THE BIBLE AND PRACTICE
When men separate the Bible from devotion and practice they are guilty of
the final heresy in relation to the Book of Life. The previous pages have
shown that the Bible has a real message for actual living. While the
larger departments have been treated, it is still true that the message of
the Scriptures for other sections of life is vital and fundamental.
Whatever we may say about the message of the Bible in regard to chemistry,
or biology, or geology; whatever we may say about its inspiration for the
literature of the world; and whatever we may say about its accuracy in
matters of ancient history and geography--the Book holds a lonely primacy
as the Book of Duty. The scientist may not get from it a full revelation;
the littérateur may be tempted to omit certain portions from his "choice
selections"; the historian may not find in it a full or chronological list
of events; but the man with a moral and spiritual passion, the man bent on
finding his duty that he may do it faithfully, will discover ample
material in its pages. Indeed, he will have a sense of surplus. The ideals
of the Book will be so far beyond his performance as to give him the
feeling of a gentle rebuke. As a Book of moral science, moral literature,
moral history, the Bible has no competitors. As a revelation of the heart
of God, of the heart of man, and of the way in which the heart of God and
the heart of man are brought into loving harmony, the Bible is supreme.
The great difficulty in the use of the Bible has come from wrenching it
from this main purpose. Confusion is sure to arise whenever any volume is
employed apart from its primary intent. If one wishes to learn
mathematics, and his foolish teacher shall give him a book of music, the
result is not edifying. The pages of the book may be properly numbered,
and the scales of music may be denoted by the correct fractions; but
mathematics represents a thoroughly subordinate purpose, and the volume
does not lead easily on to Calculus. The result is even more confusing if
the arithmetic be handed to a pupil who wishes to study versification. The
multiplication table may look like verses when seen at some distance;
still the arithmetic's main intent is not the teaching of poetry. The
illustrations of possible confusion could be taken from all fields. The
common sense of the race saves it from the blunder of misapplying the
most of its books. The Bible, however, has been subjected to
misapplication because the theory of its infallibility has often been made
to cover a wide, not to say a universal, range. The student who goes to
the Bible with a purpose that is mainly historical, or scientific, or
geographical, or genealogical, or mathematical, or even poetical and
literary, may not find all his wishes gratified. But the student who seeks
its pages under a profound sense of God and with an equally profound will
to do God's will is certain to find material for all his moral and
spiritual ambitions.
Consequently when the religious attitude toward the Bible is changed into
a professional or critical or debating attitude, the Book is deflected
from its intent. Doubtless we must have in the realm of scholarship some
men who give themselves to a technical discussion of the Bible. These men
may be charged with the duty of recovering portions of the Book to
reality; and they may have an important, but secondary, relation to its
primary purpose. Nevertheless their attitude is not the final one. It
would be useless to deny that the last generation has witnessed a changed
attitude toward the Holy Scriptures. One result has been that two camps
have been formed, and that doughty champions of a view have sallied forth
from each camp to do warfare. The missiles have been verbal. Sometimes
they have been abusive. Each champion has believed himself a David and his
opponent a Goliath. The unprejudiced observer of the conflict has had
difficulty in deciding which champion has been most guilty of a wrong
spirit. The conservative has called the progressive various names,
infidel, atheist, destroyer, betrayer, a successor of Judas in spirit and
of Celsus in method! The progressive has responded in kind and has named
the conservative a reactionary, an intellectual coward, a defender of a
discredited theory, a foe of liberty, and a traitor to the truth. The
conservative has often become a spiritual Pharisee and has ruled the
progressive out of court on the ground that the progressive lacked piety,
while the progressive has often become an intellectual Pharisee and has
ruled the conservative out of court on the ground that the conservative
lacked scholarship. There have, of course, been conspicuous instances of
breadth and catholicity on both sides, but occasionally the spirit of the
contest has not tended to exalt the mood of the contestants or to glorify
the divine Book.
