When I went away for school, I was given a piece of advice that many people have received before me. They said, “You get what you put in.” In other words, the amount of value I receive in my education is equivalent to the amount of effort I put into my work. It is excellent advice that applies to so many aspects of our lives.
This is also true in the realm of interpretation. Whenever we receive information, we tend to filter it through our own preconceived ideas and determine its meaning through that lens. This is called bias. Bias is a dangerous enemy of interpretation because it takes the words of the speaker and removes their intent. You get the meaning you put into it. This is especially dangerous with Biblical interpretation.
When we read the Bible, our goal must be to arrive at the meaning that God intended. In 2 Peter 1:20-21, Peter tells us, “…no prophecy of Scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.” There is only one correct interpretation of the Scriptures: the one God intended. So, how can we know what God’s intended meaning is? It starts with removing our bias from the equation.
When someone reads their own personal biases, modern views, or preconceived notions into a text, it is called eisegesis. We must avoid this at all costs. In Deuteronomy 4:2, the Bible says, “You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.” It is even repeated in Deuteronomy 12:32, Proverbs 30:5-6, and Revelation 22:18-19. When we read our bias into the words of God, we add concepts that were never in the text.
Good students of the Bible want to draw the meaning out of the text. That is called exegesis. It comes from a Greek word that means “to lead out.” Exegesis begins by studying the context of a passage. Context is found by reading the surrounding verses, understanding who is speaking, who wrote the passage, who it was written to, and when it was written. If we understand these things and do our best to view the text through the cultural and religious lens we find in the Bible, then we can be sure that we are eliminating our biases and finding the true meaning of the Scripture.
There is a lot more to exegesis than this, but this simple truth can help each of us grow as students of God’s Word. If we want to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Tim. 2:15), then we must learn to keep our biases out and diligently seek the meaning from within.
