at times...). Enjoy!


The Importance of Good Exegesis
There are several reasons that good exegesis of Scripture is important. Scripture is the sole place from which we draw every spiritual truth which then impacts our daily actions. Therefore, if we are going to be drawing truth from this book, it is important that we do it rightly—as it will impact our daily (and eternal) lives. I have found two of the majorly important reasons that good exegesis is necessary are that misunderstanding the Bible can be damaging, and that the Bible commands it.
Misunderstanding the Bible is the worst thing that can happen to anyone—whether Christian or not—because if we misunderstand the Word, we are automatically disobedient to the Word due to our ignorance. If we misunderstand the main parts of the Bible—indeed, if we misunderstand the Gospel—it will have eternal consequences. Jesus said that the Pharisees “searched the Scriptures” (John 5), but they missed the true meaning of the Old Testament, which was to point toward a coming Messiah—the Messiah in their midst. They ended up in Hell for their zealous rejection of the true understanding of Scripture.
On a smaller scale, I have seen poor exegesis (both on my part and that of others) that has been at the very least un-beneficial and at the worst heretical. From my personal life, and example I can vividly remember (to my shame) is a time where I was feeling dry spiritually (in prayer and Bible reading) and I read through the Gospel accounts (I’m not sure which one) where a man was brought to Jesus who had a demon who had made him deaf and mute. Jesus cast out the demon and the man could speak and hear again. My application of that passage was to apply the “demon-possessed” part to my own life. The reason I was feeling dry is because I had been under the power of a demon who had made me deaf and mute spiritually. Let alone I had no idea how to cast a demon out, I ignored the fact that what was probably killing me spiritually (if I was alive at that point spiritually) was that I had been viewing pornography on a regular basis since my teenage years. What I should have drawn from that text is that Jesus is strong enough to save even someone who is oppressed by a demon—so he can save a repentant pornographer too!
The second reason that we use good exegesis is because the Bible commands it. When we understand this rightly, it should be one of our greatest joys to gladly dig deeper into His Word to draw out the deep things—not to dump our ideas into the Bible. God commands us to “rightly divid[e] the Word of Truth.” The reason for that is because His Word doesn’t have shades of truth. If you don’t rightly divide it, or cut it straight, you will come out with error instead of truth. God commands us, therefore, to read and divide His Word rightly. The reason we should divide His Word rightly is because He doesn’t want us to be in error. Most of all, He does not want us to be in error on the Gospel—the central message drawn from His Word. He does not want us to be in error of understanding about the Gospel. God commands that we understand His Word rightly, and because He has redeemed us through the death of His Son, it should be our greatest joy to say, “Yes, Lord.” In response to His grace toward us, we should respond by desiring to rightly understand what He has said to us in His Book.