How To Master The English Bible Part 2

The law of the consecration of the priests.

The law of the clean and the unclean.

The law of the day of atonement.

The law of the feasts.

The law of the redemption of land and slaves.

The law of the year of jubilee.

What a great and indispensable aid such a cla.s.sification is for any further study of that book or, for that matter, any other part of the Bible to which this revelation of the ceremonial law is particularly related! Even the Old Testament prophets, which some have described as "the desert of the Scriptures," will "rejoice and blossom as the rose" under such treatment as this, the discourses readily distinguishing themselves by structure and subject. And, of course, the New Testament will possess far less difficulty than the Old.

[Sidenote: Read It Independently]

The fifth rule is to read it independently--_i.e._ independently, at first at least, of all commentaries and other outside aids. These are invaluable in their place, of course, but in the mastery of the English Bible in the present sense, that place is not before but after one has got an outline of a given book for himself. Indeed, an imperfect or erroneous outline of one's own is better than a perfect outline of another. The necessity to alter it when, by comparison, the error is discovered may prove a valuable discipline and education.

The independent reading of a book in this sense is urged because of its development of one's own intellectual powers. To be ever leaning on help from others is like walking on stilts all one's life and never attempting to place one's feet on the ground. Who can ever come to know the most direct and highest type of the teaching of the Holy Spirit in this way? Who can ever understand the most precious and thrilling experiences of spiritual illumination thus? Should you wish to teach others, how could you communicate to them that sense of your own mastery of the subject so vital to a pedagogue had you never really dealt with it at first hand? One of our millionaires is reported as carrying a cow around with him on his yacht because he dislikes condensed milk. It is a great gain to so know the Bible for yourself that, carrying it with you wherever you go, you may be measurably independent of other books in its study and use.

But there is another reason for the independent reading of the book, and that is the deliverance from intellectual confusion which it secures. The temptation is, when an interpretive difficulty is reached, to turn at once to the commentary for light, which means so very often that the reader has become side-tracked for good, or rather bad, as the situation is now viewed. The search for the solution of one little difficulty leads to searching for another, and that for another, until, to employ F. B. Meyer's figure, we have "become so occupied with the hedgerows and the copses of the landscape as to lose the conception of the whole sweep and extent of the panorama of truth." The "intensive" has been pursued to the great disadvantage of the "extensive," and usually there is nothing to be done but to begin all over again, for which every reader does not possess the required courage.

And there is an advantage in this independent reading from the teacher's point of view, too, as well as that of the learner. How many pastors through the country have spoken of the success the synthetic method has been to them in attracting their people to the house of G.o.d and awakening in them a real interest in Bible study!

That is, what a success it has been up to a certain point, when they got "swamped," to use the very expressive word of more than one of them! Swamped? How? Investigation has always revealed the one cause, and brought the one confession--a failure to diligently and faithfully pursue the method in consequence of the temptation to investigate minutiae and multiply details. There is lying before me at this moment the _debris_ of a collapse of this kind. A devoted pastor sends me the printed syllabus of his work with his congregation covering the Hexateuch. They were so delighted and so helped by it until now, when there has come a "hitch." He fears he is getting away from the plan, and giving and expecting too much. And his work reveals the ground of his fears. Such work belongs to the pastor in his study, but not on the platform before a popular audience in Bible teaching. And if it will "swamp" the trained and cultivated teacher, how much more the inexperienced learner! A faithful reading of the various books on an independent basis will secure a working outline, and this should be carried with one in his mind, and on his notebook, as he proceeds from book to book, until the work is done. Then he can successively begin his finer work, and a.n.a.lyse his outline, and study helps, and gather light, and acc.u.mulate material, without confusion of thought, without a false perspective, and with an ever-increasing sense of joy and power.

[Sidenote: Read It Prayerfully]

The most important rule is the last. Read it prayerfully. Let not the triteness of the observation belittle it, or all is lost. The point is insisted on because, since the Bible is a supernatural book, it can be studied or mastered only by supernatural aid. In the words of William Luff,

"It is the Spirit's Bible! Copyright every word!

Only His thoughts are uttered, only His voice is heard!"

