The question may naturally occur to the reader:  Within what limits is the context to be consulted?  The answer must be, that no definite limits can be prescribed.  The entire web of discourse must be carefully studied, including the more remote as well as the nearer context; for the inspired writers do not, as a general rule, proceed according to formal divisions and subdivisions.  The train of argument is often interrupted by parenthetical remarks, particularly in the writings of the apostle Paul, or it is resumed in an informal way after extended digressions.  The true connection of thought, then, is to be gathered not so much from our modern notions of what logical accuracy would require, as from the repeated and careful perusal of the writing in question.  In this way alone can we place ourselves in the author’s position, and look at the subject under discussion from his point of view; that is to say, in this way alone can we enter into his modes of thinking and reasoning, and thus qualify ourselves to be the expounders of them to others.

In some cases no context exists, and none is to be sought.  In a large part of the book of Proverbs, for example, each separate aphorism shines by its own light.  If it have any connection with what precedes or follows, it is only casual or superficial.  In some books, again, like that of Ecclesiastes, the transitions are rapid, and often difficult to explain.  Here we should be careful not to force upon the author a logical connection of which he never thought.  Systematic arrangement is good in its place; but the Holy Spirit did not think it needful to secure it in the case of all who spake as he moved them.

Some religious teachers are fond of employing scriptural texts simply as mottoes, with little or no regard to their true connection.  Thus they too often adapt them to their use by imparting to them a factitious sense foreign to their proper scope and meaning.  The seeming gain in all such cases is more than counterbalanced by the loss and danger that attend the practice.  It encourages the habit of interpreting Scripture in an arbitrary and fanciful way, and thus furnishes the teachers of error with their most effective weapon.  The practice cannot be defended on any plea of necessity.  The plain words of Scripture, legitimately interpreted according to their proper scope and context, contain a fulness and comprehensiveness of meaning sufficient for the wants of all men in all circumstances.  That piety alone is robust and healthful which is fed, not by the fancies and speculations of the preacher who practically puts his own genius above the word of God, but by the pure doctrines and precepts of the Bible, unfolded in their true connection and meaning.