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Definition of 'Eisegesis'

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The Random House Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary defines ‘eisegesis’ as: an interpretation, esp. of Scripture, that expresses the interpreter’s own ideas, bias, or the like, rather than the meaning of the text.

Thus, when someone reads something into Scripture—this would be an example of eisegesis. For instance, nowhere does the Bible ever speak of billions of years. In Genesis 1, the word day (yôm) in context, as used for the six days of creation (with a number and the phrase evening and morning), means these days are ordinary approximately 24-hour periods—ordinary days.

However, probably the majority of church leaders insist these days could represent billions of years—this is ‘eisegesis’, as the billions of years is a belief from outside of Scripture that is read into Scripture (resulting in the clear words of Scripture being reinterpreted on the basis of these outside ideas).

Sadly, this is the ‘virus’ that infects much of the church. Church leaders and thus church members have, by and large, developed a way of thinking that accepts many aspects of what the ‘world’ teaches concerning billions of years, evolution etc., and that reads these ideas into God’s Word.

The ‘world’ then views the church as not believing God’s Word as written, but as accepting the ‘world’s’ theories as truth and reinterpreting God’s Word to fit. Thus, the ‘world’ does not really have a respect for the Bible and generally does not listen to the message of the Gospel that is preached from this book.

Many church members (and particularly their children and subsequent generations) recognize that if the Bible has to be reinterpreted on the basis of the ‘world’s’ teachings, then the Bible is not absolute truth. Whey they are taught to use eisegesis in Genesis, they begin to consistently apply this same interpretation method to the rest of the Bible. Ultimately they stop taking the Bible seriously, and within a generation or two people begin to reject the Christian faith and stop attending church. Thus we see the ‘death’ of many church members.

However, there is a powerful solution to this situation that can result in saving faith for many, and restoration of confidence for God’s people in God’s Word.