Sometimes a clear light is shed upon the design of a writer or speaker by a knowledge of historical circumstances; especially, of his own position and that of his opponents.  The twenty-third chapter of Matthew, in which the Saviour exposes the wickedness and doctrinal errors of the scribes and Pharisees, and denounces upon them the judgments of heaven, cannot be thoroughly understood without a knowledge of the system of Pharisaism, and the high position of authority and influence which the Pharisees held; sitting, as they did, in Moses’ seat, imposing upon the people their human traditions in place of God’s commandments, substituting a religion of outward forms for one of inward faith, love, and obedience, and thus taking away from the people the key of divine knowledge.  It was necessary that the Son of God, to whom the church belonged, who came to shed his blood for her redemption, and to establish her in the principles of truth and holiness, should expose with unsparing severity the wickedness and ignorance of these scribes and Pharisees, for the instruction of his people in all coming ages.  A knowledge of the same historical circumstances throws a strong light on the apostle’s aim in writing to the Romans and Galatians.  Had we fuller information respecting the false teachers referred to in the epistle to the Colossians and the pastoral epistles, we should understand more clearly the apostle’s arguments against them.

But the surest means of ascertaining a writer’s scope is the repeated and careful perusal of his words.  The biblical student should early form the habit of reading over with earnest attention a whole book at a sitting—­the epistle to the Romans, for example, or that to the Hebrews—­without pausing to investigate particular questions; his aim being to throw himself as fully as possible into the general current of thought, and to be carried forward by it to the writer’s final conclusions.  When he has thus made himself familiar with the scope of the work as a whole, he will be better prepared for the examination of the particular difficulties that offer themselves in the course of the author’s argument.

4.  The word context (Latin, contextus) signifies literally a weaving together; and is appropriately used, therefore, to denote the web of a writer’s discourse.  The scope is the end which a writer proposes to accomplish:  the context gives the form and manner of its accomplishment.  With reference to a given passage, the context has been loosely defined to be that which immediately precedes and follows.  More accurately, it is the series of statements, arguments, and illustrations connected with the passage whose meaning is sought, including all the various connections of thought.  The sober interpreter, then, must have constant reference to the context, as well for the signification of particular terms as for the general sense of the passage under consideration.  To interpret without regard to the context is to interpret at random; to interpret contrary to the context is to teach falsehood for truth.