Really Studying the Bible
Mmediately after his conversion, in September of 1879, Mr. Scofield had, as has already been pointed out, begun to study the Bible — or he had begun to try todoso. He had speedily realized that he knew almost nothing of the Bible. The saving feature of his ignorance of the Word was that he knew that he was ignorant. He inevitably compared his own ignorance and that of most people concerning the Bible with his own thoroughgoing mastery of other things that he had taken up. Naturally a man of that sort could not be content to be a real Christian and have his Bible knowledge of a tenth-rate or even second-rate sort. He must master this as he had been mastering literature, history, and law.
He made various attempts to study the Bible in spots. But he soon discovered that he could not understand the New Testament until he had studied the Old. Indeed, looking back to-day
over his lifetime experience in Bible study, he says emphatically that there are not two best ways of studying anything, and there is only one best way to study the Bible: the way it is recorded. The way in which the Holy Spirit decided to record the facts that are brought together in the Bible was, first, by assembling in historical order the books of the Old Testament.
The first verse of the New Testament gave the young convert the clue to proper Bible study. He read there: “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Now, his old-time habit of investigation, dating back to boyhood days, asserted itself. The son of David — who was he? The son of Abraham — who was he? For that is evidently where the Bible, or the Holy Spirit, begins in recording the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ. Oh, yes, Dr. Scofield knew “something” about Abraham, and he knew “something” about David, as will any one who has been brought up in a Christian family. “That is a part of the ‘general knowledge of mankind,’ as we lawyers say,” said Dr. Scofield in telling of those early Bible-study experiences. This “general knowledge,” that is, is such that in the courts you do not have to prove it. But, while the names of David and Abraham were not meaningless to him, he did not know much about them, and he knew that he did not.
When as a boy, stretched out on the floor before the open fire, he became so absorbingly interested in Shakespeare, and biography, and history that, whenever he came across an unknown name, he was driven to read every other book he could lay his hands on to find out more about that unknown name, and then went on to make a boyish but none the less earnest and serious map of universal history, he did not realize that God was preparing him for work in Bible study that was to put the whole Christian world under heavy debt to him as an ambassador of Christ.
This first verse of the first book of the New Testament drove Scofield back to an exhaustive study of David and Abraham. But as he began to dig into what the Bible had to tell about those two characters, he found that, in Bible study, as in everything else, he could not isolate anything; there was nothing to do but to go back and study the whole of the Old Testament. (What the more confirmed him in this was the example of Christ, as given in Luke 24:27, 44.)
And he did. He did not give up studying the
New Testament in the meantime, — his soul-winning work compelled its use; but he did not patch up merely bits here and there and call it Bible study, as so many of us do. He went laboriously, thoroughly, painstakingly, tediously on with his work of finding out what God really had to say in His Word. ‘‘My method of work, you see,” says Dr. Scofield in an apologetic way, “is not what would be called rapid; it cannot be made rapid.”” Come to think of it, just what workers in this world who have put their generations under heavy debt for their life-work, whether in the field of science, or invention, or literature, or art, have been rapid workers! The very idea of rapidity seems to exclude permanent, time-defying results. God is not in a hurry; why should we be?
Not only the first verse of the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew turned Scofield back to the Old Testament; but such words, spoken of John the Baptist, as “This is he that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias” (Matthew 3:3) also sent him back to the Old Testament for further information. So he must bone down to a personal study of the original sources, and take, not men’s opinions, but God’s Word.
Not only did his ingrained habits of study force him to treat the Bible in this way, but he felt also that it was only reverent to study the Bible thoroughly. He felt that God’s Word deserved it. He felt that there was no excuse for not studying the Bible in the most thorough way possible. It is not a big book; he had given far more time already to the study of other books infinitely less worth while, valuable though they had been. Does it not seem strange that these self-evident facts, known in theory to all of us, have not driven more of us to the sort of Bible study which the young converted lawyer felt he must have?
