Toward an Exegetical Theology: Biblical Exegesis for Preaching and Teaching

It seems that this is the age of the ideological reduction; people seem to not want to think outside the extent of a collection of sound bites. Issues are no longer allowed to be complex or nuanced, and arguments are often settled once one simply looks things up on the authoritative repository of all knowledge in the universe: Wikipedia. When reading Towards an Exegetical Theology, I couldn't help but think what certain people would say if they ever came across the book. "One hundred pages of teaching on exegesis? Why does Kaiser write 40+ pages on the use genres in preaching? This book is useless; I don't need a textbook on Hebrew poetry to learn how to preach!" I imagine that many people that I know, at least the ones from back home in the Prairies, would think that Towards an Exegetical Theology is simply a book the "theology geeks" and the like. Sadly, the individuals I'm thinking of are also the ones who will spend thousands of dollars to fly thousands of miles for a "church growth" seminar or a "pastoral leadership" convention, but end up investing next to nothing in their personal learning or sermon preparation. Also, the individuals I'm thinking of are the ones who hear a fantastic sermon and, not having a category in which to understand expositional preaching, attempt to `copy' what they heard and ending buying the same clothes and using the same vocal inflections. Kaiser is a stern rebuke to the reductionistic attitude toward the pulpit; Towards an Exegetical Theology holds forth a renaissance preacher who understands the 'exegetical significance' of fine points of exegesis via a wide variety of precisely honed skills with biblical languages, biblical hermeneutics, history and philosophy, and attempts to present that precise understanding of the content of scripture in a delicately balanced and skillful expositional delivery. I appreciated the length and breadth of Towards an Exegetical Theology, and given the tremendously broad task that Kaiser undertook, I was surprised at the short length of the book. I can imagine how Towards an Exegetical Theology could have easily turned into a 5 volume, 5,000+ page work! Kaiser's introduction, overview of the history of hermeneutics, notes on the syntactical-theological method of interpretation and exegetical insights into various genres are all wonderfully written, but his final chapter on the Exegete/Pastor and the power of God is worth the whole cost of the book. If you understand that biblical languages, hermeneutics and exegesis are important, but are sort of fuzzy on how that waw consecutive is significant, or what difference the genre of your book makes to your preparation and delivery, this is definitely the book for you. There is a constant and stealthily disguised dichotomy running rampant in many parts of Evangelical Christendom suggesting that intense, academically articulate and exegetically sophisticated preparation in some way `limits the Holy Spirit'. Some individu

Dr. Kaiser's goal in Toward an Exegetical Theology is to fill in a gaping hole in the academic preparation for ministry "between the study of the biblical text...and the actual delivery of messages to God's people," by teaching the student "how one moves from analyzing the text over to constructing a sermon that accurately reflects that same analysis and is directly dependent on it" (8). He seeks to accomplish this though what he calls the syntactical-theological method, which does not replace, but instead adds to the grammatico-historical method, seeing the twin ideas of syntactical (ch. 4, 8) and theological studies (ch. 6) as the bridge across the gap. After introducing the book by summarizing modern catastrophes in exegetical studies, he shows what exegesis is and is not by surveying the history of exegesis (ch. 1-2). He defines exegesis as the diligent "practice of and the set of procedures for discovering the author's intended meaning" (47), with the homiletical goal of proclaiming God's Word "in such a way that it can be heard with all its poignancy and relevancy to the modern situation without dismissing one iota of its original normativeness" (48). The major section of the book is devoted to explaining his method of interpretation (ch. 3-8), after which he applies the method to three specific biblical genres (ch. 9-11). He is keenly aware that his very detailed book may have just made the process of going from exegesis to exposition overwhelming, so he concludes with a big picture reminder to preachers of the need for the Spirit's ministry and power though His Word in their lives and ministries. Sadly, I have owned this excellent book for well over five years, but only read it when I was assigned to do so in seminary. I say "sadly" because this book is immensely helpful and formative for what is becoming the exegetical method I will follow as I embark on the journey of preparing sermons for the rest of my life (Lord willing).

No other book helped me to become better at studying the Bible and preaching. Should be required reading for all pastors, missionaries, and anyone who stands before others and says, "This is what the Bible says." If I had a million dollars, I'd buy a copy for every pastor in American. Don't hesitate-Get it, read it, follow it!

In this work, Dr. Kaiser takes us deep into the text, and lays out a very nice and practical framework for interpreting scripture. He does a decent job of hitting the middle ground with format-the book will likely retain the interest of a Hebrew and Greek scholar, yet at the same time is usable by the one who is not schooled in Biblical languages. I rated the book a four rather than five for just a couple of areas where I think Kaiser may be a bit too stringent in his approach. He teaches an overly restrictive (in my view) principle of limiting interpretation to only that developed theology which the hearers could have been informed of at the time. I would argue that a solid hermeneutic can include pursuant informing theology to be transported in reverse chronology to a passage, if it is done carefully in line with the analogy of faith. It would seem that we short-change the passage in light of God's full counsel if we limit it to the theology resident in the original audience. Kaiser also is strongly against any "double sense" of prophecy and while on one hand it is the conservative approach, it may be overly so in that it discounts rabbinical history and interpretation, and it tends to "flatten" scripture which is obviously multi-dimensional in fulfillment. Secondly, at the risk of contradicting my compliment regarding the format of the book, Kaiser takes the micro-analysis of language to a slightly annoying level. I'm not sure which came first, but the (in my view) slight over-emphasis on language in this work seem to contradict his earlier work in _Introduction To Biblical Hermeneutics_ where Kaiser/Silva actually warn about an under emphasis or over-emphasis on Greek and Hebrew language. It would seem that an exegete strictly following the approach in this book could get so caught up in parsing and analyzing syntax as to miss the plain and literal meaning. Yet, even with the slight nit-picks that cost the book a star in my view, this is still a solid work that will remain on my shelf. Even the negatives from my point of view are squarely on the side of conservative scholarship and the grammatical-historical school of interpretation. It's a good foundational work in hermeneutics.

Many wags have said that Kaiser is always moving "toward" something, but he has never "arrived" at it yet. But his works represent good, if preliminary, studies of any subject he writes on.Kaiser in an OT scholar, so it is not surprising his best work is found in that field. But his introduction to methodolgy is sound, if not perfect. Thorough, if not exhaustive. And it is one that ought to be examined by anyone who desires to be a serious student of the word.There are a couple of times one would wish he had followed his own methods more carefully, one is in a foray into the NT, where he proposes a unique inerpretation of 1 Cor 14:34 that has since made D.A. Carson's "Exegetical Fallacies." But other than this rather grandiose faux pas, the rest of the work is convincing.