Don Johnson

Here is my basic 2-step formula for the Bible.

1. Exegesis: try to do one’s best to figure out what a teaching unit (pericope) meant to the original readers. If you go with less than a teaching unit, then you risk taking a verse out of its immediate context. A way to remember this is the word: deversify – verses were added by human effort and can help or hinder. In this process I am the subject and the Bible is the object.

2. Application: What does this mean for me and others today? How am I changed by this? The Bible is meant to change me. In this process the Bible and the Holy Spirit is the subject and I am the object.

Note that one may be a great exegete and a terrible applier or vice versa; this idea is to be both. And of course, use all the help you can get.