The Bible

Some great structures, like St. Peter’s Cathedral, were centuries in process of building. Their foundations were laid by one generation, and their capstones by another. But more interesting than the erection of any structures of brick and stone is the building of God’s temple of revealed truth. The five books of Moses are the solid granite layers upon which it is founded. Resting upon this foundation the superstructure rises story upon story, the historical books, the devotional books, the prophetic books, the Gospels, the Acts, the Epistles and Revelation.

We invite the young Christian to walk with us through this wonderful building.

First of all, there is the library where we stop long enough to learn the facts which cannot be found anywhere else. We learn the origin of things, of matter, of sin, of crime, of arts and

19 sciences, of the family, of the nation. And

., ., here are God’s thoughts. If we

A Library

would develop the mind, we

must think after God. Great words like omnipotence, omniscience, eternity, infinity, can apply to God only, and the man who refuses to enter this divine library and think God’s thoughts after Him is robbing his mind of enlargement.

And here is a great picture gallery. We have the portrait of man as he was in the image A Picture of God, and as he became

Gallery through the blighting power of

sin. There are some very repulsive pictures. I saw in the Art Gallery in London a portrait entitled “A Man,” and on the opposite side of the room another picture entitled “A Woman.” They gave the artist’s view of what real manhood and womanhood meant. Greater than king or queen is a genuine man or woman. But in this same gallery I saw other pictures, which showed how men and women have been marred by sin, their beauty defaced, their features distorted, their lives wrecked. And we have in the Bible a picture of the evil forces that ruin our race. Here is the portrait of Satan himself — - cunning, deceptive, malicious. And here is the picture of every sin we are called upon to shun. Some one sent to Martin Luther the picture of a man who had threatened to kill him with poison. Luther carried this picture with him, so that he might be protected from the murderer if he should meet him.

Here, too, is the armory in which we may be equipped for the battle against sin. “Take unto you the whole armor of God,” “the shield of faith,” An Armory “the helmet of salvation,” “the breastplate of righteousness,” “the girdle of truth,” and “the sword of the Spirit.” When, at his coronation, the sword was delivered to Edward 11., having received it, he said: “There is yet another sword to be delivered to me, the Sacred Bible, which is the sword of the Spirit,” and with the sword of steel in one hand and the sword of truth in the other, he entered upon his high office. As followers of the Prince of Peace we may lay aside the sword of steel, but we need to take and use the sword of the Spirit in an aggressive warfare against all sorts of sin.

In this building there is a high observatory, from the top of which we have a broad and distant view. There is not only a record of An Observa- “hat has been, but of what will *°n be. The prophets with eagle eye

peered into the future, and history is a record of these prophetic fulfilments. From the top of this observatory in the Book of the Revelation we look into heaven itself, and down the vista of eternity all radiant with the glory of the Lamb. Sometimes as we look about us, evil appears to be triumphant. The righteous are in the minority, darkness seems to gather, but when we climb to the top of this prophetic observatory and look into the future, our hearts are cheered by the hope that sooner or later victory will come.

Joseph S. Speed on visiting his friend Abraham Lincoln found the President reading the Bible. He said to him:

“I am glad to see you so profitably engaged.”

“Yes,” answered Ir. Lincoln, looking up with a serious expression, “I am profitably engaged.”

Faith of Three “Well” said Speed, “If you Great Men have recovered from your scepticism, I am sorry to say that I have not.”

“You are wrong, Speed,” replied this man of common sense, “take all this Book upon reason that you can and the rest upon faith, and you will, I am sure, live and die a happier and a better man.”

Lincoln in the darkest hour of his life found the promises of the Bible the light that guided and cheered him.

When Sir Walter Scott was dying, he said to his secretary, “Give me the Book.” “What book.’^” “There is only one Book,” replied the novelist, and the secretary handed him the Bible. Locke’s definition of the Bible has not been improved upon: “It has God for its Author, salvation for its end, and the truth without any admixture of error for its matter.” When Bishop Fisher was on his way to the place of execution, he took from his pocket a little Greek Testament, and looking up to heaven exclaimed, “Now, O Lord, direct me to some passage which may support me through this awful scene.” As he opened the book, his eye fell upon the text: “This is life eternal that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.” The Bishop closed the Book and said, “Praise the Lord! This is sufficient both for time and eternity.”

Such a book is worthy of our reverent and patient study. Let us look into it and see what The Bible’s Tes- it teaches concerning itself. In timony to Itself Jq^ 5. 39 jgsus said:” Search

the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life, and they are they which testify of me.” And in II. Timothy 3:16 we read, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.” In these two Scriptures are four things which every young Christian should know.

