The invention discloses a method for exploiting oil shale, which comprises the following steps: forming gas inlet pipelines and a gas outlet pipeline in the oil shale; forming a gasifying tunnel for communicating the gas inlet pipelines with the gas outlet pipeline in the oil shale; using different gas inlet pipelines to respectively feed combustible gas and oxygen into a well; under an aerobic condition, igniting the combustible gas fed into the well at a lower pipe orifice for conveying the combustible gas, thereby heating the oil shale; recycling kerogen from the oil shale through the gas outlet pipeline; and forming an oil gas mixing product after thermally decomposing the kerogen. A simple, cheap and practical technology is used for exploiting an oil shale ore bed and the environment is protected. The method provided by the invention is simple in process and low in energy consumption. The kerogen in the oil shale can be heated, thereby being capable of more economically and reasonably exploiting the oil shale ore bed and obtaining the oil gas product.