THE PLAN AT WORK
[Sidenote: Begin at the Beginning]
There are certain simple rules to be observed in the synthetic study
of the Bible if we want to master it, and the first is to begin to
study it where God began to write it, _i.e._ at the book of Genesis.
The newer criticism would dispute this statement about the primary
authorship of Genesis, but the best answer to the objection is to try
the plan. As Dr. Smith says in his _The Integrity of Scripture_:
"Inherent in revelation there is a self-witness. The latest portion
points to the beginning, and the beginning, with all that may be
limited and provisional, contains the germ of the end. God's
discovery of Himself is not an episode, but rooted in a vast breadth
of the world's life, intertwined with human history, and growing from
less to more, as in this divine education and discipline man became
capable of receiving the full self-unveiling of God."
Dr. Ashmore, for fifty years an honoured missionary of the American
Baptist Missionary Union at Shanghai, relates the following, which
furnishes a practical illustration of this thought. At one time he
and his brother missionaries started a Bible school for their young
converts, and began to teach them the Epistle to the Hebrews. Now the
Chinese are remarkable for an inquiring disposition, and questions
began to descend upon the teachers to such a degree that they were
compelled to forego their purpose to teach Hebrews and go back to
Leviticus as explanatory of or introductory to it. But the teaching
of Leviticus produced the same result, and they went back to Exodus.
And from Exodus they were driven to Genesis, when the questions
materially abated. The Bible is wondrously self-interpretive if we
will give it an opportunity, and that opportunity is afforded if in
its perusal we will wisely and submissively follow the channel marked
out by its divine Author.
[Sidenote: Read the Book]
The second rule is to read the book. It is not asked that it be
studied in the ordinary sense, or memorised, or even sought to be
understood at first; but simply read. The purpose is to make the task
as easy, as natural, and as pleasant as possible. It matters not, for
the time being, how rapidly you read it, if you but read it. But is
it not strange that this is one of the last things many really
earnest Christians and seekers after Bible truth are willing to do?
They will read books about the Bible almost without limit, but to
read the books of the Bible itself is another matter. But how could
one master any corresponding subject by such a method? And is it not
dishonouring to God for any reason to treat His authorship thus? We
are living in a time when, if only for good form, we feel an
obligation to be acquainted with the best authors. But shall we say
that Dante, or Shakespeare, or any other of the masters is able to
interest us in what he wrote, while He who created him is unable to
do so? Are we prepared to confess that God cannot write a book as
capable of holding our attention as that of one of His creatures?
What an indictment we are writing down against ourselves in saying
that, and how it convinces us of sin!
I know a lady who once travelled a long distance on a railroad with
her trunk unlocked, and when she met her husband at the terminus and
reported the circumstance there was naturally some emotion in her
speech. She had been unable to find the key anywhere, she said, and
only discovered its loss at too late a moment to have another fitted
before she started upon her journey. And the trunk with all its
treasures had come that whole distance with only a strap around it.
"Why," exclaimed her husband, "do you not recall that when we come
home from a journey I always fasten the key of the trunk to one of
its handles? There's your key," pointing to the end of the trunk. The
incident is recalled by the so frequent inquiry one hears for a "key"
to the Bible. Its Author has provided one, and to the average person,
at least in this enlightened country, it is always at hand. Read the
book.
[Sidenote: Read It Continuously]
The third rule is, read the book continuously. I think it is in his
lecture on "The Lost Arts" that Wendell Phillips tells the story of
the weaver who turned out so much more material from his loom than
any other workman in the mill. How was it done? In vain was the
secret sought, until one day a bribe from one of his employers
elicited the information, _"Chalk the bobbins."_ Each morning he had
carried a piece of chalk with him to his loom, and when unobserved,
applied it to that small but important part of the machinery. The
result was astonishing. The application of the chalk to every bobbin
of every loom of every workman made his employers rich. Who cannot
supplement this story with some other where a principle just as
simple wrought results as great? Try it in the case of the continuous
reading of a given book of the Bible, and see what it will do.
But what is the meaning of "continuous" in this instance? The
adjective may not be the most lucid, but the idea is this: It stands
for two things--the reading of the book uninfluenced by its divisions
into chapters and verses, and the reading of the book in this way _at
a single sitting._ The divisions, it should be remembered, are of
human origin and not divine, and, while effecting a good purpose in
some particulars, are a hindrance to the mastery of the book in
others. Sometimes a chapter or a verse will cut a truth in half,
whose halves state a different fact or teach a different doctrine
from that intended by the whole, and necessarily affecting the
conception of the outline. As to the "single sitting," the reason for
it is this. Many of the books of the Bible have a single thread
running through the whole--a pivotal idea around which all the
subsidiary ones resolve--and to catch this thread, to seize upon this
idea, it is absolutely necessary to unravel or break up the whole in
its essential parts. To read Genesis in this way, for example, will
lead to the discovery that, large as the book is, it contains but
five great or outline facts, viz.:
The history of creation.
The history of the fall.
The history of the deluge.
The history of the origin of the nations.
The history of the patriarchs.
It is, then, a book of history, and the larger part of it history of
the biographical sort. This last-named fact can be subdivided again
into four facts, viz., the histories of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and
Joseph, and thus the whole book can be kept in mind in a very
practical way in eight words. Moreover, the reading necessary to have
gained the eight words will unconsciously have fastened upon the
understanding the subsidiary facts associated with each word, so that
a very satisfactory examination might be passed as to the contents of
the whole book.
[Sidenote: Read It Repeatedly]
The fourth rule is to read the book repeatedly. The reader will
understand that by the "book" in every case is meant the particular
book of the Bible, Genesis, for example, which it is now being sought
to master, and which is not to be laid aside for any other succeeding
book of the Bible until the mastery is assured. This cannot usually
be accomplished by one reading, but only by repeated readings after
the manner designated. A stranger sailing along the New England coast
on a foggy morning could hardly believe there was a coast. But later,
when the sun rises and the fog begins to dissipate, there is, at
first, a line of sandy beach discernible, then a cluster or two of
rocks, then a little verdure, a house or two, a country road, the
wooded hillside, until at length the whole of the beautiful landscape
stands out in view. It is much the same in the synthetic reading of a
given book of the Bible. The first view is not always satisfactory,
and it requires a little courage to try again and again; but the
effort brings a wonderful and inspiring result at last. The first
reading of Genesis may not reveal what was spoken of above, but two
or three readings will reveal it.
Leviticus is more difficult than Genesis or even Exodus, because it
is dealing with laws and ordinances rather than historic happenings;
but as soon as you discover that its theme is laws, these latter will
begin to differentiate themselves before your mind and naturally
suggest a simple classification such as this:
The law of the offerings.
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 classification 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 God 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 analyse his outline, and study helps, and gather light, and
accumulate 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 God, that we might know the things
that are freely given us of God" (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 God 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 God. "Eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man,
the things which God hath prepared for them that love him; but God
hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit" (1 Corinthians 2:9, 10).
The inspired apostle does not say God 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
God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of the
man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but
the Spirit of God."
There is a parallel passage 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 God'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
God is not enough without the Spirit of God. 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