PRINCIPLES OF BIBLE STUDY - 4

4.   The grammar of holy scripture.

Language is communication, and God is in the business of communicating with the world, and so the normal rules of grammar apply.   The Holy Spirit uses a number linguistic tools to highlight His message.  The following can be applied across the entire book.

• REPETITION:   Whether in a section or a chapter or a book, look for the repetition of words or phrases.  This is God speaking and He does not waste words, so repetitions are meaningful.   Examples are;  Genesis 1  "And God said" repeated 10 times, a precursor to the 10 words of the Decalogue prescribing the moral code.   In Leviticus the phrase  "The Lord spake" occurs 36 times thus indicating that number of separate revelations.   In Jeremiah we read throughout the book the phrase "Rising up early and sending them" 11 times, thus reminding a backsliding people that they had been well warned.   In Ezekiel the people who disregarded God's warnings are now in exile.   The repeated phrase is "that they may know that I am the Lord" (17 times).   In the letter to Romans various forms of the word "righteousness" are used more than 60 times.   The Roman epistle is all about how human beings can be right with God.   In the letter to Philippians the words "mind", "think," "likeminded," occur 12 times.   The epistle therefore is the psychology of Christianity .   Related to that is the word "joy" which occurs 18 times and is the natural outcome of proper spiritual thinking.   In the letter to Colossians the main idea is found in the words  "fullness," "full" and "filled" which occur 8 times.   This in an epistle where  the false teachers were claiming that Christ was only part of the truth.
• PREPOSITIONS.     These are most important and wrong use of them can altar the meaning of the words.   The following chart visually helps

Students of the word should digest this chart because the prepositions give directions and scope to the thought that is being transmitted.