Five keys to doing biblical exegesis together
When it comes to exegesis, interpreting the Bible in a way that seeks to understand what the authors intended, group dynamics play a huge role and may prevent you from actually working with a passage. There are two types of people who can derail freely flowing conversation on a passage. The first are those who make it so difficult that no one can understand a passage without their input. There's nothing quite like a group that is filled with the likes of Bible Scholar Bob who can't help but explain something about the history of the passage, Reference Referrer Randy who points out related verses with Bible in hand, and Famous Quote Fran who throws in something stated by C.S. Lewis or Philip Yancey as if she knew them personally. Such a know-it-all attitude can make new Christians or seekers feel out of place.
The other type could be referred to as Simple Samanthas, and you don't want a group full them either. These people make reading the Bible so easy that they take every verse they read at face value. Any and every verse has an obvious meaning, as if it had been written to them in that moment. To them the Bible is just a compilation of sayings that have little meaning outside of what it obviously says to them in the moment.
While few actually fall into these extreme cases, group members usually lean towards one stance or the other. Most don't take into account what the text meant when it was first written and listen to what the text means today. When I was completing my degree in New Testament studies, I found that many of the books about biblical interpretation make the task so difficult that it could easily strip away any hope that anyone can actually read and understand what the Bible is saying.
But the Bible is crucial to our life in the church and in small groups. It is our story, our guide, and our worldview shaper. We are a people "of the book." And if we are going to let this book shape our small groups, it's good to have some basic guidelines—without making things so difficult that we give up and let the "Bible scholars" do the heavy lifting, while we settle for refrigerator magnet Bible discussions.
When working with a passage, use these five basic guidelines to help you think about what the passage meant when it was penned and hear what is it saying to the group members in the present. To read more, click here.
3 comments:
This is an interesting challenge that you are throwing out to people. You have even given it the feel that people can take the suggestions and run with them. But I wonder about this, really.
I graduated from the University of California, aka Berkeley, with a degree in English. So when I studied scripture at seminary, when I had an assignment to write about a passage, I would attack it as an English major would -- what the words themselves created, outside of the "bigger" view, etc. I was mowed down by the professors. They didn't have a clue as to what I was attempting to communicate.
Everything had to be read as having that "wow-wow" sense of awe and majesty, and talking about the passage as a work of writing within the context of the bigger story was unacceptable. I, on the other hand, couldn't understand why the words of the Bible wouldn't be enhanced by a discussion of the way the words bring out the story.
And I find this refusal to open up the discussion into venues that have not yet been traveled an infinity of times in Bible study groups, also. I am usually frustrated by the yeah-yeah-yeah mood of the group, the members of which have very little to say except to agree with the leader (and the book he's using).
I remember once taking a class (not at Berkeley), an English lit class, wherein the professor did not allow a personal interpretation of the piece being studied. Our papers HAD to conform to what the professor taught about the work.
That's how I feel about Bible study groups. Conform and be bored to death, or what? Speak up? At a small church group meeting?
As I wrote, you certainly are throwing out quite a challenge there, Robin.
My experience with small groups has been different. Studying the Bible is only one part of what the small group does together. When the small group studies the Bible together the role of the small group leader is to faciliate the small group's examination of a passage of Scripture, what it says, what it means, and how it applies to the participants in the small group individually and collectively. This is the difference between a small group Bible study and a small Bible class.
In a small Bible class the role of the leader is that of a teacher, not faciliator. Unfortuntely small group Bible studies can become small Bible classes if the role of the leader is not properly understood.
One way to avoid a small group Bible study turning into a small Bible class is to rotate the leader from meeting to meeting, giving each participant a turn to facilitate the study. Indeed I recommend rotating the leadership of all parts of the small group meeting--the icebreaker, the worship time, the study time, the sharing time, and the prayer time. Small group Bible studies should focus primarily upon application, being doers of God's word, not hearers only.
In the Life Team (small group)in which I participate, we discuss Sunday's sermon which includes its text. We do not critique the sermon but consider the thrust of the sermon and the text upon which it is based, and its challenge to us.
The focus is not exposition (although there may be further exposition offered by different participants) but application. The further exposition may not agree with the preacher's exposition of the text. We seek to discern what God is saying through his word and how it applies to us, not what the preacher is saying that God is saying. We do not discourage the use of private judgment.
I have also participated in small groups that have used the "African" method of Bible study. This method actually originated in South America and is similar to lectio divina.
Here again the small group leader acts as a facilitator and the leadership of this part of the small group meeting may be rotated from meeting to meeting.
I encourage rotation of leadership because it encourages each participant to develop as a small group leader/facilitator. This is critical to small group multiplication.
I cannot imagine being a follower of Jesus without being a part of a small group. In a small group one not only has an opportunity of living Jesus' teachings in relation to the other participants but together living Jesus' teachings in relation to those outside the small group.
Challenge yourself. Google First Scandal.
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