Exegesis, Interpretation and Exposition

David J. Price

In a religious context exegesis is the discipline of critically examining an inspired portion of literature with the intent of explicating its plain meaning. The exegetical process could be compared to archeology, in that both fields of research are interested in unearthing historical truth. The archeologist commits his or herself to examining artifacts and other time oriented data in order to determine details about a previous civilization, while the exegete analyzes ancient literature hoping to discover the native composers original intent. Simply stated exegesis is the process of drawing out the plain meaning of a given text from antiquity.

In a ministerial context the exegetical process generally serves as an aid towards exposition. Exposition is a public discourse in which one sets forth the plain meaning of an assigned pericope in contemporary form. For the expositor, the task of declaring the import of the text depends heavily upon the exegetical process. It should be obvious from a reading of the preceding paragraph that exegesis is the necessary precursor to exposition. Exegesis deals with discovering the sense of the text, while exposition deals with imparting that discovery to an audience in popular form.

In closing, I would like to consider the term interpretation. The definition provided by Webster in his collegiate dictionary leaves the impression, that exposition and interpretation share virtually the same range of meaning. He defines interpretation as, “the process of explaining or telling the meaning of something and presenting it in understandable terms.” As stated above, exposition is a public discourse in which, the expositor sets forth the plain meaning of a text in contemporary form. The only shade of difference between an expositor and an interpreter is in the area of emphasis. An expositor stresses the native meaning of a text in contemporary form , while an interpreter stresses how meaningful a text is to his current audience. Webster suggested that an interpreter tends to conceive information in light of their current circumstances. This means that there is a potential risk of modernizing the message at the expense of its original intent. Since, the expositor has not been granted supernatural immunity from his own culture, his work will naturally involve some degree of interpretation. It is therefore imperative that the expositor exercise great caution while attempting to communicate ancient truth to a contemporary audience.