While the beginnings of this new and lifechanging study began immediately after his conversion, while he was in St. Louis and still practising law, and while his trusted friend and Bible teacher, Dr. Brookes, guided him and advised his use of certain helpful books, it was not until he gave himself up wholly to Christian work through accepting the pastorate of the church in Dallas that he really got well into his lifetime Bible study. There he began to give his people the results as he dug things out for himself. He preached these results in the pulpit; and he held a regular week-day evening Bible class in his church.
From Dr. Scofield’s Personal Bible
It Is interesting to run through the fly-leaves of a personal copy of the Bible that Dr. Scafield has used much, and to read some of his notes, and outlines of addresses, and bits of Bible study, and choice quotations. The following are selections from these fly-leaf markings.
1, Repentance
2. Faith 5. Adoption
3. Justification 6. Sanctification
7. Glory
4. Regeneration
Waiting on the Lord
1, Psalm 62:1 “silent’’
2. Psalm 104: 27 “depend upon — wait expectantly”
3. 2 Chron. 7: 18, 194 To wait as a servant Prov. 8: 34 or soldier
To wait upon God is to be silent that he may speak; expecting all things from him; and girt for instant unquestioning obedience to the slightest movement of his will.
IJust, 2, Sam. 23: 13-17
1. They were separated unto David
2. They were near
3. They were silent
4. David’s sigh was their command
“One may haye an intelligent opinion about divine things, and be a worthy man; but the taste of divine things, the realizing sense of what they are, belongs only to those in whom the Spirit lives ungrieved.” — Jonathan Edwards.
There are some who desire to know with the sole purpose that they may know, and it is base curiosity; and some who desire to know that they may be known, and it is base ambition; and some who desire to ‘know that they may sell their knowledge for wealth and honor, and it is base avarice; but there are some, also, who desire to know that they may be edified, and it is prudence; and some who desire to know that they may help others, and it is charity. — Bernard,
Rom. 4. The Blessed Man
“AIM,
Leave all Luke 5:11
Believe all Luke. 2%: 25
Obey all Matt. 28:20; Acts 5: 29,
Receive all tCor;) 4)::22; — John’ -201%/22;
Matt. 28: 18
Go to all Matt. 28:19
Burning Quest. our day
Insp. and Auth. the O. T.
For 30 years Higher Criticism — Pentateuch — composite — not Mosaic — Deut. especially late forgery — Historical Books full errors — No Psalm by David — No predictive element in Proph. — Daniel a forgery
The words “one” and “once” in the following verses are underlined and connected Hebrews 10.2, 10, 12, and 14.
“TI paused last eve beside the blacksmith’s door, And heard the anvil ring; the vespers chime, And looking in. F saw upon the floor Old hammers worn with beating years of time.
“‘How many anvils have you had,’ said I, ‘To wear and batter all these hammers so?’ ‘Just one,’ he answered. Then, with twin: kling eye, ‘The anvil wears the hammers out, you know,’
“And so L thought, the anvil of God’s Word
For ages skeptics’ blows have beat upon,
But though the noise of falling blows was heard,
The anvil is unchanged, the hammer
gone.”
ft
ay
) ‘,
WEL Tate. SRP
“
or
-
This week-day evening Bible class was not the mid-week prayer-meeting. That he believed should be kept for prayer and testimony; and under his pastorate and guidance his people soon had great liberty in this. In giving their testimonies as to how God had blessed them Pastor Scofield would insist upon their giving a Scripture with every testimony, and they had great blessings from this use of the Scripture.
The Bible-study evenings were open to all who cared to come, and soon people were attending from other churches, and ministers also were coming. Before long a Bible-study class in the Y.M.C. A. was added to{the weekly work, and the ministry was extended.