The results of such a spirit could easily be predicted: they cannot make
for edification. If we list on one side the radical conservatives and on
the other side the radical progressives, we shall discover an evangelical
helplessness in both lists. In each case a conception of the Bible
supplants the purpose of the Bible. The champion defends a doctrine more
than he promotes a life. The apologist overcomes the preacher. The
theorist destroys the evangelist. All this is not a denial that the
speculative emphasis has its place. The defender of the faith will always
have his place. Usually he must work in the background, in some point of
scholarly retreat. The pastor and preacher who goes into a community with
the idea that his main mission is to promote a special view of inspiration
is doomed to failure, while he who goes into a community with the idea
that his main mission is to preach the salvation of the Bible as it
climaxes in Christ cannot fail utterly. There are conservatives and
progressives whose ministry is pitiably weak, and there are progressives
and conservatives whose ministry is grandly strong. The difference comes
from the point of emphasis. If a man is more anxious to prove that Moses
was the sole author of the Pentateuch than he is to prove that Jesus is
the sole author of salvation, his ministry will answer to his own
emphasis. If a man is more anxious to prove that there were two Isaiahs
than he is to show that there is one only name given among men whereby we
may be saved, his ministry will be no more important than is his
contention. The primary purpose of the Bible is not the revelation of the
single authorship of one of its sections or the dual authorship of one of
its books; its primary purpose is to declare that One is our Master, even
Christ.
It must be plain that, as the divine revelation of the Bible culminates in
a Life, so the human intent of the Bible can culminate only in lives. The
purpose of the Bible is met in Practice. If we adopt the military figure
of life, the Bible is a weapon given to men for moral warfare. Sometimes
in its own pages the Word of God is presented under the figure of a Sword.
The writers could not have had in mind the Scriptures as we have them now;
but the principle applies to every revelation by which God seeks to bring
men to the understanding and doing of his own will. When Isaiah felt
divine messages burning in his heart he said, "He hath made my mouth like
a sharp sword." The writer of Hebrews took the same nervous metaphor and
wrote, "The word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
and of the joints and marrow." Paul in his description of the Christian
armor speaks of "The sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God." It
may not be amiss, then, to take this highly authorized figure of speech
and to employ it once again--not claiming, of course, that our particular
applications were in the thought of the first users. The point is that
under the ancient military system the sword had its main intent, and that
it never did its real work as long as it was divorced from that intent.
There were wrong uses of the sword, and there were secondary uses of the
sword; and there was but one primary use of the sword.
We can conceive of an actual sword as being used in different ways by
different people. A robber seizes it, defends himself against just arrest,
and slashes the representatives of a righteous law. Evidently the sword
was not made for that purpose. The sportsman takes the sword, tests its
handle, polishes its blade, tries its resiliency, purchases a manual of
arms, secures the best teacher, drills himself in its use. On holidays he
wears a flashy uniform, marches through the streets, waves the glittering
thing over his head, and so makes it an instrument of personal flourish.
This use is not evil, but it does not stand for the weapon's first intent.
A third man, with a more serious mien, secures the sword. He is enlisted
in the militia, and the time may come when it will be necessary for him to
go into real war. He tests its handle and polishes its blade; he studies
the manual of arms; he seeks the best masters; he practices its use
through many months. When the time of war actually comes this man draws
the sword from its scabbard and goes out to do service in his country's
cause. The primary purpose of the sword is met only in this earnest use.
The three men may represent three classes in their attitudes toward the
Bible. The Bible is often used for defense in immoralities. It is often
used as a means of that cheap skill that comes near to personal display.
It is often used for spiritual defense and warfare. The robber's use is
evil. The parader's use is secondary. The warrior's use is primary.
Many illustrations of the immoral use of the Bible could be given. In the
story of the temptation of Jesus the devil is pictured as a user of the
Scriptures, and he has not been without his followers in an unholy use of
a holy record. The Bible covers a wide range of thought and experience. It
tells of all manner of sins. It deals with all classes of characters. It
presents the lives of bad men who were sometimes good, and of good men who
were occasionally bad, and of other men who were quite steadily bad or
good. Thus the Bible gives us all sorts of examples. The record,
distorted and misapplied, may be made to justify the baldest of sins. In
matters of questionable morality men are ever ready to appeal to the
divine Book, and even for actions condemned by all enlightened moral
judgment the Bible is sometimes summoned as an advocate. There is scarcely
a sin which has not had a passage of Scripture presented as its excuse.
