How Properly to Study the Bible
* These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so,” — Acts 17:11.
My subject this morning is, Bow Properly to Study the Bible, I have eleven texts in which God Himself tells us very plainly and very fully how to study His Book.
Acts 17:11: These were more noble than those m Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Isa. 8:20, R. V.: the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them,” Ps. 1:1-3: Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the umrgodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruAt in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.** Ps. 119:11, E. v.: ‘’Thy word have I laid up in my heart, that I might not sin agavnst thee.”
1 Thess. 2:13: ‘’For this cause also thank we God mthout ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worheth also in you that believe,” John 7 :17, R. V.: ‘*// any man unlleth to do his will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from myself.” James 1:22: ‘’But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves,” 1 Cor. 2:14: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” Ps. 119:18, R. v.: “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” Matt. 11:25: ‘At that time Jesus answered anU said, I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.” Luke 24:27, R. V.: “And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the thi/ngs concerning himself.”
We saw last Sunday morning something of the importance and value of properly conducted Bible study. We saw that properly conducted Bible study was the one superlatively important study for young and old. We saw that Bible study towered above all other studies in importance and value. But we also saw that not all Bible study had this great importance. We saw that there was in our day much that was called “Bible study” that was not profitable at all; that indeed there was much that was called Bible study that was positively injurious. So our subject to-day is, How to Properly Study the Bible. I use the word properly” in its exact sense, of appropriately or fittingly. A proper study of the Bible is a study of the Bible that fits the book you are studying. A study of other books that would be perfectly proper for them would not be proper at all for the Bible; for the Bible is what no other book in the world is, the Bible is God’s Book and other books are men’s books. As Paul said in writing to the believers in Thessalonica, ‘For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye receive the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, hut as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” The proper study of the Bible will be the most highly profitable study of the Bible. The improper study of the Bible will be unprofitable study of the Bible. The great reason why the kind of study of the Bible that is done at the Chicago University and in the American Institute of Sacred Literature, and in many such places and institutions, is so unprofitable, why it is oftentimes so positively pernicious and injurious, is because it is so utterly improper, so utterly unbefitting the Book upon which it is bestowed. No really intelligent man would study a fairy tale in the same way he would study an accurate and entirely reliable history. And at Chicago University they study the histories of the Bible, which are the most exact and accurate and reliable histories ever written, as if they were fairy tales, or “folk lore.” No really intelligent or rational man or woman would study an omniscient God’s Word as they would study ever-erring man’s word. And the Bible is God’s Word and they study it at Chicago University as if it were the word of men who did not know quite as much as the very self-sufficient teachers at Chicago University know. And that is a very improper, yes, a very asinine, way to study the Book that is so clearly demonstrated by eighteen centuries of investigation and uniform experience to be the very Word of God.
How shall we study the Bible so as to study it properly and, therefore, study it for the highest profit? God Himself tells us and tells us in the Bible itself.
