Guiding Principles of Proper Exegesis and Hermeneutics of Scripture
Guiding Principles of Proper Exegesis and Hermeneutics of Scripture Introduction Hermeneutics is the discipline of interpreting Scripture faithfully, and exegesis is the practice of drawing out the meaning God intended in the text. Because “All Scripture is God-breathed” 2 Timothy 3:16, the interpreter’s task is not to create meaning but to submit to it. Scripture claims to be unified, true, and sufficient. Therefore any interpretation that forces contradiction upon it reflects a flaw in the reader, not in the Author. Augustine warned, “If we are perplexed by an apparent contradiction in Scripture, it is not allowable to say, ‘The author of this book is mistaken.’” False teachers repeatedly violate this by pitting Old Testament against New Testament, even claiming that OT writers made mistakes about God. The biblical answer is that the OT writers approached God from His absolute sovereignty: whatever He directly created or permitted to exist, including evil and darkness, fal...