Steve Stanley’s Reviews > How to Understand and Apply the Old Testament: Twelve Steps from Exegesis to Theology > Status Update

Paul stressed that ‘the whole law is fulfilled in the word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”’ (Gal 5:14). Significantly, not just a ‘moral’ subset of the law but all the law—every commandment—is fulfilled in the call to love [Matt 7:12; 22:37-40; Rom 13:8-10] . . . In both the old and new covenants, love is what God’s people are to do. All other commandments simply clarify how to do it.

2. Usage in context determines meaning.
a. Context is king.
The historical and literary context is always determinative for meaning, most significantly when several different meanings exist for a given word. . . . Interpreters are not at liberty to choose whichever meanings they want for a given word but must determine what the author intended. (pp. 274-75)

b. Similar roots do not necessarily have similar meanings.
Verbs and nouns that share the same root do not always share the same semantic meaning.

Words often have a range of meanings. If I say ‘trunk,’ many different images may come to mind . . . Because word meanings can overlap, in any given context an author could choose different words to communicate the same reality.

If you can faithfully exposit the original text using the translation of choice [i.e., of your listeners], then do that, for it will bolster your hearers’ faith in their Bibles, teaching them that they don’t have to be scholars to rightly read God’s Word. If you need to diverge from the common translation, however, see if you can find another one that supports your rendering. (pp. 165-166).