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Interpretation/Exegesis

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January 2014

January 22, 2014

What is the "Context" of Scripture?

Studying context is the single most important step in the interpretation process. If so, we...

January 16, 2014

When You Only Have a Bible: Explain It (Step 5)

What do we do after we’ve restated a text, given our impressions, examined the context,...

January 07, 2014

When You Only Have a Bible: Context and Questions (Steps 3 and 4)

Previously, I introduced a method of interpretation that anyone could use, even when the only...

December 2013

December 31, 2013

Interpreting Scripture When You Only Have a Bible (Steps 1 and 2)

Practically speaking, how do we interpret the Bible when we only have the Bible? This...

December 17, 2013

"What does the text mean?" and other unhelpful questions

If we want to find the meaning of a biblical text, what things are not...

December 10, 2013

How Do We Interpret the Bible? (a new series)

How do we interpret the Bible when we only have the Bible? This means...no commentaries,...

September 2013

September 12, 2013

Doing Biblical Theology from Outside the Box

Ideally, we can share the biblical story orally and visually. In other words, what people...

August 2013

August 08, 2013

A Theological Version of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell"

When people are not against something but not necessarily "for" it, what do they do?...

May 2013

May 21, 2013

Does Biblical Infallibility Allow Us to Assume the Gospel?

How do fallible people contextualize God's infallible word? To put it more sharply, does it...

May 09, 2013

God’s Attributes Are Not Unique to Him

In some ways, one might say the one true God is no different from false...

May 02, 2013

Introducing My New Book, Saving God's Face

April 2013

April 18, 2013

The Old Testament as God’s Contextualization for Oral Peoples

How can oral people groups interpret the Bible when they can't read it? How can...

April 16, 2013

Tell the Whole Story Out of Order Using Layers

In the last post, I made a simple argument. It is very easy––if not common––for...

April 11, 2013

Critiquing Creation to Christ (C2C)

Some people might take issue with my critique of C2C in the last post. Am...

April 09, 2013

Taking the Context out of the Bible?

Taking the Context out of the Bible? We've all heard taking a passage out of...

April 02, 2013

Contextualizing the One Gospel in Any Culture––A Model from the Biblical Text for a Global Context

Trying to figure out how to contextualize the gospel? Practically speaking, how do we assess...

March 2013

March 14, 2013

Seeking Lasting Reproducibility by Interpreting Scripture with Humility

Biblically speaking, how should we understand "reproducibility?" Or, stated in another way, what is it...

March 12, 2013

The Negative Consequences of Emphasizing "Reproducibility" in Missions

As I said in a previous post, a number of influences lie behind much of...

February 2013

February 12, 2013

The New Covenant in a Chinese Context (Part 2): New Hearts and No Sin

This is part 2 of a series trying to interpret the new covenant from a...

February 07, 2013

The New Covenant in a Chinese Context (Part 1): A Collectivistic Understanding of Identity

One thing that gets me excited is thinking about the way that an eastern (e.g....

February 01, 2013

Reply to Questions about Compromising the Gospel by Settling for Truth

This is second post where I answer a reader's questions about my latest article, "We...

January 2013

January 14, 2013

Two Kinds of Contextualization and Why It Matters: Defining the Relationship Between the Biblical Text and Cultural Context (Part 1)

This is part 1 in a series on contextualization. It first considers conventional evangelical views...

December 2012

December 20, 2012

Theology Drives Methodology: Is Evangelicalism a Modern Synthesis of Finney and Nevin?

In a previous post, I summarized Karl Dahlfred's Theology Drives Methodology: Conversion in the Theology...

December 18, 2012

Are Secondary Doctrines Unimportant?

I recently saw a Tweet by someone asking whether secondary doctrines were nonessential or non-important....

November 2012

November 21, 2012

(Mis)understanding Honor, Shame, or Face? (Part 3)

Shame and guilt are similar but have different orientations. It's important we clarify our definitions.

November 06, 2012

Context is King

"Context is King" is should be the first thing Christians learn as soon as they...