/. Study the Bible, the Bible Itself
1. In the first place. Study the Bible, the Bible Itself. The importance of that comes out in a very striking way in Acts 17:11; ‘’These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Notice please that it says they
“searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so,” They did not search the “Talmud” nor the ‘Targmus,” the commentaries on the scriptures, they went right to the scriptures themselves. They left the muddy streams of man’s interpretations of the scriptures and went to the pure, crystal spring, the scriptures themselves. That is the proper way to study the Bible: as it is God’s Word, and as it alone is God’s Word, we must each one of us go right to the Book itself for ourselves. It is as true to-day as it was when Jesus was here on earth, that men ‘make the Word of God of none effect through their tradition” (Mark 7:13), and the cardinal principle of Protestant spiritual liberty as distinguished from Roman Catholic bondage to a hierarchy, yes, the cardinal principle of New Testament Christianity, is for each child of God to go right to the pure fountain of God’s Word for himself. Jesus Christ says, * ‘Call no man your father upon earth: for one is your Father, even he who is in heaven,” and call no man master, “for one is your Master, even the Christ” (Matt. 23 :9, 10, R. V.); that is to say, recognize no absolute spiritual authority; stand in independent relations to God. I refuse in my study of the Book of God to bow to the absolute authority of any pope or bishop or priest, or of any theological professor. I refuse to bow to the Roman Catholic Pope Benedict or to the Protestant Pope, Shailer Mathews, or Pope Case, or Pope anybody else, and you on your part refuse to bow to Pope Torrey or to Pope anybody else. Get right to the Book itself, ^’to the law and to the testimony! if they speak not according to this word, surely there is no morning for them.” Do not study commentaries, lesson helps or other books about the Bible: study the Bibl’3 itself. Do not study about the Bible, study the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, and only the Bible is the Word of God. A young man who had just graduated from one of our great Eastern Universities came to Mr. Moody to consult with him as to his life work. He was a young man belonging to a very wealthy family. Mr. Moody said to him “Do not go into business. You have more money now than you know what to do with. Why do you not give your life to teaching the English Bible?” The young man replied “I do not know anything about the English Bible.” ‘Why,” Mr. Moody exclaimed, ^*I thought you
had just graduated at University, and that
they had a high-priced professor employed there for the one purpose of teaching the English Bible.” “Yes,” he said, ‘’that is true, and I have taken his classes. But, Mr. Moody, would you like to know how he teaches the English Bible? We have been studying for six months to find out who wrote the Pentateuch, and we know less about it than when we started.” That was not Bible study at all, it was study about the Bible. And a good deal of the so-called “study of the English Bible” to-day in universities and theological seminaries is of that character.
Every child of God should dig into the Bible itself entirely independently of all commentaries or all lesson helps. I love to go alone with God and His Book and see what He has to say to me, without any man’s intervention. The trouble with most of us is that we live on spoon victuals. You come here Sunday after Sunday and I ladle out to you what I have found in the Book. Go to the Book itself. I have sometimes watched a robin feed its young, and spit into their gaping mouths what it had dug up and chewed. I do not like it. It is doubtless necessary for young robins and chippy birds, but we ought to get beyond that and go right to the Book itself for ourselves.
II. Study the Bible, Really Study It
In the second place, Study the Bible, Really Study It. That too comes out in Acts 17 :11, they ^’searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Note carefully the word “searched,” or as it is translated in the Revised Version, “examining the scriptures.’’ The Greek word translated “searched” in the Authorized Version and “examining’’ in the Revised Version, is a very strong word. It means He search after by looking through, to investigate, to examine, to inquire into, to scrutinize, to sift.” It means the closest and most minute study. The Bible being
God’s Book is full of meaning in its minutest word; and is worthy of not merely the cursory, superficial reading, the careless skimming that most people give to it. That is all most of the other books, men’s books, deserve; any closer study than that is a waste of time. But the Bible, being God’s Book, God’s own Perfect Word, God’s inexhaustible storehouse of truth, in which are hidden the infinite treasures of the wisdom and knowledge of God, is worthy of the closest and minutest study. And it abundantly rewards such study, and that is one of the countless proofs that the Bible really is God’s Word. The more closely and microscopically you study this Book, the more you see and the more wonderful the blessing you get. The Bible should be studied with the closest and most concentrated attention. Here is where more people miss the fullest blessing in their study of the Bible than anywhere else. They are looking at the Bible with their bodily eyes, but their minds are off in a dozen other places. When you study the Bible, resolutely shut everything else out, shut to the door of your mind to everything else and shut yourself up with God alone. It may take time to cultivate this habit of concentrated attention, but any Christian can accomplish it. If you find your mind wandering, go back and fasten your eyes and your mind on that verse again, and chew every word. Remember what Jeremiah said, * Thy words were found and I did eat them; and thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart (Jer. 15:16, R. V.) A very prominent and very busy business man said to me one nigM, * Tell me in a single word, bow to study my Bible.” I replied, ‘* It is a pretty big contract, to tell a man in a single word bow to study the Bible, but if I must put it into one word, this is the word, *tbougbtfully’ — study the Bible tbougbtfully, give your whole attention to the Bible as you study it. ’ It is well to read a chapter of the Bible and then close the book and see bow much you can remember. Do the same with single verses. This is one of the greatest secrets of profitable study of any kind, concentrated attention; but it is preeminently the secret of profitable Bible study. Tbe one great object of the analytical study, verse by verse, and word by word, of some books in the Bible, that I compel the students in the Bible Institute to do, is to train them to the habit of concentrated attention when they study the Bible. But you do not need to be a student in the Bible Institute to do it; any of you can learn to do it. Not only can every one of you learn to do it, but you must learn to do it.
