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/

This series of broadcasts on the CharismaPodcastNetwork.com began airing on May 17, 2022, the birthday of my mother, the late Dr. Verna Hall Linzey.

I enjoyed reading this book. It is written for teachers of homiletics, but pastors would also benefit from reading it. It is written by some of the leading homileticians from the Academy of Homiletics. Thomas Long who is one of the editors said, “the focal point of the book is on the substance of preaching”. It builds on the past and present literature of preaching and pin-points that preaching as an art that can be learned.

The field of homiletics is extensive and the editors must have had a difficult time in deciding what subjects should be addressed and by whom. However, all the writers believe in the importance of preaching. The first section deals with “preaching as a Christian practice”. The second section deals with the “various components of preaching”. The third section deals with “assessment and formation of preaching,” and the last section deals with “teaching a first year course in preaching, and places to find further help on the study of preaching.” I found the last two sections most helpful in assessing students of preaching, and the help that is offered from the Academy of Homiletics and the support that is offered from various schools and denominations. Assessing students of preaching is very difficult and the guidance provided by leading teachers and their various approaches to this challenging subject can help teachers to be more proficient. There is further need by senior homileticians to publish further works that provides more guidance for younger teachers of preaching.

Reviewed by Aldwin Ragoonath

Matthew E. Gordley, in his monograph Teaching through Song in Antiquity: Didactic Hymnody among Greeks, Romans, Jews and Christians, explores the variety of means that ancient poets, over time and in numerous locations, employed hymns to instruct their audiences. Gordley argues that many Greek, Roman, Jewish and Christian hymns of antiquity, beyond praising a deity, also had the primary function of instructing and shaping the writer’s community (1-2).

The author maintains, “Didactic hymns, prayers and religious poetry are those which employ the stylistic and/or formal conventions of praise and prayer, but whose primary purpose was to convey a lesson, idea, or theological truth to a human audience” (5).

In this comprehensive work, the author claims through a study of form, content and strategies of a hymn, insight can be gleaned about issues facing the communities for which these texts were composed (2). Gordley also asserts that by comparing didactic hymns from a variety of cultural traditions, a greater appreciation and understanding of how ancient instructional strategies functioned can be achieved (2). A final goal of the author is to explore the types of lessons and instructions conveyed through hymnody (8).

Gordley’s book consists of eleven chapters, a bibliography, an index of references and an index of modern authors and subjects. Chapter one is critical as it conveys the methods Gordley utilizes to identify hymns intended to have a teaching function (9). The features, which may indicate that a hymn had a didactic purpose, are first, a poet’s invitation to his audience to learn from him, (such as Psalm 78:1, which opens with “Give ear, my people, to my instruction …”). A second indicator of a teaching purpose is the presence of prominent instructional language in the hymn.

When these explicit indicators are absent, Gordley notes other characteristics in the hymn that can point to a text with a didactic purpose. They are 1) the direct address of the audience by the author, 2) the presence of direct claims about the deity being praised and/or explicit claims about the community offering the praise, 3) the recounting of an event, in the form of a narrative, from the mythic past or recent past (10). Gordley also claims psalms or hymns that are embedded in a narrative or an epistolary text of the Bible or in other early Jewish and Christian literature could have had an instructional function in its new context (11). Gordley’s methodology leans on reader-response criticism, discourse analysis, performance criticism and the analysis of how communities have remembered themes over time (15-20).

Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., Preaching and Teaching from the Old Testament: A Guide for the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 222 pages, ISBN 9780801026102.

How do you preach a lament? A proverb? A law? Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., former president of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary, answers these questions and more in this book. His credentials for this assignment include his reputation as a prolific writer and as an Old Testament evangelical scholar.