Men have justified rash murder on the ground that Moses killed the cruel
Egyptian taskmaster. As was shown in a previous chapter the practices of
the patriarchs have been quoted, even in the halls of Congress, as a
warrant for bigamy and polygamy. Men in the midst of unreasoning anger
have condoned their madness by reciting the words, "Be ye angry, and sin
not." Jesus himself named to the Jews a sacrilegious misuse of a Bible
phrase by which heartless children excused themselves from filial duties.
Illustrations might be given touching almost every phase of personal life.
Even as in old days the wicked sometimes fled to a city of refuge, so now
do men caught in an evil mood hide themselves behind a biblical rampart.
In larger social matters this use of the Bible has been fully as striking.
Human slavery felt secure within a scriptural fortress. Wilberforce and
Clarkson in England, and Garrison and Phillips in America were compelled
to reply to biblical arguments. Charles Sumner, at a meeting in
Massachusetts, spent an entire evening in replying to a pro-slavery
discussion based on Paul's letter to Philemon, arriving duly at the
conviction that the only logical and religious result of the apostle's
words to Philemon would be the freeing of slaves in the name of Christian
brotherhood. So pieces of Mosaic legislation and scraps of Pauline
regulation were used to conceal the Golden Rule and the law of fraternity.
It is easy to observe here, too, that as men advance in ethical life this
use of the Bible ceases. Doubtless in twenty years no one has heard the
Bible quoted in behalf of slavery. Yet the biblical argument would serve
quite as well for reinstating slavery as it did for continuing slavery.
The argument dies not only because the moral consciousness of man lives,
but also because the moral judgment of man perceives that the general
principles of the Bible are utterly opposed to human slavery. The man who
proposed to bring the bondage of men back into the social life of the
world by means of the biblical argument would be deemed as much an
anachronism as his method of debate.
This same evil use of the Bible proceeds to-day among the opponents of the
temperance reform. Our debate with the saloonist or brewer or wine maker
never goes far ere we are told of biblical examples of drinking, as well
as that Christ turned water into wine in his first miracle at Cana of
Galilee. Saloon keepers have framed and have placed upon the walls of
their alluring palaces Paul's advice to Timothy, "Take a little wine for
thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmities." They do not quote the
verdict that wine is a mocker, with a bite like that of a serpent and a
sting like that of an adder--the cause of woes and sorrows and redness of
eyes; nor the pronouncement that no drunkard can inherit the Kingdom; nor
the condemnation laid upon him that putteth the bottle to his neighbor's
lips. Nor do they put forward the inevitable drift of Paul's law of
charity which commands men to do naught that will make their brothers to
offend. Nor yet do they heed the sure drift of the Bible's teaching as it
comes to its crown in Christ himself. The man who would claim that Jesus
would approve the modern traffic in intoxicating liquors would convict
himself of amazing perversity and ignorance. There are increasing
evidences that the Master of life is now finding an effective use for his
whip of cords and that there is beginning a retreat greater than that of
the ancient thieves and dove sellers. The time will come when men will
marvel that an attempt was ever made to use the Bible as a foundation for
the trade in alcoholics.
In Scott's Ivanhoe there is given an example of this misuse of the Bible,
as well as an example of its effective rebuke. Rebecca the Jewess is
beautiful in person, as she is in character. Brian de Bois-Guilbert is a
member of the Order of the Holy Temple. He is a dashing, handsome,
hypocritical crusader, both a military and a moral adventurer. He turns
his lewd eye toward Rebecca. She stands by an open window, ready to throw
herself to death upon the rocks far beneath rather than to submit herself
to his wickedness. To justify his black intention Guilbert mentions the
conduct of David and Solomon, and then says to the tempted one, "The
protectors of Solomon's Temple may claim license by the example of
Solomon." The beautiful woman makes a worthy retort, one that deserves
frequent repetition: "If thou readest the Scriptures and the lives of the
saints only to justify thine own license and profligacy, thy crime is like
that of him who extracts poison from the most helpful herbs." No honest
person can believe in Guilbert's use of the Bible; nor can any honest
person escape the truth of Rebecca's reply. The murderer's, the
bigamist's, the slaveholder's, the rum-seller's, the sensualist's method
of employing the Bible is the final blasphemy against the Holy Word. The
robbers of life simply steal the sword of the Spirit in order that they
may use it in the service of hell. Wolves in sheep's clothing and devils
clad in the livery of heaven are apt figures of speech for the description
of this perversity. The Bible itself speaks of those who wrest the
Scriptures to their own destruction!
