The Exegetical Process &
Introduction to Philippians

Exegesis is both a science and an art. It is a science in that it is built on principles which are universal in nature. Many of these principles should be familiar to you from to in Introduction to Interpretation. Exegesis is an art in that each person does exegesis in a slightly different way and it is a skill that is developed over time. No one is born a good exegete—though some have greater natural ability than others.

You learned one method of exegesis in Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. The method we will follow in this course is built upon the same principles. However, there will be some things that are different from what you previously learned. This doesn’t make my way right and the other way wrong or vice versa. You must decide for yourself which approach or combination of approaches best serves your needs. It is inevitable that you will modify what you learn in school when you begin to use it yourself or help others learn exegetical skills. The method we will learn in this course will give you the opportunity to get the most you can from your English Bibles. However, I cannot stress strongly enough that the best exegesis can only be done from the original languages. I would urge those of you who are looking to teach Scripture or translate Scripture as an important aspect of your ministry to consider learning at least Greek. Greek is not required for this class, though I encourage any of you who know it to use it in your work.

Step #1 - Spiritual Preparation

Step #2 - Historical-Cultural Study

Before studying any specific portion of Scripture it is important to have a grasp of the whole. The purpose of the historical study is to gain an understanding of the book’s background and the book as a whole. Even though the emphasis on is on general impressions it does not mean that this is a superficial study of the text. In studying an epistle, we want to understand who it is that this book is written to and what their situation is.

Philippi in Paul’s Missionary Journeys
It is important that we begin the study of one of Paul’s epistles to be able to place the writing of the epistle in as broad an historical context as possible. The better we understand the situation out of which Paul wrote the better we can understand what he wrote.

Acts chapter 9 records for the first time the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus. Following that conversion Paul had a brief ministry in Damascus. He then drops out of the picture of the book of Acts until Acts 11. There (almost out of the blue) he is mentioned in connection with the ministry with Barnabas at Antioch, though little more is said. In Acts 13 Luke returns to the story of Paul and shows how the church was led by the Spirit to send Paul and Barnabas on the first missionary journey.

The first missionary journey (AD 48-49; Acts 13-14) was to the area of southern Asia Minor, modern day Turkey. On that journey it became clear that it was the Gentiles and not the Jews who were responding to the Gospel message. The sudden infusion of a large number of Gentiles into the church was very disturbing to some Jews who had trusted in Christ. It was evident that these new converts were not being required to fulfil the Mosaic Law, especially circumcision. This grew into a significant controversy that led to the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. The decision of the council was that it was not necessary to require that the Gentiles keep the law of Moses in order to be saved. In particular they did not need to become Jews before they could become full Christians. They did not need to be circumcised.

Following the decision of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas determined they would revisit the churches of Asia Minor to tell them personally the decision of the council. They wanted to make sure that the report given was accurate.

Before Paul and Barnabas could leave they had a disagreement about whether to take John Mark along with them. Mark had begun the first journey with Paul and Barnabas, but then had returned home. The reason for the return is never clearly given. Whatever the reason, Paul did not want to take a chance on bringing Mark with them. The result of the disagreement was that Barnabas and Paul split. We read nothing of Barnabas’ ministry. Acts continues to tell us about Paul as he begins his second missionary journey.

The second journey (AD 51-53; Acts 16-18) began with Paul and Silas visiting all the churches that had been found on the first missionary journey in Asia Minor. There he delivered the decision of the Jerusalem Council to the Gentile churches. Timothy was also chosen to help Paul in the journey.

Having completed the work in Asia Minor, Paul set his sites on new horizons to evangelize. After several false starts Paul and team made their way to Troas on the Northwest tip of Asia Minor. There Paul received his famous Macedonian vision and entered into Europe. Their first preaching point in Asia was Philippi.

From Philippi Paul continued on his journey through the northern part of Greece known as Macedonia planting churches in Thessalonica and Berea. Traveling to the southern part of Greece known as Achaia, Paul spent a short time in Athens and complete the second missionary journey in Corinth where he stayed for about two years.