III. Study the Bihle Daily
In the third place. Study the Bihle Daily, Tbat also comes out in Acts 17 :11,” Tbese were more noble than those in Tbessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searcbed the scriptures daily, wbetber those things were so.” The daily study of the Bible is the only proper or fully profitable way to study the Bible. We saw ia our introduction that proper Bible study was the study that was appropriate or fitting to the Book we were studying, the kind of study of which that Book was worthy. As the Bible is God’s Book, the only kind of study that is fitting to it, is every-day study. Do you not desire to know every day what God has to say that day? If you do not, you are a fool. Every Christian who does not study, really study j the Bible every day is a fool. Not only that, any Christian who neglects the study of the Bible one single day insults God. And you should put much time every day, no matter how busy you are, into Bible study. Certainly fifteen minutes a day is too little time to put into listening to what God has to say to you. My students think one hour a day is little enough time to spend with me and who am I? Who is God? One of the greatest follies of which the average Christian is guilty, is spending so little time each day alone with God. Mr. Moody used to say, ‘’In our prayers we talk to God, in our Bible study God talks to us, and we had better let God do most of the talking.’’ We certainly ought to spend more time every day listening to what God has to say to us in His Word than we require Him to spend in listening to what we have to say to Him in our prayers. Most of us spend too little time in prayer and almost every one of us spends far too little time in Bible study.
Stop and register a resolution right now that from this time on you will spend more time every day of your life in listening to God as He speaks in His Word, more time in real Bible study.
IV, Study the Bible to Find Out What it Actually Teaches
In the fourth place, Study the Bible to Find Out What it Actually Teaches. That too comes out in Acts 17:11, ^’they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so,” It comes out in these words, ‘whether these thvngs were so,” They “examined the scriptures’’ to find out what they actually taught; not to find out something to corroborate their own previous opinions but to find out exactly what God had to say. Do not study the Bible to find out what you can make it mean, but to find out what God evidently intended to teach. One of the most prolific sources of misunderstanding and evil in Bible study is found right here. Men go to the Book not to find out what God has to say and what He really means to teach, but to find something that will corroborate their own view, or something that they can somehow twist into agreement with their own preconceived opinions. Take, for example, what the Bible teaches about the Second Coming of Christ. A host of books and pamphlets have appeared on this subject in the last few years, but not a few of these do not exhibit the remotest desire to find out what the Bible really has to say upon the subject and to accept that as final. They are simply a labored and ingenious attempt either to discredit what Christ Jesus and the apostles do say, or else to distort it and make it mean what any fair-minded man or woman in their inmost heart knows it was never intended to mean. Take, for example, Shailer Mathews’ tract, ‘’Will Christ Come Again 1” From start to finish it is simply a subtle attempt to discredit the teaching of Jesus Christ and the apostles on this subject. Or take either of the two most lauded books on the Second Coming written from the Post-Millennial viewpoint. While they are not so outrageously and blasphemously irreverent in their allusions to the words of our Lord Jesus and the apostles as Shailer Mathews’ pamphlet is, they certainly are not an honest, frank, simple-minded attempt to find out exactly what God has to say on the subject. It would be a glaring outrage to study any man’s book in that way: it is an atrocious insult to God to study His Book in that way. Study the Bible with an absolutely single-eyed purpose to discover exactly what God intended to teach.