One of the results of the Bible-class work in the Dallas church was the little book, for many years now of world-wide circulation, “Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth.” Experience with many students had shown the pastor and Bible teacher that a knowledge of certain truths was essential to any real comprehension of the Bible message. These “beginning truths,” as they have been called, were put together by him during his vacation in 1888. The work of making the little book was a time-consuming and laborious task for him then, and “spoiled” his vacation entirely one summer at Niagara. But what a blessing it has been to multitudes of others!
Brethren in the Dallas church furnished money for composition and plates for a first edition of the book, and shortly after this the well-known New York publishers of sound Bible literature, Loizeaux Brothers, purchased the plates and publishing rights, and have continued the publication of the book until this day. They have brought out some thirty-seven different editions, and other editions have been issued by other publishers. Doubtless hundreds of thousands of copies of the book have thus gone into circulation, and its mission of blessing still continues.
Among the more important of the by-products of the Dallas work must be mentioned the formation and training of a class of young men obviously having pastoral and evangelistic gifts. While many participated in the instruction in part, ten such students continued through the course and, having made full proof of their spiritual gifts in many searching experiences, received ordination. It is gratifying to record that the seal of the Divine blessing has been wonderful upon the varied ministry of these men.
For fifteen years Mr. Scofield went patiently, studiously, comprehensively on in his thorough-going Bible study, mastering what he set out to do, as he hunted down through the pages of the Word of God the precious facts and truths that he was after, and that the Holy Spirit opened up and illuminated to him. Using the results of his work as he did for his constant teaching and preaching, he was keeping them also carefully written out in full notes, preserving them systematically. These studies were later, and little by little, embodied in what finally became the Scofield Bible Correspondence Course. This Course had begun by the issuing of pamphlets, covering portions of the Word, until the time came when it was possible to bring such pamphlets together in the three Bible Correspondence Course volumes which have been used by such great numbers, and which are to-day a permanent and rich contribution to the Bible study of the English-speaking Christian world, as ministered by the Moody Bible Institute.
It was when Dr. Scofield accepted Mr. Moody’s invitation to become pastor of the Congregational church at Northfield (1895- 1902) that the Correspondence Course was completed. Even then it was gone over again, and revised, references were verified, and the whole was made more thorough and complete.
Into it had gone fifteen years of unremitting study of the Bible. And by “study” is not meant the reading of a number of books of an expository and exegetical nature, together with critical works. That also was done; but the foundation of it all was study of the Word itself. Oh, those days and nights of toil! And ever the rubbish heap grew — a stack for the sake of tracing out a single line sometimes — nay, sometimes a single word. People to whom the Scofield Correspondence Course or the Reference Bible notes may seem very simple and easy do not realize that a vast amount of investigation and research went into deciding what not to put into annotations. The attainment of truth, the interrelation of truth, the finding — few can know at what cost of toil — the simplest, clearest word for the expression of truth: all this was part of the costliness of the study. And all this as a preparation, though the toiler knew it not, for the making, years later, of the Reference Bible.
About ten thousand different students, from practically every country on earth and the islands of the sea, studied the Correspondence Course while Dr. Scofield was personally in charge of it. This great number represented almost every walk in life. Many ministers wrote to Dr. Scofield that the Correspondence Course had transformed their ministry. One such minister said that he had studied Hebrew and Greek in his seminary in order to be able to study the Bible in the original. But, like so many others, having thus learned the Hebrew and the Greek, his Bible study stopped right there — rather, it never began. For he never studied the Bible until he came into touch with the Scofield Correspondence Course: and then for the first time he learned by experience what real study of God’s Word was.
Dr. Scofield kept up the. personal direction of the Correspondence School work from 1890 to 1915. It having then become necessary for him to commit this laborious work to other hands, the Correspondence Department of the Moody Bible Institute made arrangements with him to take it over; and any lover of the Bible, or one who wants to become an intelligent lover and student of the Bible, can now have access to the results of those years of painstaking study by taking the course through the Moody Bible Institute.*
* Information concerning this Course may be had by addressing the Moody Bible Institute, 153 Institute Place, Chicago.