Here in one comprehensive volume Grant Osborne provides seminary students and working pastors with an overview of the rudiments of all theological study. Beginning with the first steps in biblical exegesis, he thoroughly and thoughtfully discusses the movement from the study of Old and New Testament texts to the development of biblical and systematic theologies and, finally, to the preparation of sound, biblical sermons. Osborne contends that hermeneutics is fundamentally a spiral from text to context, from the original meaning of texts to their significance for the church today. His work divides into three major sections: (1) general hermeneutics, covering context, grammar, syntax and backgrounds; (2) genre analysis, covering specific guidelines for the interpretation of various types of biblical literature; and (3) applied hermeneutics, covering biblical, systematic, contextual and homiletic theology.