I. A biblical definition of the Bible. The phrase, “the Scriptures,” suggests a synthetic Definition definition of the Bible. There

of the Bible were other writings, but these were the writings; and every Jew to whom Jesus spoke knew the writings to which He referred. They had them in the Hebrew tongue and also a translation into the Greek, known as the Septuagint, made nearly three hundred years before Christ. But it takes our second Scripture to complete this definition of the Bible — “Every Scripture is God-breathed.” A noted scholar has taken the pains to collate the texts in the New Testament where this Greek idiom occurs, and he declares that the King James version, and not the Revised, is the correct translation, and several eminent scholars on the Committee of Revision agreed with him. “All Scripture is God-breathed” is evidently what the Holy Spirit meant to write. Of course, the writers were inspired. “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (II. Pet. 1: 21). “The Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David” (Acts 1:16). “The word of the Lord came expressly unto Ezekiel” (Ezek. 1:3). But the writings as well as the writers were inspired, because “all Scripture is God-breathed.” God, who “breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul,” has also breathed into His Book the breath of life, so that it is “the word of God which liveth and abideth forever.”

There are many writers, but one Author. These writers were not automatons. Each one shows his own style and personality which the Holy Spirit uses.

^6 YOUNG COxNVERT’S PROBLEMS

II. A biblical use of the Bible. It is fourfold: “Profitable for doctrine, for reproof, The Use of ^^^’ correction, for instniction in the Bible righteousness.” “Doctrine” is

the teaching, not of the 7nan as he may express his opinion in social converse, but of the ambassador who carries with him the weight of his government’s authority; and in the Bible we find God’s official proclamation of love, pardon, cleansing, righteousness and peace.

The word “reproof” comes after doctrine, because it has to do with the character which doctrine makes. The Bible is profitable not only for the doctrine which we get out of it, but it is the standard by which we try our doctrines. It proves and reproves. It is the plumb-line that we drop by the wall to see if it is straight. It is the yard-stick by which we measure every creed.

The word “correction “means restoration, and gives a thought in advance of doctrine and reproof. It has in it the thought of making right what we have found to be wrong. The plumb-line may show” that the wall leans, but it cannot straighten it. The 3’ard-stlck may reveal that the cloth Is too short, but it cannot lengthen it. The Bible, however, not only shows us wherein we are wrong, but it can right us. When Canova saw the piece of marble which, at great expense, had been secured for a celebrated statue, his practiced eye discovered a little piece of black running through it, and he rejected it. He could discover the black, but he could not make the black white. The Bible discovers the black and makes it white.

The fourth word, “instruction,” means literally “child-culture,” and has in it all that the parent needs for the growth, development and maturing of the child. The Bible is a training school in righteousness. Other books give training in music, rhetoric, oratory, but the specialty of the Bible is training in righteousness.

III. A biblical method of Bible studij. It is suggested by the two words “search” and “profitable.” Whatever is prof- Method of itable is apt to cost labor. The le Study worthless we can get without effort. Hence the strength of the phrase “search the Scriptures.” It means to “look through and through.” It is the word used in the Scinpture, “The Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.” As God searches our hearts, so let us search the Bible.

The Bible unsearched Is a mine unworked, the difference between the Klondyke years ago The Unworked the Klondyke enriching its ■^^”^ industrious owners to-day. To

learn the Word of God requires diligent and persistent searching. A man who died in an English almshouse several years ago gave to his relatives an unproductive piece of land, so worthless that he did not have to pay taxes on it. The relatives searched it, and as a result they are to-day millionaires. The pauper was rich without knowing it, and he was ignorant of the fact because he did not search his possessions.

Every Christian with the Bible in hand is rich whether he knows it or not. Let him search and find hidden treasures. This search implies sight and light. There Is need of spiritual discernment. “The natural man discemeth not the things of God.” And hence the need of inspiration which comes from trusting the Holy Spirit as the Revealer of Truth. When Galileo turned his little telescope to the heavens, he found that he really had a new pair of eyes. He could now see the mountains of the moon, the satellites of Neptune, and the ring around Saturn. So we read the Bible in the light of the Bible and as more light comes, better sight is imparted; while, on the other hand, as better sight is imparted, more light is revealed.

The Christian with spiritual discernment can afford to “search the Scriptures” with the Holy Spirit alone as his guide. Diogenes and Commentaries are good, but not Alexander good as substitutes for independent search. When Alexander the Great stood before Diogenes as he sat by his tub, the general asked the philosopher what he could do for him. The rather grim reply was, “Simply get out of my light.” And any searcher has a right to say “Get out of my light” to every one whose shadow comes between him and the Truth.

Any method of searching is good, though some may be better than others. The “grasshopper method” by which we Grasshopper take a word or subject and jump Method from one place to another, collating the texts which have the word or subject in them, is not to be despised. God shook the world through Dwight L. Moody, who was fond of this method. I have learned to love what, for lack of a better word, I call the sectional method, by which one begins at a certain place and goes through paragraph, chapter or book, gathering and classifying every thought. It reminds one of Mr. Spurgeon’s saying suggested by the worm-eaten Bible which he found on the table of a Scottish wayside inn. Holding it up to the light, he noticed only one hole through which the light shone. One worm, it seems, had begun at Genesis and eaten through to Revelation, and Spurgeon prayed, “Lord, make me a book-worm like that.” Such a bookworm never turns into an earth-worm. It will have wings by and by.

