Weekly outline
15 October - 21 October
This week, we will be studying how to analyze the context of a biblical passage. Terry writes:
But the immediate context, no less than the writer’s own definitions, generally serves to exhibit any peculiar usage of words. Thus, πνεῦμα, wind, spirit, is used in the New Testament to denote the wind (John 3:8), the vital breath (Rev. 11:11), the natural disposition or temper of mind (Luke 9:55; Gal. 6:1), the life principle or immortal nature of man (John 6:63), the perfected spirit of a saint in the heavenly life (Heb. 12:23), the unclean spirits of demons (Matt. 10:1; Luke 4:36), and the Holy Spirit of God (John 4:24; Matt. 28:19; Rom. 8:9–11). It needs but a simple attention to the context, in any of these passages, to determine the particular sense in which the word is used. In John 3:8, we note the two different meanings of πνεῦμα in one and the same verse. “The wind (τὸ πνεῦμα) blows where it will, and the sound of it thou hearest; but thou knowest not whence it comes and whither it goes; so is every one who is born of the Spirit” (ἐκ τοῦ πνεύματος). Bengel holds, indeed, that we should here render πνεῦμα in both instances by spirit, and he urges that the divine Spirit, and not the wind, has a will and a voice. ...