Can I have a definition, please?

Yesterday I put up a quote on Twitter from Francis Chan: "What would it look like to live exegetically?" This is a question that I had mulled over for a good part of my day. Honestly, it hurt my brain. I figured I should share this hurt with all 10 of my Twitter followers by passing the quote along to them. When I got home yesterday evening though, my wife Kendahl told me I shouldn't use such big words on Twitter. I responded by telling her that I used big words in hopes that people would go look them up and learn something new. Well, today's post is your chance to learn something. Today I am going to expand upon yesterday's Twitter post.

Exegesis:an attempt to discover the meaning of the text objectively, starting with the text and moving out from there.
Eisegesis: to import a subjective, preconceived meaning into the text.

There, you've learned something. You now know what two large and hard to pronounce words mean. OK, learned isn't the right word. You've read something. I'm one of those guys that thinks that in order to say you've "learned" something, you really need to be able to apply it somehow. Hopefully after this post, you'll be able to do that.

How do you apply those two big words? It's simple--kind of. I want to challenge you to live exegetically, not eisgetically. I want you to really think about whether you live your life based on what the Bible says (exegesis) or whether you live your life and then try to find tidbits in the Bible that match how you are already living (eisegesis).

Francis Chan takes this a bit further in his new book, The Forgotten God. He writes on the dangers of living eisegetically. You see, it's not that your lifestyle is bad, it's not that you are living unbiblically. Rather, it is that eventually, you are likely to take the Bible out of context in order to prove a point.

"The bottom line is that we can easily pursue just about any lifestyle we desire, then find Scriptures to show everyone it's alright to live that way." -Francis Chan

That's living eisegetically.

What would it look like if you lived your life exegetically? What would it look like if you started your every day with Scripture and lived based on what the text taught you? What would it look like if instead of using Scripture to prove your point, you let Scripture prove it's own point?

Think you can do it? It probably isn't as easy as you think. But who said life was easy?

Check these verses out:

• Matthew 22:37-39
• 1 John 3:16

Those two verses scream to me about living exegetically. Take the text from those passages and live them. You might even get some more insight by clicking here.

I hope you didn't just read something. I hope you learned something. Will you apply it?


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