Toward an Exegetical Theology has been used for nearly twenty years as a standard textbook in evangelical colleges and seminaries. A paperback edition of this important volume is now available. According to Walter Kaiser, a gap exists in the academic preparation of ministers. It is the gap between the study of the biblical text (most frequently in the original languages) and the actual delivery of messages to God’s people. Very few centers of biblical and homiletical training have ever taken the time or effort to show the student how one moves from analyzing the text to constructing a sermon that reflects and is dependent on that analysis.
The author intends to bridge this gap with Toward an Exegetical Theology. He proposes a syntactical-theological method of exegesis consisting of the following steps: (1) contextual analysis, (2) syntactical analysis, (3) verbal analysis, (4) theological analysis, and (5) homiletical analysis. Kaiser finds no fault with the time-honored grammatical-historical method except that it failed to go far enough in describing the main job of exegesis.
In the syntactical-theological method the accent falls on syntactical analysis of the text and on biblical theology. Syntactical analysis systematically operates from three basic building blocks: (1) the concept, (2) the proposition, and (3) the paragraph. It is the precise way in which these three units are organized and arranged that provides the exegete all the data necessary to begin the journey of moving from the text to the destination of using that text in a teaching and preaching situation. Theological analysis involves the use of biblical theology in a distinctive diachronic pattern where the accumulating theology is studied and grouped according to each period in which it occurs. Thus the exegete brings to bear on the text an informing theology, or an analogy of antecedent Scripture.