Tag: Eisegesis

When Scripture Contradicts Your Doctrine…

To perform Eisegesis, you must stick with what you already believe… No matter what the cost.

I am constantly confronted by people who are horrified that they have found (or worse, I have shown them) Scripture that contradicts and debunks their favorite doctrine…

Don’t panic! There is an answer! It is called…

EISEGESIS

This is a skill taught in the finest of Christian colleges and seminaries. Denominations have used it to “prove” their own distinctives… It is, however, a simple concept and quite easy to grasp…

To perform Eisegesis, you must stick with what you already believe… No matter what the cost. You are right and you know it. The Scripture is right but misunderstood. You go to the Bible with great determination and you find verses that prove that you are right and the common understanding of the passage in question is obviously wrong.

Having found at least two verses that prove that you are right, you must begin to think. (That is the really hard part.) If the painful and contradictory verse does not mean what it says, what does it mean? You must, by twisting logic and dumping common sense, come up with an explanation as to “what it really means.”

The Calvinists are masters at this. They know that Calvin was right and no Scripture that even hints at free will, can really mean what it really says… Problem is, there are a lot of those verses! They came up with a simple solution… redefine the words. Whosoever means Elect. All means Elect. None means Elect. Once you understand the concept, it is easy… Of course, Calvin was right!!!

Then, there is Romans seven. You know that Paul was perfect and could not sin… In Romans seven, Paul says that he sins… You spend months trying to explain why Paul could not have meant that he was a sinner when he said that he was a sinner. You come up with a five thousand word essay explaining how Paul did not mean that he was a sinner when he said that he was a sinner. Yea! You did it… And then, in a reply, someone quotes Paul again… “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” (1 Timothy 1:15) Woops, this calls for another 5,000 word thesis… after all, we know that Paul was not a sinner.

When we have again proven that Paul was mistaken and that he really meant to use the past tense, that same pesky commentator comes up with another one… “If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.” (1 John 1:10) He notes that if Paul were to say that he was not a sinner, he would be calling God a liar…

What to do now? Simple, just keep at it… With good eisegetical skills you can prove anything…

David…

Let Scripture Speak

Eisegesis kills…

Exegesis Vs. Eisegesis

Sometimes a verse of Scripture is not clear or it seems to violate other Scripture and even the teaching of the rest of the Word… When we find that, we look carefully at what it says, we look at the context and we ask ourselves if there is a way to understand the verse that agrees with the rest of Scripture. That is called Exegesis and it is good.

Then there is Eisegesis… I look at all Scripture in the light of what my denomination or my church teaches and I bend all Scripture, warping it, twisting it, and interpreting it in impossible ways… all in order to force that Scripture to agree with what I already believe… That is bad…

Let me give you a couple of examples.

John 10:28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

That sounds like maybe once I am saved, I cannot be lost… but there are so many Scriptures that disagree… Scripture speaks of falling from grace and being severed from Christ… Revelation speaks of having your name blotted out of the Book. Jesus parable tells of believers who received the Word with joy, but later the cares of this life knocked them out… How do I resolve that?

Exegesis: I look carefully at the verse in question. It says that “no one can snatch them…” but it does not say “No one can jump out of my hand…” Problem solved…

Eisegesis: I am a Baptist. Baptists believe Once Saved, Always Saved. This verse agrees with my church. This verse is right and all the others are wrong. Problem solved.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

Exegesis: That is very straightforward, Jesus said it, I believe it… No problem.

Eisegesis: I am a Calvinist. Calvin said that men have no choice. Only the Elect are saved and everyone else is lost. Therefore, Jesus did not really mean that and we must understand “whosoever” to include only the Elect. What Jesus really meant to say is that those who are predestined to be saved will believe and they will be saved. Whosoever really means the elect. Calvin is happy, I am happy, problem solved.

Please… try to exegete Scripture… Eisegesis kills…

David…

FLAT EARTH EISEGESIS

Let us first, speak to “Eisegesis.” Eisegesis, simply enough, is using the Bible to prove what you already believe or what you want to believe.

