I recently watched a famous pastor exegete an Old Testament passage. I hollered to Patrick (my theologically astute hubby) to watch it with me because I started feeling ill at ease about the pastor’s words.

We watched, then cringed, then talked.

The gist of the sermon had nothing to do with the passage. Truly. Instead of exploring the passage, understanding the context and history, and balancing it with the wholeness of Scripture, the speaker had an idea he wanted to convey, then shrunk-fit the passage onto his message. He deified his principle over the context of Scripture.

The power of the passage was that God was the hero, the powerful One who ordered the cosmos and had ultimate control over everything. But the pastor emaciated the power and made the passage to be about us. Our power. Our coolness. Our comfort.

This was not biblical exegesis.

What he did was egogesis.

Egogesis is coming to the Scripture with a preconceived idea, then retrofitting a yanked-out-of-context Scripture to it, where the message is about our comfort and ease and power.

I can’t tell you how many times I see this, particularly with Christian speakers. Instead of submerging ourselves in the Bible and exegeting meaning and message from its roots, we pick and choose nice verses to fit our all-is-well, happy-clappy message. In doing so, we’re not representing Jesus or His Word correctly.

James 3:1 hauntingly says,

“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”

I fear we take lightly our responsibility to handle the Word of God. (Click to tweet). We must be careful. We must realize that lives are at stake when we share with others. Our theology must mean something, and our words must resonate with Jesus, make Him smile. The Bible is to respected, to be honored in context, to be filtered through God’s bigness and His renown, not through our egos and our desire for fame.

In light of egogesis, what can you do?

• For listeners: Be discerning when you hear a message. Ask questions. Search the context. Be a Berean.
• For speakers: Get on your knees right now and ask God to help you move from egogesis to exegesis. Make a determination to be true to the Scriptures.
• For readers: Don’t skip over the verses that mess with you. Read them too.
• For everyone: Be alert to pride, that determination to make us the center of God’s word, rather than God as centric.

What do you think? Have you ever encountered a speaker who tacked on a Scripture to fit a pet message? How has this post challenged you? Made you mad?

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If this post resonated, would you be willing to tweet?

When we retrofit Scripture for our ease, we’re guilty of egogesis. (Click to tweet).

(This post originally appeared on Deeper Story)