Aída Besançon Spencer’s The Exegetical Process offers a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to New Testament exegesis designed primarily for seminary students and undergraduate biblical studies programs. The work systematically addresses each stage of the exegetical task—from initial text selection and translation through historical-cultural analysis, grammatical-syntactical investigation, literary context, theological synthesis, and contemporary application. What distinguishes Spencer’s handbook from others in the field is its granular level of procedural detail, complete with assessment rubrics for each exegetical component, and an extensive collection of reference charts, tables, and resource lists designed to support students through every phase of research and writing.

The Exegetical Process enters a well-established field of exegetical handbooks, positioning itself alongside Gordon Fee’s now-classic New Testament Exegesis and other methodological guides that have served generations of students. Spencer, an experienced New Testament scholar and professor emerita at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, brings considerable pedagogical expertise to this task. The result is a highly structured, mechanically precise guide that will prove valuable for certain learning contexts while simultaneously raising questions about its broader applicability.

The volume’s most distinctive contribution lies precisely where Spencer intends it: in its relentlessly systematic, step-by-step approach. Unlike many exegetical handbooks that describe the interpretive process in more general terms, Spencer provides exhaustive detail at each stage, breaking down complex exegetical tasks into discrete, manageable components. For instructors seeking to demystify biblical exegesis for beginning students—particularly those lacking strong backgrounds in hermeneutics or biblical languages—this granular approach offers genuine advantages.

Most notably, Spencer includes detailed grading rubrics for each component of the exegetical process. This feature distinguishes The Exegetical Process from its competitors and addresses a genuine pedagogical need. Seminary and Bible college instructors often struggle to communicate assessment expectations clearly, and students frequently complain about the opacity of grading criteria for exegesis papers. Spencer’s rubrics provide concrete standards, specifying what constitutes exemplary, adequate, or deficient work at each stage. This transparency serves both fairness and learning outcomes, helping students understand not merely what to do but how well they should do it.

Additionally, Spencer enriches the volume with numerous reference charts, graphs, and tables that function as practical tools throughout the exegetical process. These include terminological glossaries, taxonomies of grammatical and syntactical categories, lists of ancient sources (including extrabiblical Jewish and Greco-Roman literature), curated bibliographies of contemporary scholarly resources organized by exegetical topic, and visual aids for discourse analysis and semantic mapping. These reference materials transform the handbook from mere procedural guide into a portable research companion. For students unfamiliar with the landscape of New Testament scholarship or uncertain about which lexicons, commentaries, or databases to consult, these lists provide invaluable orientation. The charts on rhetorical devices, figures of speech, and argumentative structures offer quick-reference tools that students can apply directly to their textual analysis. This apparatus represents a significant practical contribution that extends the book’s utility beyond its methodological instruction.

However, the volume’s strengths paradoxically generate its most significant limitations. Spencer’s approach is markedly idiosyncratic, reflecting her particular pedagogical preferences and methodological commitments in ways that may not translate well across different institutional contexts or learning environments. While the exegetical terrain she covers substantially overlaps with Fee’s New Testament Exegesis—textual criticism, translation, historical-cultural background, lexical-syntactical analysis, theological interpretation, and contemporary application—her specific procedures and emphases often diverge in ways that seem arbitrary rather than methodologically motivated.

The step-by-step format, while initially appealing, risks fostering a mechanical, almost formulaic approach to biblical interpretation. Exegesis is fundamentally an art as much as a science, requiring interpretive judgment, synthetic thinking, and the ability to recognize which questions matter most for a given text. Spencer’s highly structured methodology may inadvertently obscure this reality, training students to follow prescribed steps rather than develop interpretive discernment. The danger is producing students who can execute exegetical procedures competently but struggle to think like exegetes—to recognize when standard approaches require modification, when certain steps deserve more or less attention, or how the various analytical stages integrate into a coherent interpretive argument.

Moreover, Spencer’s idiosyncratic details sometimes seem to reflect personal preference rather than exegetical necessity. Experienced instructors who have developed their own effective approaches may find Spencer’s specific requirements constraining rather than helpful. The risk is that the volume’s utility becomes tied too closely to adopting Spencer’s entire system rather than serving as a flexible resource that instructors can adapt to their particular contexts and emphases.