But whatever be your method, do not fail to read the Bible by books. Read Genesis at a

sittins:. You can do it in less
Book by Book. °,, rr.i. i

than three hours. Ihen take

Exodus; then Leviticus, and so on through the whole library of sixty-six volumes. The astronomer should look at the heavens as a whole before he takes to his telescope. The botanist should look at the fields and gardens before he takes to his microscope. If you have not read the Scriptures, a book at a sitting, you may take it for granted that you do not know your Bible.

The study of words yields a rich harvest of knowledge and blessing. Every Bible student should, if possible, have some Study of

knowledge of Greek, the Ian- Words

guage in which the New Testament was written. Cato learned Greek at eighty years of age, and any one of average intelligence can learn enough of this beautiful language to greatly assist him in his studies by devoting an hour a week for a year or two. In Brooklyn an expastor taught a New Testament Greek class one evening in the week, and a woman over seventy joined the class. He said to her: “You are going to rub up on Greek?” “Rub up nothing!” she replied, “I do not know the alphabet, but the pastor said from the pulpit Sunday morning that Cato learned Greek at eighty, and what a man can do at eighty a woman can certainly do at seventy.” And she persevered for two years, till she could read the Greek Testament with pleasure and profit.

Take the English word “minister” which represents three words in Greek, one of which means a private servant, like John Brown, the private servant of Queen Victoria; another means official servant, like Lord Pauncefort, who was the official representative of the Queen at Washington; still another means an “underrov/er.” We have in it a picture of the captain of an ancient trireme standing in front of his oarsmen and giving them the stroke. As they strike with him, they, of course, strike with each other, and keep in perfect harmony. So we are to take the stroke from Christ. We are to learn what He is doing in the church of which we are a member, in the community where we live, or in the world, and when we have a conviction that He is leading in any movement, religious, moral, social, or political, we take the stroke from Him, and do all we can to advance the cause in which He is interested. Without a knowledge of Greek, this does not appear.

Luther said that he studied the Bible as he gathered apples. First, he shook the whole Luther*s tree, that the ripest might fall.

Method Then he climbed the tree and

shook each limb, and when he had shaken each limb, he shook each branch, and after each branch every twig, and then looked under each leaf. Let us search the Bible as a whole; shake the whole tree; read it as rapidly as you would any other book; then shake every limb, studying book after book. Then shake every branch; give attention to the chapters when they do not break the sense. Then shake every twig by careful study of the paragraphs and sentences, and you will be rewarded, if you will look under every leaf by searching the meaning of words.

IV. A hiblical motive for Bible study.
This is two-fold.

1. That we may have right thinking about eternal life. “In them ye think ye have eternal life.” In Christ we have Motive for eternal life, but in the Scriptures ^’^^^^ Study is our thinking about it. We have the blessedness of the man whose “delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night.” My arch of salvation rests upon two pillars. The first pillar is what Christ did for me, and that is always the same length. Time was when the second pillar was assurance of salvation through my feelings. If I felt well and happy, that pillar was of the right length, and seemed solid enough, but when dyspepsia gave me depressed feelings, the pillar seemed shorter and threatened the arch. One day, however, I read I. John 5 :13. “These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have eternal life.” And I saw that I was expected to trust the Scriptures and not my feelings for assurance. From that day the pillar of assurance has been all the time of the same length, for God’s word never changes. Feelings may come and go, but “I keep on believing” the promise. I think I have eternal life, not because I feel so and so, but because God says so. Now, the pillar of Christ’s merit and the pillar of His promise are of the same length, and the arch of salvation is no longer threatened by changing feelings.

2. That we may learn of Jesus. ‘’ They are they which testify of me.” Few things are more interesting and none more profitable than tracing the Messianic idea through the Bible. It begins with the curse upon the serpent in Genesis, and closes with “the Lamb as it had been slain in the midst of the throne” in the Revelation. In Christian character the image of Christ is marred by imperfections, if not by sins, but in the Scriptures the portrait is perfect. A friend described to me a painting which hung on the wall of his boyhood home. When you first saw it, it was a beautiful landscape with trees, streams, houses and people, but, while gazing upon it, all these beautiful things began to form into a human face. On a closer inspection you perceived that the whole picture was intended to give the face of Christ. The devout student of the Scriptures is constantly having experiences like this. He sees in the Bible trees of faithfulness, streams of truth, landscapes of loveliness in deed and character, but they are all so arranged in their relation to Christ as to bring out the features of His character. While we thus see Him as He is, we become more and more like Him, until by and by we shall see His unveiled face and be completely transformed into His likeness. “Search the Scriptures” with a view to seeing Jesus.