Why would someone hate the word Exegesis? part 1

Someone said : I am really beginning to hate the word exegesis. What’s wrong with the word summary? It’s simple, easy to understand!

It made me think. Why would the word Exegesis be an issue for someone if they are christian? If one is a believer I believe it is important to understand the meaning of Exegesis before we study the Word of God. there is a big difference between the word summary and the word exegesis. Should Bible teachers now change using the word exegesis to summary?

Summary = Presenting the substance in a condensed form; concise: a summary review.

Exegesis = This is a Latin term relating to correct Biblical understanding. It means literally ‘to lead out’. In the context of studying the Bible it means to get out of the text what the text is saying. This may include a number of things to aid the process such as reading the context in the chapter, in the particular book as a whole eg. Jeremiah or Matthew and even where it fits within the whole Bible. It may also include cultural awareness, the timing of the writing, and identifying the author and even the target audience.

Continue reading

Metamorphosis, Part 2 (proliferating ignorance)


John MacArthur – Grace to You

 

The World Wide Web had quietly been implemented less than a year after the Soviet Union broke up. Still, by 1993, when the first edition of Ashamed of the Gospel hit the shelves, no one but the earliest Internet insiders had even heard about the Web—much less seen it. Most people had no clue how quickly or how drastically the Web would alter the world as we knew it.

I remember being told at a strategic planning retreat in 1996 that the World Wide Web would eventually become the primary vehicle for the dissemination of our radio broadcast and recorded sermons. (At the time, radio and cassette tapes were still the only media we were using for audio content.) When the men at Grace to You who stay abreast of new technologies predicted that within twenty years or so cassette tapes would be a totally dead technology, I thought they were exaggerating. “You can’t access the Internet in a car,” I pointed out. “Even if you could, who wants to carry a computer on the car seat, when it’s so much more convenient to pop in a cassette tape?”

Continue reading

The Doctrine of Election (Romans 8)

Bible Q & A with John MacArthur – Grace to You


For whom He foreknew, He also predestined …. (Romans 8:29)

Redemption began with God’s foreknowledge. A believer is first of all someone whom He [God] foreknew. Salvation is not initiated by a person’s decision to receive Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Scripture is clear that repentant faith is essential to salvation and is the first step that we take in response to God, but repentant faith does not initiate salvation. Because Paul is here depicting the plan of salvation from God’s perspective, faith is not even mentioned in these two verses.

Continue reading

By faith we let them go

C H SPURGEON – DAILY DEVOTIONAL

March 22

Morning
“And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed.”
– Mat_26:39

There are several instructive features in our Saviour’s prayer in his hour of trial. It was lonely prayer. He withdrew even from his three favoured disciples. Believer, be much in solitary prayer, especially in times of trial. Family prayer, social prayer, prayer in the Church, will not suffice, these are very precious, but the best beaten spice will smoke in your censer in your private devotions, where no ear hears but God’s.
It was humble prayer. Luke says he knelt, but another evangelist says he “fell on his face.” Where, then, must be THY place, thou humble servant of the great Master? What dust and ashes should cover thy head! Humility gives us good foot-hold in prayer. There is no hope of prevalence with God unless we abase ourselves that he may exalt us in due time.
It was filial prayer. “Abba, Father.” You will find it a stronghold in the day of trial to plead your adoption. You have no rights as a subject, you have forfeited them by your treason; but nothing can forfeit a child’s right to a father’s protection. Be not afraid to say, “My Father, hear my cry.”

Continue reading

The Word which brings faith

 

From a sermon by Charles Haddon Spurgeon entitled “How Can I Obtain Faith,” delivered January 21, 1872.

The theory now-a-days is that all preachers worth hearing by this refined generation must be profound thinkers, and inventors of improved theologies. Brethren, let man’s thoughts perish for ever; the thoughts of God and not the thoughts of man will save souls. The truth of God should be spoken simply, with as little as possible of the embellishments of metaphysics, and philosophy, and high culture, and all that stuff. I say the word of God delivered as we find it is that which, when heard, brings faith to the souls of men.

Continue reading

Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Your Wrath

John MacArthur – Grace to You – Bible Q & A

Ephesians 4

Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not give the devil an opportunity. (Ephesians 4:26–27)

Parorgismos (anger) is not momentary outward, boiling–over rage or inward, seething resentment, but rather a deep–seated, determined and settled conviction. As seen in this passage, its New Testament use can represent an emotion good or bad, depending on motive and purpose.

Continue reading