EXPLANATION OF THE METHOD
The contents of the preceding pages may be said to be preliminary to
the definition or description of what the synthetic study of the
Bible is; for by that name the method to be described has come to be
called. The word "synthesis" suggests the opposite idea to the word
"analysis." When we analyse a subject we take it apart and consider
it in its various elements, but when we "synthesise" it, so to speak,
we put it together and consider it as a whole. Now the synthetic
study of the Bible means, as nearly as possible, the study of the
Bible as a whole, and each book of the Bible as a whole, and as seen
in its relation to the other books.
[Sidenote: A Coloured Critic]
A very dear Christian friend and neighbour, the late A. J. Gordon,
D.D., used to tell an amusing story of a conversation with a deacon
of a church for coloured people in his proximity. He asked the deacon
how the people liked their new pastor, and was surprised to hear him
say, "Not berry much." When pressed for an explanation he added that
the pastor told "too many 'antidotes' in the pulpit." "Why," said the
doctor, "I'm surprised to hear that; I thought he was a great Bible
man." "Well," replied the deacon, "I'll tell yer how 'tis. He's de
best man I ebber see'd to tak' de Bible apart, but he dunno how to
put it togedder agin." Principal Cairns, I think it was, who heard
this story, said it was the best illustration of the distinction
between the constructive and destructive criticism to which he had
ever listened. The synthetic study of the Bible, it may be said in a
word, is an attempt to put it together rather than to take it apart.
[Sidenote: Illustrations of the Method]
To illustrate, I have always felt a sort of injury in the way I was
taught geography; capes and bays, and lakes and rivers were sought to
be crowded on my understanding before I ever saw a globe. Should not
the globe come first, then the hemispheres, continents, nations,
capitals and the rest? Does not a view of the whole materially assist
in the comprehension of the parts? Is it not vital to it, indeed? And
history--what is the true method of its study? Is it not first the
outline history of the world, then its great divisions, ancient,
mediaeval, modern, then the separate peoples or kingdoms in each, and
so on? How could you hope to interest a child in botany who had never
seen a flower? How would you study a picture of a landscape? Would
you cover the canvas with a cloth and study one feature of it at a
time? What idea of it would you obtain under such circumstances?
Would you not rather say, "Hang it in the proper light, let me get
the right position with regard to it, and take it all in at a
single glance, fasten the whole of it at once on the camera of my
consciousness, and then I shall be able and interested afterward to
study it in detail, and to go into the questions of proportion, and
perspective, and shading, and colouring and all that"? Is it not the
failure to adopt the corresponding plan in Bible study which accounts
in large measure for the lack of enthusiastic interest in its
prosecution on the part of the people?
[Sidenote: The American Bible League]
It is assuring to discover that the American Bible League, which
promises to do much to quicken Bible study among the people along
lines of faith in its integrity as the revealed Word of God, has
reached almost precisely the same conclusion as to method. The
esteemed secretary of that league, Rev. D. S. Gregory, D.D., LL.D., a
man of wide experience in educational and literary lines other than
those of the promulgation of Bible truth, charges the present
ignorance of the Bible, "everywhere in evidence," to the failure of
the old methods of its study. To quote his words in the _Bible
Student and Teacher_:
"The fragmentary method was tried for a generation or two. We were
kept studying the comments upon verse after verse, on the tacit
assumption that no verse had any connection with any other verse,
until we wearied of that, and would have no more of it.
"So the lesson systems came in, and we have had series upon series
of such systems, showing that men deeply felt that there was need of
system in the study of the Bible. But these systems have been
artificial, all of them; the latest of all the most so of all. The
men who have been engaged in preparing them deserve our gratitude.
They have done the best they could, doubtless; and we will look for
more light and improvement for the time to come. But you hear
everywhere that the people are weary of lesson systems. They are so
because the systems are artificial, and because they do not take you
directly to the Bible as the Word of God, but rather by means of most
useful lesson leaves and other devices take you away from it.
"And it is impossible to grasp the system, however valuable it may
be. You study in seven years your three hundred and fifty lessons in
a so-called system; and at the end of the seven years the best memory
in Christendom has been found unable to hold that system so as to
tell what has been taught in that time. When you have passed on from
each lesson you have lost its connection with the Bible, and lost the
lesson, too."
[Sidenote: Rationalism in the Sunday School]
It is the judgment of this same observer that these "fragmentary
methods" account, in part, for the assault of the rationalistic
critics upon the work of the Sunday school. "There was a call for
something better, a 'vacuum' in the minds of teachers and professors
in charge of instruction in the Bible, and just at the psychological
moment there came all this German material--interesting, ingenious,
imaginative, ready to fill that vacuum. The two needs met, and so we
have had our recent development of the critical system of studying
and presenting the Bible, which they are seeking now to introduce
into all the schools and colleges and Sunday schools.
"That critical method has taken the Bible apart into bits and scraps
and scattered it to the ends of the earth, as we have heard and have
reason to know. When one comes upon its results he feels that he does
not know exactly where he is."
Men hate bits and scraps, as this writer says, and as Bible teachers
we should bring our methods into harmony with their natural
constructive sense. Like the expert mountain climber, let us take
them to the highest peak first, that they may see the whole range,
and then they can intelligently and enthusiastically study the
features of the lower levels in their relation to the whole. The
opposite plan is confusing and a weariness to the flesh. Give people
to see for themselves what the Bible is in the large, and then they
will have a desire to see it in detail. Put a telescope in their
hands first, and a microscope afterwards. [Sidenote: Luther and
the Apple Tree] Martin Luther used to say that he studied the Bible
as he gathered apples. He shook the tree first, then the limbs, then
the branches, and after that he reached out under the leaves for the
remaining fruit. The reverse order is monotonous in either case--
studying the Bible or gathering apples.
THE PLAN AT WORK