Knowing the Scriptures: Rules and Methods of Bible Study

This saying of the Psalmist may primarily refer to some specific word of God, some promise, like that recorded about the future of David’s own house (2 Samuel viiiii, 19); but the larger truth it contains and conveys is capable of so much wider scope and broader application that it may well be said to include the whole body of Holy Scripture.

Calvin translates: “Thou hast magnified Thy name, above all things, by Thy Word;” and Luther, ‘’Thou hast made Thy Name glorious, above all, through Thy Word.” But, with Hengstenberg, the majority of the best Bible students favor substantially the common rendering: “Above all Thy Name, thou hast made glorious Thy Word” — meaning that, beyond all works of Creation and Providence, or other means whereby God has made Himself known, He has exalted His written Word.

To those to whom it is addressed, it has power to convict and convert, sanctify and edify; but it has even a higher power and province: it is the mirror of its Author; meant, first of all, to reveal, ufiVeil, magnify and glorify Him from whom it originally went forth.

This high tribute found expression when as yet there was only the Written Word. Without doubt the Living Word is a fuller unveiling of God’s inmost self. In the incarnation, “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among men,” as a living Presence. In the Person of His Son, the Logos, the Word Incarnate, the Father made Himself known as never before, with new clearness and fulness of revelation.

Yet it still remains true that, in the Inspired Scriptures, He has glorified His own Name, or nature: revealing His mind, heart, will — His whole character — and, especially, His gracious attitude toward sinners; and, in such manner and measure, as to make all other revelations of Himself in the creation of the material universe and the control of human history comparatively dim and indistinct, onl,y as the first faint flushes of the dawn in comparison with the fuller light of day.

One of the main uses of the Word of God is to supply us with a divine standard of both doctrine and duty. In his travels in the Dark Continent, Dr. Livingstone found his native guides either so ignorant or so determined to deceive and mislead, that he could do better without them than with them; and so he constantly referred to his own compass and sextant to determine direction and location. What would he have done if, by any accident, or defect in his instruments, he had found even these scientific guides utterly untrustworthy?

For God’s written Word no substitute has ever been found. Whereas other ancient civilized nations, such as Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Rome, Greece, have left monuments in law and letters, mechanic arts and fine arts, Judea, as Dr. Jamieson remarks, V^hile leaving us no legacy of secular achievements, rose immeasurably above all other lands in the possession and transmission of the Living Oracles of God. In fact, the Hebrews were rather warned against some things in which other nations prided themselves. The fine arts, for instance, were so often the handmaids of polytheism and the promoters of idolatry, finding their highest sphere in glorifying image-worship, that Jehovah required His people to be, in this as in many other respects, separate from the nations (Exodus xx:25. Isaiah ii:16).

In every department of life the need for some exact and unvarying standard, as in weights and measures, time, etc., compels resort to the works of God for guidance, for here alone are found perfect forms and changeless models. Man’s best watches and chronometers have to be corrected by nature’s horologium — God’s sidereal clock, which has not varied the one-thousandth part of a second, since He appointed sun, moon and stars for times and seasons. And, so, from all human oracles, however self-confident, we turn at last to the Inspired Word, where instead of ambiguous and untrustworthy utterances we find teachings distinct and definite, authoritative and infallible.

One very conspicuous feature of the Word of God is its Self -Interpreting power. In the mastery of human books help is needful from large libraries and patient research in the realms of science and philosophy. Grammars, and glossaries, histories and biographies, copious lexicons and learned encyclopedias, often become necessary to furnish the mere sidelights to interpret the terms and illumine the sense of human literature. But, in studying this Divine Book, confessedly the crown of all literature, other writings, though often helpful, are never indispensable. To a remarkable degree, God’s Word explains and interprets its own contents, is its own grammar and lexicon, library and encyclopedia. Within itself may be found a philosophy which interprets its history, and a history which illustrates its philosophy. Even what in it is most obscure and mysterious is not dependent upon outside helps for its completer unlocking or unveiling. The humblest reader, if shut up by circumstances to this one Book, as was Bunyan, almost literally, in Bedford jail, might, without any other guide than the Bible itself, by careful, prayerful searching, come to know the Word; exploring its contents till he became another Apollos, mighty in the scriptures. This statement has been often verified by fact, as in the experience of believers, actually imprisoned for Christ’s sake but carr3’ing their Bibles with them as companions in solitude, and coming forth enriched in the knowledge of God.

The highest secret of Bible study, however, is that teachable spirit which is inseparable from obedience. Spiritual vision, like the physical, is binocular: it depends on both reason and conscience. If the intellectual faculties are beclouded, the moral sense is apt to err in its decisions; and, if the conscience be seared, the reason is blinded. Our Lord says, “If any man will do His will he shall know of the doctrine” (John vii liy); in other words obedience is the organ of spiritual revelation. Insight into the scriptures is never independent of the obedient frame, but is conditioned upon actual conformity to their precepts and sympathy with their- spirit. True biblical learning is not so m.uch m.ental as experimental. There are professed teachers and preachers who no m.ore grasp the truth they nominally hold than does the sparrow grasp the message that passes through the telegraph wire on which it perches — as Norman McLeod quaintly put it.

It is sometimes worse than vain to read, or even to search the scriptures, with mere intellect, as though they were merely literary productions to be examined and understood with no higher faculties than those which are associated with an unsanctified scholarship. Many a man who has approached the Word of God without prayer for God’s help, without reverent attitude, or any ultimate end beyond a critical, intellectual analysis, has been left to grope his way blindly while persuading himself that he had even exceptional insight. On the other hand, many a humble and uneducated believer has had his eyes unveiled to behold wondrous things out of God’s law (Psalms cxix:18), and become an expert in its ‘’mysteries.”

Critical study Is not to be discouraged; it is not only proper but helpful in its proper sphere, when conducted with a proper spirit. But there is a sort of analysis that is destructive; like the vivisection that invades the domain of life, in cutting in pieces the organic body of truth, it sacrifices vitality, and leaves only dead, disconnected fragments of what was one livinp- orcanism. The Bible is such a living organism. Its various parts are members of a common body; they have a vital connection and relation, and miust be examined, not in isolation and separation, but in union as integral parts of a great whole. Then criticism, instead of being arrogant and destructive, will be reverent and constructive.

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