Gordon Fee’s New Testament Exegesis remains, in this reviewer’s judgment, the more helpful resource for most contexts. Now in its third edition, Fee’s handbook has proven its staying power precisely because it avoids Spencer’s level of prescriptive detail. Fee provides a clear, comprehensive overview of the exegetical task while maintaining sufficient flexibility for instructors to adapt his approach to their particular pedagogical goals and institutional contexts. His discussion is more discursive, offering methodological rationale alongside practical guidance, helping students understand not merely how to do exegesis but why particular procedures matter.

Fee also demonstrates greater sensitivity to the diversity of New Testament genres, providing genre-specific guidance that recognizes how exegetical priorities shift when moving from gospel narrative to Pauline argumentation to apocalyptic literature. Spencer’s more uniform approach, while simpler to follow, may not adequately prepare students for the genre-sensitivity that mature exegesis requires.

Furthermore, Fee’s integration of exegetical method with broader hermeneutical reflection provides students with a more robust theological framework for their interpretive work. Spencer’s focus on procedure, while pedagogically valuable, offers less guidance on the theological and hermeneutical questions that ultimately shape how one approaches the biblical text.

This is not to suggest that The Exegetical Process lacks value. For specific contexts—particularly undergraduate Bible programs, introductory seminary courses, or institutions where students arrive with minimal interpretive training—Spencer’s detailed scaffolding and explicit assessment rubrics may prove extremely beneficial. The volume could serve effectively as a supplementary text alongside Fee or other handbooks, with instructors selectively utilizing Spencer’s rubrics and detailed guidance for particular exegetical components while drawing on other resources for broader methodological perspective.

Spencer has produced a conscientious, pedagogically motivated handbook that reflects deep teaching experience and genuine concern for student learning. Her commitment to assessment clarity addresses a real need in biblical studies education. However, the volume’s idiosyncratic character and methodologically prescriptive approach limit its broader utility. Instructors should carefully evaluate whether Spencer’s specific system aligns with their pedagogical goals and institutional context before adopting it wholesale.

For most seminary and graduate programs seeking a comprehensive, methodologically sound, and pedagogically flexible exegetical handbook, Gordon Fee’s New Testament Exegesis remains the superior choice. Spencer’s The Exegetical Process offers a valuable alternative for specific teaching contexts but seems unlikely to displace Fee as the standard reference in the field.

Reviewed by Rick Wadholm Jr

Publisher’s page: https://www.kregel.com/biblical-studies/the-exegetical-process/

Doug Strong and Jess Bielman offer this short volume intent on reimagining and reoffering an ancient medieval metaphor (the “workshop”) for contemporary practices of theological education that are integrative of the life of the academy and the church together. The volume proposes to take readers on a journey of recovery. Chapter 1 introduces the ancient construct of “apprenticeship” as a means of education in theology and ministry that is intentionally hands-on and oriented around a relationship of discipleship rather than simply courses taken independently with hopes that the student will gain integrative mastery on their own. Foundationally this is a call to mentorship that is facilitated via Spirit-empowered transformational experiences in community, discipline, and vocational holiness and wholeness.

Despite the noted issues with this volume, it still offers a refreshing rethinking of the moves within theological education that have tended to turn it into business and a cognitive intellectualist project rather than the personalizing and transforming Spirit empowering encounter it is meant to be for the sake of the individual, the Church, and the world. This book might function well for a group of professors, administrators, pastors, and students to read together over several weeks of discussions centered around the journey into the “workshop” re-storying proposed. As such it might just offer the “academy opportunity to make it a place of spiritual and intellectual flourishing for the sake of the church’s health” (144). May it be so.

Reviewed by Rick Wadholm Jr.

Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/9781532689093/workshop-of-the-holy-spirit/

Preview Workshop of the Holy Spirit: https://books.google.com/books?id=SyKcEAAAQBAJ

Keener also speaks to the matter of applying biblical texts in our lives. Are all of the practices and directives that we find in Scripture eternal, or are some of them limited by culture or context? This is not always easy to determine. For two examples in this regard, he speaks about women’s head coverings and holy kisses.

Keener is one of the top scholars in the area of Bible backgrounds. This is a great opportunity to learn more about this area that is so vital to a proper understanding of Scripture.

Trailer for New Testament Backgrounds

Find many more courses and introductions at: SeminaryNow.com

More from Craig Keener at PneumaReview.com:

“People Met Jesus Deeply Here: Craig Keener on the Asbury Outpouring”

A series of 19 lectures on the Gospel of Matthew

Round-up of excerpts and additional comments on Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts

John MacArthur’s Strange Fire, reviewed by Craig S. Keener

Rightly Understanding God’s Word series – A course on biblical interpretation in 8 chapters

What does Spirit-filled education look like around the world? Dave Johnson, part of the faculty and leadership at Asia Pacific Theological Seminary, introduces us to the school and the state of education in the Asia Pacific region of the world. Part of the Pentecostal Theological Education Around the World series from PneumaReview.com.