The third missionary journey (53-57 AD; Acts 19-21) was spent primarily at Ephesus in Asia Minor. When that ministry closed he returned briefly to Greece to collect an offering for the church in Jerusalem and then returned to Palestine. While in Jerusalem Paul was arrested and through a series of trials made his way to Rome. It was while in Rome that Paul penned the words of the Philippian epistle. During this same time he also wrote Ephesians, Colossians and Philemon.

There are three key events/people in Philippi. They are important to consider each of these three stories as they give us some clues about issues that may come up in the letter to the Philippians.

TEAM EXERCISE - The Beginning of the Church in Philippi

Paul’s ministry in Philippi sets the background for the letter he writes to them. The first thing to notice from the account in Acts 16 is that when Paul came to Philippi there was no synagogue in which to preach the gospel. During the intertestamental period Jewish people not only returned to their homeland, they also scattered throughout the Mediterranean world. Wherever they went they set up places of worship known as synagogues. These synagogues were not places where they offered OT sacrifices. That was prohibited by the OT. However, they did study the OT and gathered together for worship. These synagogues attracted some Gentiles to them who appreciated the Jewish religion and morality. These Gentiles rarely took the step of circumcision. However, they did in other respects follow the Jewish faith. Known as God-fearers, these Gentiles became the foundation of the Gentile churches that Paul founded in many of the places where he went.

In order to begin a synagogue there had to be at least ten Jewish men who wished to found a synagogue. In Philippi, there were not sufficient Jewish men to begin a synagogue so a group of godly women met each week to pray. There Paul met Lydia who became the first convert to Christianity in Europe. She was not a native of Philippi, and we are not really certain whether she moved to Philippi to live or was only visiting there on business.

The second incident recorded in the Acts account suggests the nature of the town itself. A young demon-possessed girl was being used by her owners because she could predict the future. Paul releases her from the bondage of Satan. This says a couple things about Philippi. First, it is to be noted that as with most areas of the Roman world, slavery was prominent. Slaves may well have outnumbered the free people. Second, the incident shows us that like today, people are often motivated by profit more than concern for others. When Paul delivered the girl from her oppression, her owners were infuriated that they had lost their opportunity to make a profit. They had Paul and Silas imprisoned. Third, notice that anti-Semitism is nothing new. Verse 20 says, “These men, being Jews…” It was almost assumed that the Jews were the cause of a lot of trouble in the community. Lastly, though the Roman system was known for its justice, it could be unjust as well. Paul and Silas are illegally beaten and thrown into prison without a trial.

The last incident mentioned as occurring in Philippi is the conversion of the jailer. After Paul and Silas were thrown into prison, they sang songs until midnight. They weren’t angry or depressed at suffering obvious injustice, they were singing praises to God. The whole prison could hear them. An earthquake occurred at that point in time and opened all the doors of the jail. The jailer, thinking that everyone had escaped was about to commit suicide. The soldier who allowed his charge to escape would receive the punishment that the escapee would have received. If a whole jail had been emptied by the earthquake then it is not unreasonable for the jailer to think that he would rather end his own life than face whatever the Romans might do to him. Instead every prisoner was still in his cell. [When there is a report on TV of an earthquake, what is the first thing people do? They get out and away from the buildings – as fast as they can.] Yet even though all the doors were opened and all the chains the passage says were loosed, none of the prisoners had taken the opportunity to escape in the confusion. Thus the jailer in amazement falls before Paul and asks what he had to do to be saved.

The earliest church at Philippi then consisted of a female merchant and her household, perhaps a former demon-possessed girl, and a jailer and his family.

Now that we have a general background into the history or the book and the church’s beginning at Philippi, its time to start looking at the book itself. We want to become familiar with the book as a whole.

The best way to gain a general overview of a Bible book is to simply sit down and read it through from start to finish. Ideally this should be done at a single sitting, though obviously for very large books, especially in the Old Testament, that may not be practical. Another option is to listen to the book on tape. In either case, the goal is to get an overview of the book. Whether you read it or listen to it, your mind must be on the material of the book and not on something else. The books of the New Testament and especially the epistles were written to be read or heard all at one time. Reading a chapter a day from the book is not the way to get to know it. 

