Bible Students

A reflection based on “Toward an Exegetical Theology” by Kaiser (chapters 11-12)

This week’s reading finishes out the Exegetical Theology reading. Chapter eleven covers the topic of poetry, while chapter twelve closes out the reading with a section on the necessity of the work of the Spirit in the work of the preacher. 

First, chapter eleven covers the types of poetry in the Bible and methods of interpretation. Parallelism is one of the most common features, if not the common feature, of biblical poetry. There are different kinds of parallelism. Parallelism is the occurrence of two or more (sometimes three, rarely four or more) lines which reflect one another with similar (or opposite) ideas in order to bring more clarity to the idea at hand. One must ask how they should interpret the parallelism, as it is not always obvious. There are mant kinds of parallelism, including: Grammatical parallelism, rhetorical parallelism, and semantic parallelism. 

One way to identify poetry is through the deletion of a word. Sometimes when parallelism is brought into a text, the second line will reflect the first line, but with a deletion of a word. This is a dead giveaway of parallelism. Similarly, another way to identify parallelism is through the repetition of certain words. If a word is repeated, it may be an indication of parallelism in the text. A chiasm is a kind of “mirror in the text.” The points of the text are reflected A, B, B’, A’, for any amount of points. For some books, including Genesis, there is chiastic structure underlying the events of the story. 

Approximately one third of the Old Testament is written as poetry. This is an extremely common method of communication in the Old Testament, and so understanding how it is to be interpreted is important. Wisdom literature, especially, takes advantage of parallelism. There are wisdom and song inserts in all kinds of Old Testament literature, including in narrative and prophetic works. Parallelism is an ever-present attribute of the biblical text, so understanding how to identify it and interpret it is essential. 

Nothing, however, is more essential than the inclusion of the Spirit of God into the interpretation of His Word. The Spirit is absolute necessary to the interpretation of the Word. In order to do proper exegesis, the preacher must learn to rely on the Spirit. 

If the preacher is not filled with the Spirit, how can they teach the congregation well? If they are not instructed, how can they instruct? The Spirit is the one who gives wisdom and understanding to the preacher. The preacher must learn to pray and depend on the Spirit, as they are participating in conversation with God by participating in the understanding of the Word. One must pray that the Spirit would keep them separate from the world. The world brings fleshly understandings of truth, while the Spirit brings spiritual understandings of truth. 

The preacher does not preach what the audience likes. Rather, the preacher is instructed to preach what is true, regardless of whether or not the audience wants to hear it. The preacher must not give in to the audience, as if the audience determines truth. If the audience determines truth, then the preacher has failed at his job.

Lastly, context is incredibly important. In terms of things the preacher can do by themself in the study, choosing to use the context around the text is one of the best things a preacher can do. The context of the passage brings the meaning of the passage. Apart from the context, the passage can not be properly understood. It is not a matter of what the passage means to the pastor, but what the passage means in the context. The meaning intended by God is the meaning which matters. 

Throughout these two chapters, and especially throughout the book, there have been three incredibly important take-aways. First, the Spirit is the most important part of the study of the Bible. Apart from the work of the Spirit, the preacher can not understand the text according to what the Lord intends. Second, the context matters more than what the preacher or audience wants the text to mean. A tool the Spirit uses for communicating the meaning of the text is the context. Lastly, the application of the text must not be ignored. Adequate time must be given to help the audience understand what the text meant to the original audience while also understanding what the text means to them. The biblical text must be made to be relevant to those who sit in the pews, not only to those thousands of years ago.