V, Meditate Long and Profoundly on What You Find Taught in the Bible
In the fifth place. Meditate Long and Profoumdly on What You Find Taught in the Bible. This is what we are taught in our third text, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LOED; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” As the Eternal and all- wise God is the Speaker in the Bible everything taught in the Bible is worthy of our most profound and most prolonged consideration. We should ponder it, we should weigh it, we should thoroughly masticate and digest it, we should “meditate upon’’ it as we read it and hear it, and afterwards as we go about our daily work we should “meditate upon it day and night,” Meditation is one of the most fruitful processes of the human mind. But how fruitful and profitable meditation may be depends entirely upon what we meditate upon. There is no profit in meditation that is mere mindwandering and day-dreaming. The most fruitful and profitable of all meditation is meditation upon God’s revealed truth, God’s revealed Word. It is by meditation upon the truth that truth fructifies, just as eggs hatch by being sat upon. ^’Blessed,” infinitely “blessed, is the man that meditateth upon the Word of God day and night.” One of the best ways to conserve golden moments that might otherwise be squandered (for example, as we walk the streets or fields or ride on the trolley car) is to meditate upon the Word you have been studying. Turn God ’s Word over and over and over again in your mind as you study it. Look at all the facets of each diamond of truth. Let the Word soak in, let it saturate your life, your thoughts, your feelings, your will. Bible-soaked thoughts are Godlike thoughts. Bible-soaked affections are Godlike affections. A Bible-soaked will is a God-like will. That is a large part of what is meant in John 15 :7, R. V. * ‘If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and it shall be done unto you.’’ ‘* Meditate” on the Word of God “day and night.”
VI, Store the Bible Up in Your Memory
In the sixth place, growing out of what we have just said. Store the Bible Up vn Your Memory. Without such storing up in memory the most profitable meditation upon it is impossible. The great profit of storing up the Bible in your memory is set forth in Psalm 119 :11, R. V. “Thy word have I laid up in my heart, that I might not sin against thee.” That is the proper thing to do with God’s Word, lay it up in your heart. What is so worthy of being treasured in our minds as the golden words of God? Whoever has God’s Word stored away in his mind has treasure vaults filled with pure gold. Our Lord Jesus, as part of His farewell message to His disciples in the wonderful fourteenth chapter of John (R. V.) says in v. 21, “He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved by my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him. ’ Do you not long to be one of those whom the Father and the Son peculiarly *4over’ Do you not long to have the Lord Jesus “manifest’ Himself to you! Well, these words tell you how to secure these priceless privileges, ‘*He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself unto him,” To keep Christ’s words means more than simply to obey them; it means to treasure them, to hold on to them, to store them up in your mind and heart, or to use David’s phrase, “lay them up in your heart.” Then in John 14:23, Jesus says, “If a man love me, he will keep my word: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him,” Is not that great, having the Father and the Son making their home with us? Well, it is through the treasured up Word that this is brought about. Just two suggestions about how to memorize scripture! First, memorize it systematically. Do not have a jumble ,of disjointed texts in your mind, but classified and associated texts. Association is the great secret of a retentive memory. Group your memorized passages together, classify them in a logical and orderly way. Second, commit the verses to memory by chapter and verse.
VII. Study the Whole Bible
In the seventh place, Study the Whole Bible. That comes out in a very striking way in Luke 24 :27, R. V.,^ * And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” We see that Jesus studied not merely parts or fragments of the Bible, but the whole Bible as far as He had it, ^’beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.’’ The whole Bible is the Word of God; therefore every part of the Bible should be studied. We not only need to know the mind of God, but the whole mind of God. One of the commonest causes of comparatively unprofitable Bible study is that only parts of the Bible are studied. Some only study pet books. Some study only the New Testament; some study only the Psalms; some never study Genesis; some never study prophecy, they never study Revelation and they never study Daniel. Others study nothing but Daniel or Revelation. Some study only pet subjects; some never study anything but Divine healing, and some never study Divine healing at all. Some never study the Second Coming of Christ and others never study anything but the Second Coming of Christ. You never rightly understand any one of the sixty-six books of the Bible until you study it in its relation to the other sixty-five. You never rightly understand any subject in the Bible until you understand it in its relation to other subjects in the Bible.
