About Exegetical Preaching
Do Christian preachers actually need to preach from the Bible? Apparently yes and apparently no. Apparently ‘yes’ in that it seems some preachers feel obliged to at least use a verse from the Scriptures to pre-empt their message which may not necessarily bear any relationship to that verse. And apparently ‘no’ because some preachers don’t even feel the need to use even a verse of Scripture, or make any reference to it! Whether you preach topically or expositorily you must undertake the process of exegesis.
Exegesis is the process of getting out (‘ex’) of the text what is truly there in the first place. The opposite to exegesis is eisegesis. This is the process of putting into the text something that wasn’t intended by the author. So let’s explore how to do eisegesis (although most people don’t actually need to be instructed on how to do this!).