any isolated phrase you choose, without
reference to the rest of the Book, there is no nonsense you cannot make
out of the Bible. You would not be allowed to do that sort of thing in a
Court of Law. When a document is produced in evidence, the meaning of
the words used in it are very carefully construed, not only in
reference to the particular clause in which they occur, but also with
reference to the intention of the document as a whole, and to the
circumstances under which they were written. The same word may mean very
different things in different connections; for instance I remember two
reported cases in one of which the word "Spanish" meant a certain sort
of leather, and in the other a kind of material used in brewing; and in
like manner particular texts are to be interpreted in accordance with
the gist of the Bible as a whole.

This is just the mistake the Jews made, of building up theories on
particular texts, and which Jesus corrected when he said: "Search the
Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and these are
they which testify of me" (John v, 39), or, as the Revised Version puts
it: "Ye search the Scriptures because ye think that in them ye have
eternal life; and these are they which bear witness of me," which
appears to be the better rendering. The words "ye think" is the key to
the whole passage. He says in effect: "You fancy that eternal life is to
be found in the book. It is not to be found in the book, but in what the
book tells you about, and here I am as a living example of it." It is
just the same with everything else. No book can do more than tell you
about a thing; it cannot produce it. You may study the cookery book from
morning till night, but that will not give you your dinner.

What Jesus meant was, that we should read the Scriptures in the same way
we should read any other book of practical instruction. First think what
it is all about; then look at the nature of the general principles
involved, and then see what instruction the book gives you for their
practical application. _Then go and do it_. And remember also a further
difference between reading about a thing and doing it. A book is for
everybody, and can therefore, only give general instruction; but when
you come to do the thing you will always find it works with some
personal modifications,--not departures from the general principles you
have read about, but specializations of them--and in this way you will
learn much