VIII, Study the Bible as the Word of God
In the eighth place. Study the Bible as the Word of God, This we are taught to do by God Himself in 1 Thess. 2:13, “For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is i/n truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.” We have already seen that the proper way to study any book is to study it as just what it is. Well, then it is clear as day that, as the Bible is the Word of God, the proper way to study it and the only proper way to study it, the only way to get the largest profit out of the study of it, is to study it as the Word of God, Many distinguished university professors say we should study the Bible just as we study any other book, and they fancy that they have said something wondrously wise when they have said it. But while it is partly true, it is very largely false; indeed, it is very largely abject nonsense. We should study the Bible as we study any other book to this extent, that we apply to it the same laws for the discovery of the meaning of words and phrases and the same laws of grammatical construction that we apply to any other book; but there the principle ceases. We should study it as we study no other book, for it is what no other book is; it is God’s Word and all other books are men’s words, and we should study it as what it is, and we should study other books as what they are. So we should study the Bible and the Bible alone, as God’s Word, and we should study every other book as men’s word for that is exactly what they are. What is involved in studying the Bible as God’s Word? Five things:
1. First, that we believe absolutely its every statement. We may not see how it can be true, but we should believe it just because God says it. Abraham could not see how he, when he was ‘* about 100 years old” and Sarah nearly as old, and childless, could become “a father of many nations”; but God said so and Abraham believed it, and * ‘God counted it to him for righteousness” (Gen. 15 :6). If we have really good sense we will behave just like Abraham. God says something in this Book; Prof. So and So says it is not so, and the Rev. Dr. Bighead, D.D., Ph.D., LL.D., Litt.D., F.R.G.S., A. S. S., says it cannot be so; but as God says so, you and I, if we have real good sense, will believe it in spite of all the A.S.S.E.S. in the world.
2. In the second place, that we bamk vmhesitatingly and without a trace of doubt or anxiety lest it fail us on its every promise in all its height and depth and length and breadth. I am only a frail and feeble man, but I expect every man to accept and rest absolutely upon every promise of mine. And God, who cannot lie (Tit. 1:2), not only expects that of you and me, He demands it, and you are a fool if you do not do it. A good many of the promises of this Book seem altogether too big to believe, but God made them and there is nothing too big for God, and not a promise in this Book ever went down yet, if you put both your feet upon it. I have found that out by 36 years of experience. This Book tells me that I am an heir of God and a joint-heir with Jesus Christ; it promises me that I am to inherit all God is and all God has. It looks ridiculous to me, but I believe it. God says it and, therefore, I believe it. I would be a fool if I did not.
3. In the third place, studying the Bible as the Word of God involves your obeying implicitly and exactly its every commandm&nt that is addressed to you. There are commandments in this Book that are not addressed to you: the Bible explicitly says that they are addressed to Jews and you are not a Jew. But there are many commandments that are addressed to you; obey every one of them to the last jot and tittle. It will seem hard sometimes but it will pay.
4. In the fourth place, studying the Bible as the Word of God involves, studying it as God’s message to you, studying it not as God’s Word in the abstract, but God’s Word in the concrete,
God’s Word to you. Forget everybody else for the time being and think of God as saying this thing to you. Oh, it is fine to have a talk with God and to have Him do the talking. He has so much more to say that is worth hstening to than you or I have to say to him. I know a man out in China who has the rare gift of keeping his mouth shut in seven different languages. He is quite a young man but he has acquired a great reputation for sagacity because he so seldom says anything. He listens. But the place of places to keep still is when you are studying the Bible; keep still and listen and let God do the talking.
