“Exegesis exists because worship doesn’t” by Andy Naselli

“The only sentence that many people know from John Piper’s Let the Nations Be Glad is a great one: ‘Missions exists because worship doesn’t.’

That’s true for exegesis, too. Exegesis exists because worship doesn’t. New Testament exegesis exists because worship doesn’t.

Don’t miss the whole point of exegesis. It’s to know and worship God.

As D. A. Carson often says, ‘the aim of thoughtful Christians, after all, is not so much to become masters of Scripture, but to be mastered by it, both for God’s glory and his people’s good.‘

So I pray that this book will help you exegete the text in a way that spreads a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ.

Exegesis and theology are thrilling because they help you know and worship God. And only God satisfies.

You most glorify God when he most satisfies you. He’s better than sex and shopping and new iPhones and hot pizza and chocolate and money and power and anything else your heart may crave.

God reigns, saves, and satisfies through covenant for his glory in Christ. That is what you get to see from so many angles when you look at the Book.

And when you understand exegesis and theology better, the praise gets richer. So why wouldn’t you look at the Book?”

–Andrew David Naselli, How to Understand and Apply the New Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017), 333.