22 August 2015

Bible Exegesis and Exposition



Clarity is Essential to Presentation  (from a journal article by Pastor Chester McCalley)

Clarity is achieved by collecting the results of the scholarly exegesis then reducing that material to the simple declarations that communicate the truth. The purpose of teaching is not to confuse or impress.

The task is to communicate! It is difficult to present the pure exegesis as clear and accurate exposition. Spend time on “translating” the esoteric doctrines into the “language” of the people.

Should one preach grammatical terms? They can be meaningless, even for many people who know them. What is a Hebrew casus pendens, or a Greek aorist passive?

Must every sheep be told every point of grammar or technical syntax? “This is a casus pendens”? How edifying! Who needs to know that!

Take the names of the cases, for example, genitive. What does genitive mean to most people? Shouldn’t we translate a technical genitive construction into something people understand?

All those good Latin terms, such as accusative of general reference or dative of advantage are just not part of the sheep’s vocabulary.

While a good exegete needs to know these things, as an expositor he must focus on making clear what he has exegetically determined from the text.

Continue reading the whole article here:  https://goo.gl/mmO8JK 

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