Who is so well able to illuminate the pages of a given book as the author who composed it? How often when one has been reading Browning has he wished Browning were at his side to interpret Browning! But the Holy Spirit, by whom holy men of old wrote, dwells within the believer on Jesus Christ for the very purpose of bringing things to his remembrance and guiding him into all the truth. Coleridge said, "The Bible without the Holy Spirit is a sundial by moonlight,"

and a greater than he said, "We have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of G.o.d, that we might know the things that are freely given us of G.o.d" (1 Corinthians 2:12). That dear old Scottish saint, Andrew Bonar, discriminated between a minister's getting his text from the Bible, and getting it from G.o.d through the Bible; a fine distinction that holds good not only with reference to the selection of a text to preach upon, but with reference to the apprehension spiritually of any part of the Word of G.o.d. "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which G.o.d hath prepared for them that love him; but G.o.d hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:9, 10).

The inspired apostle does not say G.o.d has revealed them unto us by His Word, though they are in His Word; but by His Spirit through His Word. "For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of G.o.d. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, the things of G.o.d knoweth no man, but the Spirit of G.o.d."

There is a parallel pa.s.sage to the above in the first chapter of Ephesians which has always impressed the writer with great force.

Paul had been unveiling the profoundest verities of holy writ to the Ephesians, and then he prays that the eyes of their heart (R.V.) might be enlightened to understand, to know what he had unveiled. He had been telling them what was the hope of their calling, and the riches of the glory of G.o.d's inheritance in the saints, and the exceeding greatness of His power toward them that believe; but how could they apprehend what he had told them, save as the Holy Spirit took of these things of Christ and showed them unto them? The Word of G.o.d is not enough without the Spirit of G.o.d. In the light of the foregoing, let the reader punctuate the reading of it and every part of it with prayer to its divine Author, and he will come to know "How to Master the English Bible."

RESULTS IN THE PULPIT

PART IV

RESULTS IN THE PULPIT

In the preceding pages the consideration of the lay reader has been in the foreground, though the ministry has not been out of mind. But in what follows the writer ventures to address his brethren of the ministry, especially his younger brethren, most particularly. In vain we seek to interest the people in Bible study in any permanent or general way except as they are stimulated thereto by the instruction and example of their ministers.

[Sidenote: A Vitiated Taste]

There must be even more than an example. In connection with a Bible conference in a city of the Middle West, a private gathering of pastors was held, at which one of them arose and with deep emotion said: "Brethren, I have a confession to make. I know not whether it will fit in with the experience of any others, but I have been guilty of cultivating in my people _a vitiated taste_ for preaching, and henceforth, by G.o.d's help, I intend to give them His own Word." To search the Scriptures on their own account, the people of our churches must acquire a taste for their contents. They must be constantly fed with the bread of life to have an appet.i.te for it.

They will "desire the sincere milk of the word," if so be "they have tasted that the Lord is gracious." But to what extent do they "taste"

it in the ordinary pulpit ministrations of the day?

[Sidenote: Secretary Shaw]

The Honourable Leslie M. Shaw, Secretary of the Treasury, gave an address recently in Washington, on the occasion of a Sunday school jubilee, which interested the writer deeply. He was pleading for the Sunday school on the ground that it was the only place at present in which the Bible was taught. "It is not now taught in the public schools," said he, "nor am I here to say that it ought to be taught there. In our busy life it is not taught in our homes. The head of the family ought to be a priest, but the Bible is seldom read, much less taught, in the home. _It is seldom taught in the pulpit._ Not that I am criticising the ministry. But take up a paper and see what the sermons are to be about. You will learn about the plan of salvation if you listen to the sermons, but you will not know much about the Bible if you depend on getting your knowledge of it from the pulpit." He then went on to say that "the only place on this earth where the Bible is taught is in the Sunday school." When, however, we consider the character of the average Sunday school, the sc.r.a.ps and bits of the Bible there taught, the brief period of time devoted to the teaching, the lack of discipline in the cla.s.ses, and the inadequate training and preparation of the average teacher, we begin to inquire, Where is the Bible taught? and wonder whether we have fallen on the times of the prophet:

Behold, the days come, saith the Lord G.o.d, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord; and they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not find it.--Amos 8:11, 12.

[Sidenote: Professor Mathews on the Sunday School]

I am with Professor Shailer Mathews, D.D., in some of his strictures on the modern Sunday school, if only it be allowed that there are not a few blessed exceptions to the rule he lays down. I do not know how we should agree as to a remedy for present conditions, but one remedy would be, where there is a Bible expositor in the pulpit, to do away with certain features of the Sunday school altogether for the time being. The infant or primary departments might be retained as they are, and possibly the Bible cla.s.ses for older adults, but the intermediate cla.s.ses would do well to be gathered together under the instruction only of the pastor himself. In time, such a plan would beget enough teachers of the right quality and spirit to return to the former method if desired. The cabinet officer's warning and appeal are timely, for an awful harvest of infidelity and its attendant evils must be reaped in the next generation should the Church fail to arise to her responsibility as to the teaching of the unadulterated Word of G.o.d in the present one.