As you read the book you should notice things that the author says about himself and his circumstances, his audience and their circumstances, and his purpose in writing. Note also important people, places or events that are mentioned. Are there repeated themes or words? Write all of these things down as you read through the book. Note also the general tone of the book. Is it positive or negative?

Another way to think about the General Overview of the book is to ask the six questions any good journalist asks:

TEAM EXERCISE - Read one chapter of Philippians and note any info on author, recipients, tone/atmosphere of Philippians.

After you have read the book through once or twice and found all the information that you can on these issues, then you should read one or two good introductions to the book. These introductions may be in commentaries or in a book that describes introductory matters for all of the books of the New or Old Testament. Such an introduction should include discussions of authorship, date and place of writing, recipients, occasion and purpose. A good place to start can be your own study Bible, but you should move beyond the information their to a work that specializes in introductory matters.

--thus far September 9, 2005

Step #3 – Literary Context

A study of the literary context of your passage will help you to place the passage you are studying into the book as a whole. The authors of scripture wrote with a purpose and they develop that purpose in discernable steps. By placing the passage in its context the student will avoid one of the most common errors in interpretation—namely taking things out of context. It is critical that you understand the material of the book up to the point of your passage and then how it develops after your passage. In doing the literary study, we need to answer three questions:

In the case of Philippians that is easy since Philippians is an epistle. Epistolary literature tends to be the easiest to interpret. This may be one reason why pastors so frequently preach from the epistles and tend to neglect other kinds of literature in the Bible. Because it is the easiest to interpret also makes it a good place to learn the process of exegesis. But you should be aware that some of the things that are emphasized in the exegesis of a book like Philippians would not be important in the study of a book like Proverbs or even John. To be unaware of the type of literature one is interpreting or to be unaware of the rules which govern different types of literature is to risk misinterpreting. Misinterpretation of Scripture is very common and it often hurts people. It can lead them into spiritual bondage or it can make them think that they have liberty that they don’t have. Some of the works by Leland Ryken are very helpful in this area.

Secondly you need to identify the beginning and ending points of your passage. In this course that has been done for you. However, you should realize that I have not always made the most logical divisions in the material. Sometimes I have had to include two different passages in the same assignment. When you are studying on your own, you will often have to make the decision for yourself as to where the passage begins and ends. This is an important decision. Where you begin and end a passage will influence the way you interpret the ideas found in the passage. You can only make the decision about the beginning and ending of a particular unit by looking at the broader context. A change in the unit of text may be indicated by many things. A change may be indicated by a change in type of literature, topic, subject, time and place. It may even be indicated by technical features in the text such as a change in the tense, person or number of the verb. Before you make a final decision on where to begin and end your study, you should check several English translations for their input. For those of you who have a Greek New Testament, this information is contained in the footnotes to that text. Finally, you can look at how some commentaries divide the text. Don’t read the commentary, simply note where the commentary makes the paragraph divisions.

Lastly seek to determine the role of your passage in the larger context. The author has written this section of the book for a purpose. You need to begin to unravel what that purpose might be. You should seek answers to questions like:
1. How does this section fit into the argument that is developing?
2. What is the author saying?
3. Why does the author say these things? and
4. Why does he say them at this point in the argument.

Notice that I have distinguished between what the author is saying and why he is saying it. This is a crucial distinction in the exegetical process. Most students do well in finding what the author is saying, but many stumble over the why. Why the author writes what he writes is not something that is usually found on the surface. But asking the question why can yield much information about the text and its application to today.

In doing this last step you will need to identify the larger context. This is not usually the whole book. We could look at each of the major sections and find that they were divided into subsections. Many of these subsections would contain more than one paragraph. It is important that you know what the author is doing in the whole of the section that you are dealing with, but also what he is doing in the subsection that contains the paragraph you are studying. And again always be asking the question why. Sometimes you may not be able to come to a definitive answer, but it is important to be considering this important question.

