In the beginning God created
the heaven and the earth.
And God said,
Let there be light.
The law of first mention is a study rule. The first time a word or idea appears in Scripture often carries the sense it keeps. Light is first spoken by God, and it is good. The serpent is first the one who questions the word. Blood is first in the covering God made. The rule is a help, not a law of the text. Later passages can widen a word. The first mention is a place to start, not a place to stop. It belongs with hermeneutics. The meaning is still drawn from the passage, in its context, and from the whole.
- The first use of a word often sets its sense.
- It is a help, not a law that later verses cannot widen.
- Start there. Do not stop there.
The first word often sets the sense.
Later verses can widen it.
Start there. Do not stop there.
- The law of first mention is a study rule.
- The first use of a word often carries its basic sense.
- Light, the serpent, and blood are common examples.
- Later Scripture can widen the word.
- It is a place to start, not a place to stop.
- Context and the whole still govern.
- The Rule – First use sets the sense.
- The Help – A place to start.
- The Limit – Later verses can widen it.
- The Examples – Light, the serpent, blood.
- The Pair – Hermeneutics.
- The Charge – Read the passage, and the whole.
- Genesis 1:1-3 – “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth… And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.”
- Genesis 3:1 – “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field… Yea, hath God said?”
- Genesis 3:21 – “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”
- 2 Timothy 3:16 – “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine.”
- Isaiah 28:10 – “For precept must be upon precept… line upon line.”
- Luke 24:27 – “Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”
- John 5:39 – “Search the scriptures.”
- 2 Peter 1:20 – “No prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.”
- Acts 17:11 – “They received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”
- Psalm 119:130 – “The entrance of thy words giveth light.”
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And God said, Let there be light.
Yea, hath God said?
The law of first mention says the first use often sets the sense. It is a place to start. Later verses can widen the word. Context still governs.
Entry compiled for the JESUSaves.com Bible Glossary. Optimized for wiki.js Visual Editor.