Analyzing the Text

 

Let’s talk about exegesis. Specifically, your analysis of the texts you preach from each week. This week I am preaching from 1 Corinthians 11. In this text, I will focus upon the “communion” passage where Paul reminds the Corinthians of the purpose (dare I say purposes?) of this text. Beginning with verse 17 Paul uses the word “body” with three specific referents.

• The physical body of Jesus “broken for you.

• The emblematic body of Jesus, the bread, by which we remember His sacrifice.

• The assembled, Spirit-defined body which gathers around the table.

To some, this will seem like an eccentric analysis of the text. That is fine. It is, as far as I can tell, my analysis of the text. When I began my broad analysis of 1 Corinthians back in July one of my observations was the diverse way Paul uses the term body throughout the book. In that process, I settled on 1 Corinthians 11.27 as articulating one of the central issues Paul was confronting throughout the book.

“For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.” (1 Corinthians 11:29 ESV)

Every issue Paul deals with in 1 Corinthians, in a book filled with issues, comes down to a failure on the congregation(s) or some part thereof to rightly discern the body in question.

✓ Conflict and factions are a result of not rightly discerning the Church, the body of Christ.

✓ Sexual immorality is a result of not rightly discerning our individual fleshly bodies.

✓ Lawsuits among believers are a result of not rightly discerning the Church, the body of Christ.

✓ Social conflict in the Church is a result of not rightly discerning the Church as the body of Christ.

✓ Confusion in worship is a result of not rightly discerning the Church as the body of Christ.

✓ Doctrinal error is a result of not rightly discerning the teaching of the body; the Church.

And finally, turning the Lord’s Table into a socially-driven food fight is the result of not properly discerning the above-mentioned bodies at issue in this particular text.

If you disagree with my analysis, fine. So long as that disagreement is driven by your analysis of the text. In the body of believers that meets at 118 N. Court in Grayville, Illinois it is my appointed task to exegete, analyze, interpret, and preach God’s Word. Where you preach or teach, that job is yours. Do the job.

Let me clarify what I mean by my analysis and yours and explain why this work is so important. I have many commentaries. Perhaps you do as well. Commentaries for the most part are the work of professional exegetes. Academics who have given their lives to this work. The work of professional, Academic study is important, but it is not the same thing as exegeting and applying Scripture where you and I live. Academics, even when they write with the Church and preachers in mind, are mainly writing for the Guild, for other scholars. I love C.K. (Kingsley) Barret’s commentary on 1 Corinthians. I have found Thiselton’s commentary on the Greek text to be very helpful. They don’t preach in Grayville. I do. It is my task to analyze and apply this text in my congregation. 

The rhythms for Academic study and work for the pulpit are different. Often Academics have invested enormous amounts of time in specific approaches to the text. Often their work goes back to the defense of their Doctoral dissertation decades ago. Their understanding of issues, such as authorship and dating, which can be more readily accommodated to the thoughts of others may change with time. After all, these are issues which are more fluid, to begin with, and one’s assessment of external evidence is more susceptible to the corrective critiques of others. They, as horseplayers say, have a lot of skin in the game, it is difficult to go back over one’s previous exegesis and say…” man I missed this.” 

For preaching the timeframe is far different. I know I have preached 1 Corinthians in the past. I know I have preached this specific text in the past. While I will always recheck my previous exegesis, and often find that I am still in agreement with what I thought, concluded, and wrote in the past, my mandate is this text, this congregation, this Sunday. By having gained trust from the congregation through faithfully leading them in the engagement of the Scriptures they know that they are getting “fresh bread” and that my intent is their needs here and now.

Some might object that they are too young, inexperienced, or unequipped. To rely on their reading of the text. You will get older, you will gain experience, you can get better. The question is how to improve. Let me close with a few suggestions. 

First, do not substitute the judgments of others for your own. None of the famous exegetes you read will be in your pulpit on Sunday. You will be there, and your sermon needs to be your work, including the analysis of the text. To gain experience you will want to check yourself with the experts, but not rely upon them. 

Secondly, develop a big-picture view of a Biblical book before exegeting and preaching from smaller portions. This brings us back to my familiar soapbox of sermon calendars. If you skip around the Bible from passage to passage, pericope to pericope, story to story you are just making it harder on yourself. You will be constantly trying to cram many months’ worth of work into a compressed time frame. You will become frustrated and start looking for shortcuts. 

Thirdly, read the text. Start there and you will be surprised at how many times you finish there. I am 14 sermons into 1 Corinthians. I’ve been studying the book since July. I have read and reread it. I have checked my initial analysis. It all comes back to the text. If you have the language skills work from the original. If you do not, work to get at least some skills with the text. Much of what I’m talking about can be done from your favorite translation. 

Finally, always be figuring out to communicate the texts you read in scripture. When asked by freshmen at St. Louis Christian College (my dying Alma Mater) if he knew a place that his questioner could preach Albert McGee had a pat answer. “Do you have a sermon ready? If you do I think God will find a place for you to preach it.” If you ever preach, you are always preparing. That preparation requires searching, directed prayer. That preparation requires detailed study. That preparation requires personal application of Biblical truth to your own life. That preparation requires the persistent question “What does this text say, and how shall I preach it?”