Scripture As a Whole

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 10
 
Some people read Scripture very much as others preach it. A few words are taken and are made the motto of a discourse which perhaps has no real connection with the scope of that passage-perhaps not with any other in the Bible. The thoughts may be true enough abstractedly, but what we want is a help to understand the Word of God as a whole, as well as the details. If you were to take a letter from a friend, and were merely to fasten upon a sentence or a part of one in the middle of it, and dislocate it from the rest, how could you understand it? And yet Scripture has infinitely larger scope and compass than anything that could be written on our part; and therefore there ought to be far stronger reasons for taking Scripture in its connections than the little effusions of our own mind. This is a great key to the mistakes which many estimable people make in the interpretation of Scripture. They may be men of faith too, but still it is difficult to rise above their ordinary habits.