When as a child I asked my father the meaning of a particular word, he used to tell me to look it up in a dictionary. "That way," he would say, "you will get the exact explanation of it." As the practice of regular reference to a dictionary was followed, I discovered that there is nearly always more to the meaning of a word than appears on the surface.
Where the Bible is concerned, it is all too easy to accept many Scriptural terms merely at their face value. But if we fail to grasp the spiritual significance of the Scriptures, our understanding of them tends to be vague and limited, if not downright erroneous.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy is an explication of the spiritual truth revealed in the Bible. The textbook of Christian Science explains the nature of God's being and the spiritual reality of His infinite creation, man and the universe. Recognizing the need to provide a clear interpretation of key Biblical words and phrases, Mrs. Eddy included in the textbook a chapter entitled "Glossary." The introductory paragraph to this chapter reads: "In Christian Science we learn that the substitution of the spiritual for the material definition of a Scriptural word often elucidates the meaning of the inspired writer. On this account this chapter is added. It contains the metaphysical interpretation of Bible terms, giving their spiritual sense, which is also their original meaning."Science and Health, p. 579.
