Sometimes the most obvious things are farthest from us, as any man that ever in nervous haste has searched and hunted all over a room to find an article that lay right under his nose can testify. I believe it was Bishop Butler who with charming simplicity and excellent good sense laid down this rule of interpretation: "The meaning of a book is the meaning of its author." This is like Columbus' egg--a child might have thought of that. And yet learned and able men have often left this simple [156] consideration quite out of view--have torn passages from their context for the mere sound of their words; have forced meanings into words which the author not only did not intend, but which would have been repugnant to him, and ideas which were at variance with all his teaching, which procedure is manifestly unfair. The Bible has suffered such treatment more than all other books. The true meaning of a statement must be judged not only from its own words, but from the context and the scope and trend of the whole treatise. On the other hand, we must guard against getting an unwarranted notion of what the author's object or trend is, and torturing his statements into agreement with that. There is no other safeguard in Bible interpretation half so good as a clear eye, a true heart, and a fearless, honest desire to find and do God's will.

[TAG 156-157]