Scriptural Exegesis Quotes

It's a great tragedy when the Bible is interpreted by those who are not in love.

If the Apostles and the writers of the gospels were to enjoy a brief stay on earth and return to the company of men, they would be astonished at how many different analyses and approaches were being used to interpret their books, and how many bizarre constructions had been assembled from the trivial notions of the sophists.

There have been no sects in the Christian world, however absurd, which have not endeavoured to support their opinions by arguments drawn from Scripture.

The Bible... provides no guide to reading the Bible. In fact, it is full of such inconsistencies, contradictions, lacunae, obscurities, baffling tales, and poetic imagery that to quote it at all is to select from conflicting alternative passages. Every quotation is therefore necessarily an interpretation.

Theology moves back and forth between two poles, the eternal truth of its foundations and the temporal situation in which the eternal truth must be received.

Exegesis, exegesis, and yet more exegesis!

The Scriptures should be read with the aim of finding Christ in them. Whoever turns aside from this object, even though he wears himself out all his life in learning, he will never reach the knowledge of the truth.

Of all the commentaries on the Scriptures, good examples are the best.

About the injunction of the Apostle Paul that women should keep silent in church? Don't go by one text only.

I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law.

He who is anxious to attain a true understanding of holy Scripture, will discover the spiritual truths which are spoken by it to those who are called "spiritual," by comparing the meaning of what is addressed to those of weaker mind with what is announced to such as are of acuter understanding, both meanings being frequently found in the same passage by him who is capable of comprehending it.

I do not believe that any man can preach the gospel who does not preach the Law. The Law is the needle, and you cannot draw the silken thread of the gospel through a man’s heart unless you first send the needle of the Law to make way for it.

[The Bible] has to be interpreted. And if it isn’t interpreted, then it can’t be put into action. So if we are serious about following God, then we have to interpret the Bible. It is not possible to simply do what the Bible says. We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people.

It is unlawful to add anything to the words of Holy Scripture regarding the sense.

As so often happens Christianity as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount is simplicity itself, but through the ages human beings have rendered it more and more complicated. "The church" does not exist, numerous churches exist, always controlled by human beings.

My aim has been to expound Scripture and to expound Scripture in such a way that I do not set one Scripture over against another.

Yeah, I have been because, generally speaking, to we Biblical literalists, the media is very hostile.

We didn't really differ [with Frank Moore Cross] because we have the same love of the text. We share that love.

A man who would interpret the scriptures must have the spiritual discipline.

Whoever, then, thinks that he understands the Holy Scriptures, or any part of them, but puts such an interpretation upon them as does not tend to build up this twofold love of God and our neighbor, does not yet understand them as he ought.

Most good evangelical Study Bibles have more in common than people sometimes realize. All of them are committed to explaining the Bible to lay readers.

Judaism is not a dogmatic religion but one which loves debate, in which scholarship has played a big part. Scholars never agree about anything.

I did my doctoral dissertation on the lectionary readings that we use at mass and how you have biblical texts that have been taken out of their original Bible context and put together for mass, and now they form a new text. Out of that new text, there is an interplay of new meaning.

Congregations shaped by the Scriptures generally have preachers who are shaped by the Scriptures.