Preachers should always pay close attention to the biblical text.  That is a given.  But there is a danger of paying such close attention to the text of Scripture that we see more in it than is actually there.  I came across an example of this in a little book of Christmas Sermons preached by D.M. Lloyd-Jones.  Lloyd-Jones is speaking about the opening words of Mary’s ‘Magnificat’ (Luke 1:46-47)

The preacher said,

‘First, let us notice the depth of feeling with which she spoke, which is conveyed in these words.  She said: “My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.”  Now she drew a distinction between her soul and her spirit.  This is a very interesting theological point…I think we are reminded here and elsewhere in Scripture that whether the soul and spirit are essentially one or not, there is a distinction between them.  The soul in general refers to the rational powers.  When the expression soul is used in this way in contra-distinction to spirit, it is meant to refer to the intellect, to the feelings, to the way in which we correspond with one another and have fellowship and relationship with one another.  The soul is essentially the rational part of man.

‘Then the spirit represents the perception.  There is a difference between ability and understanding.  There is a difference between knowledge and perception.  The spirit is a higher faculty, a higher aspect of this possession which was all have.  It includes the capacity for worship.  The soul, in other words, is that which links us to all that round and about us; to man and to animals, to history and to the world and all we can see…

‘So Mary uses two expressions, “my soul” and “my spirit”, by which she means that she is moved in the very depth and centre of her being…’

…and so on.  Mary speaks of her ‘soul’ and her ‘spirit’, and, says the preacher, we are meant to distinguish between the two.

Now, there’s nothing heretical here.  In fact, it’s quite helpful.  But is this the meaning of the text, or even a reasonable inference from it?  I don’t think so.  I think it’s reading something into the text.

The key, perhaps, is in Lloyd-Jones’ use of the word ‘contradistinction’.  He wants to pay such close attention to the text that he needs the two things (‘soul’ and ‘spirit’) to mean slightly different things.  But, surely, on this occasion he has paid such close attention to the detail that he has missed the point.  And the point is that Mary’s song is cast in the form of a piece of Hebrew poetry, in which the two terms are clearly meant to be synonymous.

As Leon Morris says in his commentary on this passage,

‘We should not make a difference between soul and spirit, the change being due to the requirements of poetic parallelism.’

And William Hendriksen concurs:

‘In the present case it would be wrong to posit any clear distinction between psyuche and pneuma.’