two plus two equals four. But very often the Greek reads literally `to believe into a person'. The Lord Jesus said:

`He that believeth in Me hath everlasting life', but the original reads: `... he that believeth into Me ...'. The

preposition `into' conveys the thought of close association with Christ and to believe into Him means to completely

commit oneself to Him and to rely absolutely on Him for everything, a very personal and intimate relationship, and a

very different thing from believing as a fact that Jesus Christ was an historic personage. One can believe the latter

without any spiritual benefit whatsoever. The little word `into' makes all the difference. Many claim to be believers

who have never really believed `into' Christ and this is the only belief or faith that the New Testament recognises,

and it is the only faith that saves.

Observing grammatical sense will also take note of idioms, that is, terms of phrase peculiar to a language. For

instance `the breaking of bread' is a Jewish idiom for eating a meal. The flat round Jewish loaves were not cut, but

broken before they could be eaten, hence the expression came to mean the partaking of any meal. To restrict it to

the `Lord's Supper', as some do, is erroneous and fails to recognise this idiom. When the Lord Jesus fed the four

thousand He broke bread (Mark 8:6-9), and the disciples distributed it; so also after His resurrection (Luke 24:30)

He broke bread and joined in a meal with the eleven. In neither case was He celebrating what afterwards was

known as the Lord's Supper. Likewise in Acts 2:44-46, the apostles' doctrine included having all things common or

shared, and this included their possessions, goods and meals:

`And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their

meat (food) with gladness and singleness of heart'.

Here `breaking bread' is explained as `eating their food' and does not refer to taking communion in the modern

sense of the phrase; those who insist on this fail to recognise a common Jewish idiom and read into the passage what

is not there.

The Bible is not a collection of verses put together without any relation to one another. Something goes before

every verse and something follows it. If we recognise the flow of thought leading to a passage and away from it, we

can know with some certainty the flow thought within it. This should be obvious, but it is surprising how often the

obvious is missed in Biblical interpretation. Had this principle been put into practice consistently, many false

doctrines and sects could never have arisen. One writer puts it this way:

`To interpret without regard to the context is to interpret at random; to interpret contrary to the context is to teach

falsehood for truth' (Companion to the Bible. Barrows).

It is always dangerous to separate a verse from its context. The practice of putting texts on calendars and making

wall texts, and collecting favourite texts together, though often attractive, can be misleading, for the all-important

context is missing.

There is scarcely a subject of more importance to the earnest seeker after truth than that of figures of speech.

Figures of speech wrongly handled, or a failure to recognise them in the Scriptures can lead to doctrinal aberrations

and error. They have been used in speech and writing from time immemorial. Writing or speech without figures

would be very prosaic and dull. Figurative language is used to make these vivid and interesting. They are a

departure from the fixed laws of grammar to arrest attention and emphasize, being true to feeling, if not to fact. It is

most important to note that behind them is always literality. If this was not so, we could never understand them. If

someone states `the ground is dry', this is a plain statement of fact. If, however, he says `the ground is thirsty', a

figure of speech is employed, because it is impossible actually for the inert ground to experience feeling. But how

much more arresting is the latter statement! There are over two hundred figures of speech. The Greeks and Romans

reduced them to an exact science. If anyone asks how they can be recognised, two facts must be borne in mind:

(1) When rules of grammar are departed from.

(2) When a statement is contrary to known fact, or the revealed truth of the Scriptures.