It is for this reason that the writer pleads with his brethren to make expository preaching the staple of their pulpit ministrations.

Should they have read the previous chapters in a sympathetic spirit, they will begin to do this without much urging even where they have been strangers to it hitherto. But if otherwise, then a further word, before our concluding chapter, as to the history and practicality of that kind of preaching, may throw them back on what has been said before in such a way as to catch the spirit of it and be influenced by it.

[Sidenote: Expository Sermons Defined]

Expository sermons differ from the textual not so much in kind as in degree. For example, the text is usually longer, and more attention is given to the explanation of the words. The text, indeed, may cover several verses, a whole chapter, or parts of more than one chapter.

And the treatment need not necessarily be confined to the definition of words, but include the adjustment of the text to the context, and the amplification and ill.u.s.tration of the various ideas suggested.

Dr. James W. Alexander, from whose _Thoughts on Preaching_ I draw generously in what follows, says:

[Sidenote: The Notion of a Sermon]

"Suppose a volume of human science to be placed in our hands as the sole manual or textbook to elucidate to a public a.s.sembly, in what way would it be most natural to go to work? Certainly we would not take a sentence here, and another there, and upon these separate portions frame one or two discourses every week! No interpreter of Aristotle or Littleton would dream of doing that. Nor was it adopted in the Christian Church, until the sermon ceased to be regarded in its true notion, as an explanation of the Scripture, and began to be viewed as a rhetorical entertainment, which might afford occasion for the display of subtlety, research and eloquence."

[Sidenote: Inspired Sermons]

The same author recites some interesting facts that might be summed up under the general head of the history of expository preaching. For example, he reminds us that as early as the time of Ezra we find the reading of the law accompanied with some kind of interpretation. See Nehemiah 8. In the synagogues, moreover, after the reading of the law and the prophets, it was usual for the presiding officer to invite such as were learned to address the people, and it was in this way that our blessed Lord Himself--as well as His apostles, subsequently--was given the opportunity to open up the Scriptures.

See our Lord's discourse in the synagogue at Nazareth, reported in the fourth of Luke, and observe that it was an expository treatment of Isaiah 61. Notice, also, the discourses of Peter and Paul in the book of the Acts.

[Sidenote: The Christian Fathers]

The early Christian a.s.semblies adopted this method in their religious services, as we may judge from allusions and examples in the writings of Justin Martyr, Origen, Augustine and Chrysostom. Their homilies, especially in the instances of the last mentioned two, were usually of the nature of "a close interpretation, or running commentary on the text, followed by a practical application." Chrysostom, quoted by Neander, says: "If anyone a.s.siduously attend public worship, even without reading the Bible at home, but carefully hearkening here, he will find a single year sufficient to give him an intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures." In how many of our churches could the same be said to-day? But ought it not to be said in all?

Dr. Alexander is further sponsor for the statement that it was about the beginning of the thirteenth century when the method of preaching from insulated texts came into vogue, and the younger clergy adopted subtle divisions of the sermon. And he says, too, that it was warmly opposed by some of the best theologians of the age, as "a childish playing upon words, destructive of true eloquence, tedious and unaffecting to the hearers, and cramping the imagination of the preachers." He is not prepared to entirely accept this criticism of the theologians, however, nor am I, believing that both the topical and the textual methods of preaching have their attractions and advantages. [Sidenote: The Reformation Period] Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to record that "when the light of divine truth began to emerge from its long eclipse, at the Reformation, there were few things more remarkable than the universal return of evangelical preachers to the expository method. Book after book of the Bible was publicly expounded by Luther, and the almost daily sermons of Calvin were, with scarcely any exceptions, founded on pa.s.sages taken in regular course as he proceeded through the sacred canon. The same is true of the other reformers, particularly in England and Scotland."

In the times of the Nonconformists the textual method came into practice again; but, notwithstanding, exposition was considered a necessary part of ministerial labour. Matthew Henry is a conspicuous example of this, who, although he frequently preached from single texts, yet "on every Lord's day morning expounded a part of the Old Testament, and in the evening a part of the New, in both instances proceeding in regular order."

[Sidenote: Modern Examples]