How to Write an Exegesis Paper with Library Resources: 5. Provide an Application of the Passage

While it may depend upon your professor, it is common to conclude an exegesis with an application. You have researched the background and meaning of your text. Now you need to answer one final question, "So what?"

This is the place to answer the "so what?" question. Why does it matter what this passage means? Up to this point, your paper has focused on "what this passage meant in its original context for its original audience." Now you need to tell a modern audience in some context (e.g, traditional U.S. undergraduate students in southern California, Hispanic urban poor, or cultural elite in Washington, D.C.) what this passage means for your audience, what they are supposed to do about it.

For those committed to the Bible as Scripture, it is not usually enough to be able to say what it meant in its original context; they want to know what to do with it now. You may not be preaching from your passage in the near future but you can still suggest applications you might make of the passage.

There are many ways to derive an application from a passage. Your passage may contain instructions or commands, such as Romans 12. In this case, the application is easy. You would talk about how to live out one or more of Paul's instructions, such as how you want the hypothetical audience to avoid being "conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Rom 12:2). If your passage is a narrative, you might take one verse that contains an instruction and talk about how to live that out now. Or, you might show how a theme of the passage can be carried out today. Our example passage shows Mary responding to Gabriel's announcement in humility, obedience, and faith, in contrast to the announcement to Zachariah earlier in the chapter. Or, since your research likely made it clear that for Mary to be pregnant would be a serious problem for her, you could talk about how to respond to God's call even when that requires self-sacrifice. (Mary probably spent the rest of her life under a cloud of suspicion regarding how she got pregnant.)

While you should never present the work of others as your own (plagiarism), if you are not coming up with ideas, one place to look that might help you formulate a way to apply the passage is the "Application" section of the appropriate volume of the NIV Application Commentary (Call number: BS491.2 .N58), which has as a subtitle "from Biblical Text...to Contemporary Life," which is exactly what you are seeking to do in this short section of your paper. If you wanted to look at the application section in the volume on Luke by Darrell Bock you would look up the commentary by the call number BS491.2 .N58 v.42.

The application of a biblical text to modern life is also a place where exegesis, theology, and praxis meet. So it could be appropriate to cite an appropriate quote from someone else who makes the point well that you wish to make, such as Dietrich Bonhöffer's book (Call number BT380 .B66 1995) The Cost of Discipleship or C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity (call number: BR123 .L484 2001). These are two examples of books that are often quoted in the application section of exegesis papers. You do not need to quote anyone but you may if that helps make your point.

This concludes the process for writing an exegesis paper. Once you have typed your paper, you should be sure to do spell-checking and proofreading. You need to proofread the paper as well as doing the spell-checking because the fact that there are no misspelled words does not mean that there are not any grammatical problems, such as missing words or incorrect words in your paper. You also need to be sure that you have documented your sources correctly. See Document Your Sources Correctly for more on how to do this.

This tutorial is brief. You may wish to consult these additional resources for entire books written on how to write an exegesis paper and for books to aid you in writing in theology more generally.