5. In the fifth place, studying the Bible as the Word of God involves studying the Booh as in the presence of God. See God standing right there saying these things which are written. Have you never thought, when you have read how God came down and talked with Abraham face to face, that you wished He could come down and talk that way with you? Well, we have a privilege far beyond that of Abraham. It was only in a few very rare instances that God came down and met Abraham and talked with him, but God is ready to come down and meet us and talk with us face to face every time we open our Bibles. Oh, it is great to have God call you into His presence and say, **I have something I want to whisper right into your ear alone and into your heart,’* and then open your Bible and see God standing there and hear Him saying that which is written there in the Book before your eyes. Studying the Bible that way makes the Bible a new and living Book. It is great to study the Bible on your knees. It has been one of the rarest privileges of my life to read every chapter in the Bible and every verse in the Bible on my knees. And it is your privilege to do the same.
IX. Study the Bible With a Will Wholly Surrendered to God
In the ninth place, Study the Bible With a Will Wholly Surrendered to God, That is one of the greatest secrets of proper and profitable Bible study. There is nothing that clears up the mind to see and understand what God says and what God means like a will wholly surrendered to God. Our Lord Jesus Himself teaches us that. He says in John 7 :17, R. V., “If any man willeth to do his willy he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from myself.” The mind of the man whose will is not surrendered to God is a fogbank; the mind of the man whose will is surrendered to God is clear shining as a perfect California day. Oh, I have known men to whom the Bible was a sealed book, a useless book, a silly, stupid book, but by the unreserved surrender of their wills to God the Bible became an open book. The surrender of the will to God will do more to make the Bible an open book than a university education at home and abroad in Greek and Hebrew and cognate languages. I have known great Greek scholars and great Hebrew scholars who were as blind as a bat to the real meaning of Gods Word, simply because their wills were not surrendered to God; and I have known men and women who knew none of “the original languages** in which the Bible was written, neither the original Greek, nor the original Hebrew, only ‘’the original English,’* who were open-eyed to all that was best and dearest in this Book because their wills were utterly surrendered to God. We had a young woman in the Bible Institute in Chicago years ago who seemed to have no fitness to be a student at a Bible Institute. She was entirely out of harmony with the place and densely ignorant of the things of God. One day she went (as all the women students were required to go now and then) down to one of the destitute parts of the City, calling from house to house upon the poor. She became utterly disgusted with the surroundings and quit her work and went down to the Lake Shore Drive and walked along in front of the magnificent mansions there and said to herself, ‘’Now, this is what I like, and this is what I am going to have. I am thoroughly sick of Milton Ave. and Townsend St. This for me.*’ In that rebellious state of mind she returned to the Institute and the bell soon rang for supper. She went down and took her seat at the table, still rebelling at the thought of a life of sacrifice amid unpleasant surroundings. But suddenly, there at the supper-table, she surrendered her will to God, sprang from the table, rushed over to one of the other girls, threw her arms around her and said, “I am a volunteer for Africa.’’ A wonderful transformation and a wonderful opening of her mind to the things of God occurred instantly. I was away when it all happened, but when I came back my secretary told me about it; for it was the talk of the school. A little later in the day as I passed out of the gate on La Salle Avenue I met her just coming in. She looked up radiantly into my face and said, ^’Oh, Mr. Torrey, have you heard the news I” I said, “Yes, Jack, Miss Waite has told me.” Then she fairly danced in holy glee on the sidewalk as she poured out her glad heart, and then she said, * Oh, Mr. Torrey, the most wonderful thing about it is that the Bible is a new Book. I thought the Bible was the most stupid book in the world. I would rather have read an old almanac than the Bible. You did compel me by your lectures at Northfield to believe in the Deity of Christ, but the Bible I could not endure. But oh, since I surrendered my will, what a wonderful Book the Bible is; God is making marvelous revelations to me from it every day.’’ Oh, men and women, if you want a Bible that is wonderful, a Bible whose every page glows with glory, study it with a will absolutely surrendered to God.