In this volume on how to preach and teach from the Old Testament, the author divides the subject into two parts. First, he addresses the need, then the means. In so doing, Kaiser builds on the foundation of his earlier book, Toward an Exegetical Theology, that explains how to develop and interpret principles from the Old Testament text. In this newer book, he devotes a chapter to each of the major genres (i.e., types of literature) found in the Old Testament. He also furnishes a sermon in every case as well to provide an example of how that particular genre should be preached. It is, therefore, basically a hermeneutics book that specifically focuses on the following genres of the Old Testament: narrative, wisdom, prophets, laments, torah, praise, and apocalyptic.

The author contends that every biblical text has only one possible meaning, i.e. the meaning the original author intended. In order to arrive at this one meaning, the reader must understand how to interpret the various genres found in the Old Treatment. Otherwise, an ill-informed preacher might attempt to interpret Old Testament praises in the same manner as Old Testament proverbs.

The one main concern of this reviewer has is the unfortunate fact that the author does not address the narrative style of sermons (whether told in the first or third person) promoted by many homileticians today. On a less serious note, the author tends to repeat himself from chapter to chapter (e.g., compare p. 31 with p. 41). Some paragraphs even seem out of order (see pp. 57-8). And, at certain times, the explanation of how to interpret a particular genre seems too brief. A few more examples would also have been helpful in order to further see how his analysis applies to other portions of Scripture within the same literally genre.

The emergence of modern Pentecostalism has been characterized in part by its “restorationist impulse,”¹ an impulse which has led many of its adherents to seek the restoration of the attributes of the early New Testament Church. Among these attributes are the gifts of the Holy Spirit described in Ephesians 4, Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12. These gifts are significant to Pentecostals not for their own sake but for their mission as “a people called and empowered (Acts 1:8) to be fellow workers with Christ in His redemptive mission.”²

Before going further, it is important for me to share that I also believe in the operation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the Church today. But too often the ministry of the Holy Spirit is neglected in favor of an all-out-pursuit of personal “miraculous” experiences. I cannot dispute the importance of individual experiences with God in the life of the believer; indeed, such experiences have resulted in the salvation of many, and the explosive growth for Pentecostalism globally. But the primary role of the Holy Spirit is to bear witness to the Word of God, as Christ stated: “the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about me” (Jn 15:26).

Presently, the experiential nature of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements has contributed to their engagement of a dangerous perspective which accords practically the same weight to spiritual or miraculous experiences as to the Word of God. This paper will discuss the implications of this experiential paradigm for current Pentecostal praxis with respect to revivals, evangelistic crusades and other missiological functions.

The Experiential Paradigm

It is the work of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 that has most profoundly influenced the development of modern Pentecostalism. The baptism in the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, or charismata, are central to Pentecostal self-identity and operate as major differentiators between Pentecostal and Charismatic groups and the rest of Christendom. An unintended side effect of this belief in spiritual gifts and American cultural influences is the emergence of a more experiential Christianity,³ which I will refer to as the “experiential paradigm.” This paradigm is problematic for two major reasons. First, it fractures the relationship between the Word of God and the Spirit of God, by attempting to evaluate spiritual matters independently of the Word. Secondly, it allows personal spiritual experience to become quasi-authoritative, effectively rendering it equal to the Word of God.

Walker notes that large groups often experience behavioral phenomena which may “feel” like the work of the Holy Spirit, as when musicians and actors describe “the energy from the crowd” at a concert or other large-scale event. Another phenomena is that large crowds often draw performers and other entertainers, which could lead to spiritual counterfeits or excesses. An example of this might be the person who desires to become an actor but suddenly feels “called” to ministry because they feel certain that God has “destined them for the spotlight.” Closely related to this is the “star” system of Charismatic leadership in which individuals with considerable personal charisma are afforded undue deference by Christian believers on the basis of personality—a sort of spiritual popularity contest, if you will. Walker’s final phenomena is the lack of awe that these miraculous events seem to inspire toward God. Not only do these miracles generally not result in the glorification of God, they often serve to diminish the public perception of God to those who do not already know Him.