Introduction

Let me begin by introducing our school, the Asia Pacific Theological Seminary (APTS) (www.apts.edu) and the Asia Pacific Region (www.agwm.org/asia-pacific.html) . For our purposes here, the Asia Pacific region includes all of the countries from Mongolia in the north to New Zealand in the south and the small island nations in the Pacific Ocean.

Located in Baguio City, Philippines, APTS is the Assemblies of God regional school for advanced theological education in the Asia Pacific Region with over 1,500 alumni, mostly Asians, who are serving in various capacities all over the region and the rest of the world. We currently have around 144 students from various church backgrounds who come from twenty-nine different countries and are served by a resident international faculty from the USA, New Zealand, China, Malaysia, S. Korea, Japan, Myanmar, Taiwan, and the Philippines.

How readily available is theological education for Pentecostals in your region?

I cannot speak for other groups, but my own denomination, the Assemblies of God (AG), has around 101 Bible schools that serve students just over 30,000 AG churches and numerous students from other groups.[1] These figures do not include China, where the Assemblies of God does not exist as an ecclesiastical entity. One writer noted that China may have as many as 1,000 “underground” Bible schools that serve the house church movement, but this number can surely only be an educated guess since, to my knowledge, no actual statistics are available. However, since the church in China is overwhelmingly Pentecostal or Charismatic, it is safe to assume that most of these schools are also.[2]

What are some of the greatest obstacles to Spirit-filled theological education in your culture and location?

There is a lot of false teaching and misunderstanding regarding the person and work of the Holy Spirit. At APTS, we address this issue by teaching sound doctrine in our classrooms, chapels and our publications. Yet there is much work to be done.

Since we have students from so many countries and since English is the most popular second language across Asia, we require the students to be able to read and write English at a master’s degree level. This requires that we offer English classes to help the students to gain greater proficiency and this is quite a struggle for many of our students, although most ultimately succeed.

What does Spirit-filled education look like around the world? The President of Facultad de Teología, Allen Martin, tells us how this seminary is training men and women across the Spanish-speaking world. Part of the Pentecostal Theological Education Around the World series from PneumaReview.com.

My name is Allen Martin and I have been a missionary with the Assemblies of God for the last 25 years. For over 20 of those years we worked with church planting and Bible School education among the Quichua Indians in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador. At present I am the President of the Facultad de Teología de las Asambleas de Dios en America Latina (in English: the Latin America Theological Seminary/LATS). I am also currently working on a Ph.D. in Intercultural Studies at the Assemblies of God Theological Seminary.

Facultad de Teología was born of the desire of Latin Americans who had graduated from the Instituto de Superación Ministerial/ISUM (Latin America Advanced School of Theology/LAAST) to continue their ministerial training. LATS was designed to offer advanced training to recognized church leaders by delivering on- site, intensive month-long modules, in easily accessible regional locations at a reasonable cost, thereby minimizing the time students would be away from families and ministry. The uniqueness of the program provides for mutual learning, mentoring, counseling, encouragement, friendship, growth and prayer as professors and students live, study and eat together.

We are a Pentecostal seminary (Assemblies of God) whose aim is to train and equip Spanish speaking Pastors and leaders in all of Latin America. Because many Latin countries have a high percentage of native Indian groups we also a higher percentage of Indian students who study with us in those regions.

Bible school education in the Assemblies of God in Spanish speaking Latin America is set up in such a way that the first three years of Bible Institute studies are taught under the direction of the national church in each country. Each of those 3 year bible institutes uses what is known as the Basic Plan as their model. The Basic Plan was developed by and is regularly revised and updated by an international team of educators, many of whom are career missionaries. In order to graduate with a four year BA degree the 4^th year of theological studies are then studied in a series of four, one month-long, live-in modules taught by a roving faculty called ISUM. We at the Facultad de Teología then offer the next level of theological training, it is the Master’s degree level. Similar to ISUM, our program involves 5, three week long live-in modules and the writing of a thesis, project or a published book at the end of their studies with us. Also similar to ISUM we hold our modules in bible school facilities in countries that are strategically located allowing for students to come from surrounding countries to study. We currently hold modules in 11 countries, including: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, México, Dominican Republic and Cuba as well as having two centers here in the United States (Springfield, MO & La Puente, CA).