You have finished this section of study when you can write out in a single sentence the function of each of the subsections and then each of the paragraphs in your subsection of the book. I’ve used the word “function” intentionally. This is not merely the content of the section, it is a reflection of its purpose. The statement cannot ignore the content of the paragraph, but it must include more. It must answer the question why and not merely what.

-thus far September 14, 2005

Step #4: Textual Study

It is important at this stage to try and get as close to the meaning of the original text as possible. Since most of you do not know Greek, you must rely on translations. As you begin textual study, it is valuable to have read many different translations. Carefully compare and contrast them. Don't just read more literal translations like NASB, NKJV. But include also more dynamic translations like the NIV, NLT and NRSV. You should also include paraphrases JB Philips and others. I should think that you would want to study, as a minimum, 5 translations of your passage. There are dozens available in English—a luxury you have that most of the non-English speaking world does not have.

You will notice in your reading of the translations that sometimes there are portions of a verse or even whole verses found in one translation that are not in others. This may be because of the translations being based on different original texts. We will not discuss textual criticism in this class. However, you should realize that when these differences do occur, you will need to make a decision about which text is best.

IN-CLASS EXERCISE - Translations

Exegetical Process - Step #5: Word Study

Word study can be one of the most fun aspects of the exegetical process. Word studies help to clarify the meaning of the passage by helping us to understand the different terms that are used in it. However, word studies must be used carefully. We have not arrived at the meaning of a  passage by doing a study of all of the words in it. Words do not have independent meaning. They have meaning only as they appear in a context. Consider, for example, the word “court.” If I just say the word court what comes to your mind?

(A helpful book in this regard is Moises Silva’s Biblical Words and Their Meaning)

Word studies can be so helpful and yet so prone to over-exegesis, that I would like to spend a few minutes talking about some of the fallacies that arise out of word studies and their misuse.

Fallacies

One lexical scholar has said, “the correct meaning of a term is that which contributes least to the total context.” The meaning of a single term in a passage will not introduce something that is totally foreign to the surrounding context.

A number of very commonly used tools for NT study repeatedly fall into this fallacy. The meanings given for Greek and Hebrew words in the back of Strong’s concordance are full of root fallacies. Some standard older works fall into the same problem. The works of Wuest, Thayer and Vine need to be used with much caution. It is not that all that they say is wrong. However, they are so frequently guilty of this fallacy and the first one that I do not consider them reliable guides. The best guides to word meanings are found in the standard dictionaries. For the OT that is the one by Brown, Driver and Briggs and for the NT it is the lexicon by Bauer, Ardnt, Gingrich and Danker. Both of these tools come in editions which have the words keyed to the numbering system used by Strong.

Similarly we must be aware that though the LXX was the Bible of the early church, not even its use of Greek is the same as in the NT. However, it is much more likely that a NT author will use a word as it is used in the LXX than that he will pick up a use from the classical period.

Lexicographers have a couple of technical terms that they use to describe what I am talking about. They speak of diachronic and synchronic study of a word. Let me explain those terms so that you will recognize them. Diachronic refers to the study of the use of the term through time. It usually begins with its etymology and continues on through to the end. There is value in this study. Synchronic study refers to the study of a word's usage at a particular period of time. It is synchronic study that we are especially interested in for determining the meaning of a word in the NT. Diachronic study or the history of meanings has value when there is an historical allusion or something else in the context that makes it likely that the author is using a term in its historical sense.

We too commit that fallacy when we read 21st century meanings into terms in the NT. This is why it is not legitimate to draw any theological conclusions from what Webster's says a word means. Your conclusion is only valid if the English word has the same range of meaning as the Greek or Hebrew word and that is rarely the case.

Finally under this category, it is illegitimate to read NT meaning of words back into the OT. One very common example of this is in the word "salvation." In the NT it often refers to eternal salvation, but in the OT it rarely has that meaning. It almost always refers to some kind of political or physical deliverance.

Used properly word studies can enhance the meaning of the text. But we must use them carefully. Every year I have someone who commits one or more of the fallacies I have just mentioned in their word studies.