X. Study the Bihle to Learn How to Live Your
Daily Life, and Live Your Daily Life
That Way
In the tenth place, Study the Bihle to Learn How to Live Your Daily Life, and Live Your Daily Life That Way. God commands ns to do this in James 1 :22. He says, *^Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your ownselves.’’ Very many study the Bible, yes, dig into it, spend hours with it, just to gratify their curiosity on the great subjects of which the Bible treats, or to quahfy themselves to be expert theological disputants. No, no, no, study the Bible to find out how to live so as to please God, and live that way. Studying the Bible mth an eager desire to learn how to please God, and living that way, goes a long way toward making the Bible an open book. People often ask, what is the best translation of the original scriptures, the Authorized Version, or the Revised Version, or Weymouth’s, or whose translation? Listen, infinitely the best translation of the Bible is the translation into daily living.
XI. Study the Bihle Under the Holy Spirit’s
Personal Direction
In the eleventh place. Study the Bihle Under the Holy Spirit’s Personal Direction. God tells us in 1 Cor. 2 :14: ’ But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned,” Do not study the Bible as the Christian Scientist studies it, through Mrs. Eddy’s spectacles, under bondage to “Science and Health.’’ Mrs. Eddy’s spectacles are badly smoked glasses. Do not study the Bible as Pastor Russell’s dupes study it, through that silly man’s spectacles, trying to see the Bible with “Millennial Dawn” standing between you and the Book of God itself. Do not study it as the Mormon studies it, looking at the Bible through the densely opaque medium of the ridiculous and immoral Book of Mormon, apparently gotten up originally as a joke by a backsliding Presbyterian preacher, Solomon Spaulding. ‘’Call no man master” (Matt. 23:10). Do not study it through any man’s spectacles; study it through the telescope and microscope of the Holy Spirit. Study it under the personal direction of the Holy Spirit. The way to obtain His personal direction in your study of the Bible we are told in Ps. 119:18, R. V.: ‘’Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” It is by asking for it. “If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ash Him’’ (Luke 11:13). We are also told in Luke 24:45, R. V., “Then opened He their mind, that they might understand the scriptures.”
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XII, Study the Bible with a Child-like Mind
In the twelfth place, Study the Bible iinth a Child-like Mind. That is the only proper way to study the Bible, for the Bible is a revelation intended by God to be understood by all honest-minded, humble-minded, teachable people. Many very scholarly men study the Bible as if it were a puzzle book; instead of taking the meaning that lies on the surface, they dig down for some occult meaning, some meaning other than what the words seem to imply. The Roman Catholic Church says that simple-minded Christians must not dare to study the Bible for themselves independently — they must go to the priest to interpret it for them; and the Chicago University says that ordinary, “unscholarly” regenerate men, women and children cannot get the Bible ’s real meaning for themselves, they must have some great scholar, soaked in the German infidelity of Wellhausen and Graf and their host of satellites and followers, to interpret it for them. But Jesus said, * ‘I thank thee, 0 Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things frotn the unse and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes,’’ (Matt. 11:25.) Oh, these ingenious and fantastic interpretations of cunning “scholars,” men who are so subtle that they are positively silly! They would be laughable if they were not outrageous. Some men’s erudition is very close to perdition. The little girl was rigM when she said, “If God didn’t mean what He said, why didn’t He say what He meant?” He does say what He means, exactly what He means.
XIII, Study the Bible Systematically
Once more. Study the Bible Systematically. It is very clear from Luke 24 :27, E. V. that Jesus so studied it, for we read: “And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” Have some good system of Bible study and follow it. System counts in everything, but it counts more in study than it counts in anything else: and it counts more in Bible study than in any other form of study. I have not time here to go into the details of systems or methods of Bible study.
Let me add just one word, improve spare moments for Bible study. Carry a Bible with you wherever you go, or at least a New Testament, and wherever you have a spare moment, put it into Bible study. But, do not rest content with the use of spare moments in Bible study; have a regular set time every day that is kept sacredly for getting alone with God in the study of His Word,