Let us start with an extremely exaggerated example:

Let us say that I am a devoted, loving and Christian parent. My beloved child, seemingly out of nowhere, commits suicide. I do not want to believe that my child would go to Hell. I simply must believe that suicide is good and that God approves. I go to my Bible and find that at least seven people in the Bible killed themselves. More than that, among them were Prophets, Kings and Disciples… I carefully compile my list:

  1. [Abimelech] called hastily unto the young man his armour-bearer, and said unto him, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men say not of me, A woman slew him. And his young man thrust him through, and he died (Judges 9:54).
  1. And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed with all his might; and the house fell…upon all the people that were therein (Judges 16:30).
  1. Saul took a sword and fell on it (1 Sam. 31:4).
  1. When [Saul’s] armour-bearer saw that Saul was dead, he fell likewise upon his sword, and died (1 Sam 31:5).
  1. When Ahithophel saw that his counsel was not followed, he…got him home to his house, to his city, and put his house in order, and hanged himself, and died (2 Sam. 17:23).
  1. It came to pass, when Zimri saw that the city was taken, that he went into the palace of the king’s house, and burnt the king’s house over him with fire, and died (1 Kings 16:18).
  1. [Judas] cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself (Matt. 27:5).

I am now certain that God approves of suicide. My beloved child is secure in God…. And, while I am still hurting, I decide that God would certainly want me to commit suicide so that I may be with my child…

That is eisegesis!

Let us go on to other things:

Let us say that, in my mind, I see God as a kindly Father. I read a verse that says that I can never be plucked from his hand. I like that and I start a Bible Study. While there are many verses on the subject, they are just about evenly divided between those that support Once Saved, Always Saved and those that speak to fear, trembling, being plucked from the vine and falling from grace.

I compile my lists… 20 verses supporting Eternal Security and 20 verses that speak to falling from Grace.

  • God is Good! I know that and so all of the verses that make God look like a good guy must be literal… Clearly, these verses mean what they say.
  • On the other hand, all of those verses that make God look like a bad guy, must be misquotes, mistranslations or simply false…
  • We all know, after all, that God, is a good guy!

Based on what I now “know,” I write a book and form a new denomination, built on the firm knowledge that, no matter what those mean and ugly verses might say, God would never cast away one of his children!

But what if I saw God as a mean and ugly judge? I would certainly take those same verses and declare that all of the verses that supported my view of God as a stern and awful Judge, were to be taken literally, while all of those verses that spoke of a kind and fatherly God who would show grace and mercy on his children, cannot possibly mean what they say…

Based on what I now “know,” I would certainly write a book and start a new denomination fixed on terror and the firm belief that the slightest infraction of the Law will bring down judgment, death and Hell.

FLAT EARTH

Please note: There is not one single verse, in all of Scripture, that informs us of the shape of the earth… Not even one. Not one verse says that it is flat. Not one verse says that it is a globe… Zero, Zilch, Nada.

On Flat Earth, I must start with an idea, a thought or a belief that comes from a source outside of Scripture… A book, a Facebook Post, a YouTube video or, in the beginning at least, the fertile imagination of one individual. Somehow, I come to believe that the earth must be flat. (For the vast majority of Modern “Flatearthers,” it came through Facebook or YouTube.)

Based on my belief that the earth must be flat, I follow the YouTube Guru or the Facebook Wizard to the Scriptures. There, he / she points out a handful of idioms, allegories and a little poetic language that, while none of it says the earth is flat, might seem to support the theory I so desperately want to believe. The fact that nearby verses speak to the skin on Job’s teeth and the pillars on which the foundations of the earth are firmly fixed be damned… Those things are obviously allegory but anything that backs up what I want to believe must, absolutely must be taken literally!

Now, armed with less than six passages which, while they do not say that the earth is flat, do seem to support what I want to believe, I make a video, go on Facebook, as an On-fire Evangelist for the Flat Earth Gospel! I am so very proud of my new found knowledge and this New Doctrine, that I leave Jesus in order to preach Flat Earth… After all, what is salvation if you can believe something that nobody else knows about yet?

And then come the Party-Poopers… They challenge your science and your theology, making you look like an idiot. If you have an Associate’s Degree in Dental Technology, certainly you can prove the scientists of the world wrong! If that doesn’t work, you can simply declare that all science is evil and scientists are of the Devil… That fixes it!

This is where Flatearthers divide into Clergy and Laity…

  • If you are a Dental Tech, a File Clerk at a College or some other kind of “Expert”, you become Clergy…
  • You write your own stuff,
  • you make your own YouTube channel and
  • start your own page on Facebook…

If no one follows you, not to worry:

  • you find the page of a non Flatearther and begin to preach your newfound religion in comments under their posts…
  • Do that often enough, and you will soon find yourself with your own following.

(This route is not suggested for those with less than a sixth-grade education.)

If you are not so educated as the YouTube Gurus or the Facebook Wizards, do not despair… There are thousands of Wizards and Gurus out there with posts to read and videos to watch… These poor people are in desperate need of followers… which is your purpose for existing…

If you do not know where to find your very own Wizard or Guru, follow the comments under my Facebook Posts… That is where they live…

David