How does a person decide which word to study. A paragraph may have more than a hundred words. How do you decide which one to study?

Studying a word well takes a lot of time. It is not simply a matter of looking a word up in Vine’s or Strong’s. It is a time consuming aspect of study. So you want to be certain that the words that you do study are those most important for the meaning of your passage. 

A word whose English meaning you do not understand is a good candidate for further study. Words whose meaning are crucial for the meaning of the passage as a whole are important to study. Theologically significant words should be studied. Words that a writer repeats over and over in a passage bear study. Concepts that a writer presents in different words in a passage should be studied. Rare words bear study—however, not for the assignment which you will be asked to do. The rarer the word, the more significant it may be in the context. When you check English translations any term that is translated differently in different translations bears some study. Often the differences will be more or less synonymous. The greater the disparity in the various translations, the more need there is to study the word for yourself.

IN-CLASS EXERCISE - Sample Word Study

-so far September 17/03

Step #4 – Textual Study - Sentence Phrasing Analysis
(also known as Mechanical Layout or Diagramming plus Syntactical Analysis)

The best exegesis is based upon the original languages. Whenever a translation is made, something is lost in the process. However, everyone will not decided to study Greek and Hebrew. This class is designed to for completing exegesis and study in the English Bible. It is important to realize the limitations of working with English translations and care needs to be taken in analyzing the grammar of the passage. It is the relationships of one word to others that forms the essence of meaning. A careful examination of the English text will bear good fruit if the English text used follows fairly closely the grammar of the Greek text. For this reason it is strongly recommended that you use the NASB or NKJV text for your exegesis of Scripture.

The Sentence Phrasing Analysis is a way of presenting the text of Scripture visually to show the grammar of the passage and the relationship between the parts of the sentence. It forces you to ask and answer questions about the basic grammar of the passage. If you struggle in grammar you may struggle with the skill of Sentence Phrasing Analysis

The Process of Completing a Sentence Phrasing Analysis

Before we can profitably discuss the process of completing a sentence phrasing analysis, it is necessary to make sure that we all understand what we mean by some critical terms.

Sentences are composed of clauses. A clause is a group of words containing a subject and a verb form of some kind. There are two kinds of clauses. There are independent and dependent clauses. Independent clauses are defined as those clauses which can stand alone as complete sentence. Dependent clauses are also called subordinate clauses. Dependent clauses are those clauses which cannot stand alone as an independent sentence. In English dependent clauses usually begin with a subordinate conjunction or relative pronoun. It is vitally important that you learn how to recognize when clauses begin and end and also to be able to determine what kind of clause you are dealing with.

Participles are extremely important in Greek. In English participles and their modifiers are technically considered phrases. However, because of their importance we are going to treat them as though they were clauses. Participles can be most easily recognized as a verb plus an –ing suffix in English.

But why do we need to differentiate between dependent and independent clauses? Authors tend to emphasize thoughts by putting them in the independent clause. When tracing the thought of the author, then the distinction between independent and dependent clauses is critical. That distinction helps us to understand what the author is trying to emphasize in the course of his discussion. Sometimes when we read things we will be struck by something within the sentence that is not a part of the independent clause. We will think that the author is emphasizing that aspect because it has caught our attention. By being able to distinguish the independent ideas we bring a measure of objectivity to our exegesis. The essence of the paragraph is usually contained in the independent clauses and not in what ever may strike our fancy.  An independent clause is usually composed of the subject, verb and possibly a direct object.

Every clause can have a variety of modifiers.

Conjunctions are words like “and,” “but,” “therefore,” “so,” “if” that combine, compare, contrast or state cause-effect.

Sentence Phrasing Analysis

Basic Principles of Sentence Phrasing Analysis

Believe it or not there are only three basic principles of making a sentence phrasing analysis. The rest of the material is merely refining the process. They are simply these:
1.      Begin independent clauses at the left margin.
2.      Follow the order of the English text.
3.      Show grammatical relationships by means of indentation and arrows.

1. Begin independent clauses on the left margin
Obviously before you begin making your diagram you need to identify the independent and dependent clauses. This can be done easily on a computer by simply hitting the return key at the end of every clause. In English all the words that belong to a clause are placed together.

2. Follow the order of the English text.
This principle needs a little more explanation. As you read an English sentence modifiers can be placed either before or after the word they modify. When the modifier is placed before the word that it is modifying they are placed above the line. When the modifier is found after the word it modifies then it is placed on the line below. Let me give you an example. At this point I only want you to be concerned about the placement of the modifier above or below the line.

Now we have said that one principle of the mechanical layout is that we follow the order of the English text. There are a couple of important modifications to that rule that I want to introduce at this time. Occasionally words need to be removed from the order in which they occur in the text. When that happens (and we will explain when in a few minutes) then use elipsis points (. . .) to mark the original location in the text and use a caret (^) preceding the words that have been moved out of order.

3.   Show grammatical relationships by indentation
While the independent clause begins at the far left, everything else - dependent clauses, prepositional phrases, etc. should be indent underneath the word they modify.

IN-CLASS EXERCISE - Sentence Phrasing Analysis on Philippians 1:3-6

-so far September 17/03

A syntactical analysis is simply an arrangement of the passage to show its meaning. We will spend more time on this part of the process as well. It goes beyond the sentence phrasing analysis and asks, “What does the grammar of the passage mean?” It uses the sentence phrasing analysis and seeks to refine it so that we can understand as accurately as possible the meaning of the text.

The argument of the passage is not merely the sum total of ideas that are related in the passage. The meaning of the passage is indicated by the inter-relationship conveyed between the various ideas expressed. The semantic diagram is the means for studying those relationships and putting “labels” on them so that you can follow at a quick glance what you have studied. It is only by wrestling with the text on this level that a person can grow in his/her understanding of the text.

When you have finished this stage of the study you are ready to construct a provisional outline of the passage. In fact, it is important that you do this at this stage. We have been focusing on the details of the text. It is very easy to focus on the details that you begin to forget that our goal is to understand the passage as a whole. We will only do so as we understand the parts. Nevertheless, we must go back to the whole to synthesize. As you make your outline at this point, it is important that you seek accuracy and not something that is flashy. We can always polish it later. But for now it is important that it be accurate. We must emphasize that this is a provisional, an initial outline. As we continue with the process I would encourage you to continue to refine that outline with each new piece of information that you garner from your study.

For your syntactical analysis (part 2 of the sentence phrasing analysis) you want to identify the following:

You should be able to see your teaching outline from your sentence phrasing analysis. Sometimes there is one independent clause and 3, 4, or 5 dependent clauses or prepositional phrases that relate back to the main independent clause. This means the independent clause becomes your Big Idea (see notes on developing the Big Idea below) and the dependent clauses become the main points in your teaching/message. At other times there are 2-3 independent clauses and those are your two or three main points.

In developing the Big Idea, you want to go through three steps:

1. The Exegetical Idea – write a one sentence summary of the teaching of the specific passage you are studying. In some ways, this should be (fairly) unique to any other passage of Scripture.

2. The Expositional Idea – from the exegetical idea, identify the principle of the passage.

3. The Teaching Idea – take the expositional idea, and make it personal to the people you are teaching.

Here is an example from Philippians 1:12-14

-thus far September 26/03

Step #5 - Theological Study

The purpose of the next step is to ensure that the teaching/concepts of the passage under study fit with the teaching of the rest of Scripture regarding a specific area. In order to do consider this, we look at the following four areas:

[We will practice this near the end of the course.]

Step #6 - Secondary Sources

Secondary sources can be useful in a variety of ways:

Step #7 - Application

If we have all this knowledge, but do not make it practical or share it with others, I believe it is really quite useless (we just have fat heads!). This is where the final step in the exegetical process comes in - Application.

There are four key principles to application:

Let me suggest some ways to make good ideas - assuming you already have done good exegesis!

Applications for Philippians 1:3-11

These pages were last updated on September 30, 2005.
© Copyright 1999-2005 Prairie Bible Institute & Steven C. Ibbotson
Hit Counter