The second use of the sword moves into the realm of the legitimate, but
not into the realm of the final. Expert swordsmanship is no crime, even as
it is not the highest morality. The Bible has long been one of the
favorite fields of the critical scholar. Very often the search has been
for technical truth rather than for vital truth. Heated discussions have
related to questions of dates and authorship. These questions are not to
be ruled out as useless. Sometimes technical truth gives the vital truth
of the Bible a setting that makes it more forceful and persuasive. It was
inevitable that both the higher critics and their opponents would
sometimes go to great extremes--the critics to an idolatry of intellect,
their opponents to an idolatry of literalness. We must all have been
impressed that at times when the spiritual battle has been intense the
warriors have stepped aside from the main conflict in order that they
might discuss how and when and by whom the Sword and its parts were
fashioned!
We may change the figure of speech for a moment and modify for the present
purpose a borrowed illustration. A man finds a casket buried deeply in his
yard. The vessel appears to have been constructed a long time ago. It
bears upon its sides characters that are difficult of translation. There
is even doubt as to the nature of the metal. The man summons the other
members of the family. They open the vessel and discover that it is filled
with gold. At once a warm dispute begins over several questions. Who made
the casket? When was it made? How many persons took part in its fashioning
and its filling? From what precise mintage did the coins come? What is the
meaning of the peculiar hieroglyphics found upon its sides? Are all the
coins of equal value? Whose images are stamped upon them? The debaters
become excited over these mooted matters. At last one sensible member of
the family suggests that it is apparent that by right of finding this
particular household owns the casket; that the needs of the members are
many; that the gold, even though the coinage be ancient, can be turned to
modern use; that the questions which they are debating can be settled only
by metallurgists and historians and philologists, if they are to be
settled at all; and that, pending the settlement of incidental issues, the
wants of the family may be richly met by appropriating the contents of the
casket! The illustration scarcely needs any interpretation. It surely does
represent the attitude which the devout and obedient heart may take in
this period toward the Holy Book. The ancient casket that we call the
Bible is full of treasures. This much lies beyond doubt or debate. While
the learned philologists and historians and exegetes surround the casket
and try to ascertain the dates of its parts, the names of its authors, the
meaning of its obscurities, the family of God may continue to draw on its
exhaustless treasures. Nor are there wanting signs that more and more our
age is adjusting itself to this reverent and practical use of the Word of
God, and that Professor Dobschütz rightly contends in his new volume that
the Bible is again becoming the Book of Devotion.
There is likewise what we might well call the "lowest" criticism--the
spirit that uses the Bible as a volume of puzzles rather than as a volume
of directions. Many a man has spent more time in speculating about where
Cain got his wife than he has in trying to find out how to make his own
wife happy. Many a man has spent more time in trying to find out about
the Witch of Endor as an excuse for his consulting some vulgar
fortune-teller of modern time than he has spent in trying to learn the
will and secure the guidance of the good and wise God. Many a man has
spent more time in discussing Melchizedek, who had neither ancestors nor
descendants, than he has spent in trying to learn from the Bible how he
himself may honor his forbears and may train his own children in
righteousness. Many a man has been so piqued by curiosity about the exact
nature of Saint Paul's "thorn in the flesh" as to forget the teaching that
the grace of God can make us equal to any burden and torment of life. The
men of this type will not allow the Bible the use of hyperbole. When it
suits their contentious mood they become strict literalists. Even though
they themselves may declare that it is "raining pitchforks" or that the
waves are dashing "mountain high," they will insist that Christ's words
about the two coats and the two cloaks and the two miles are not the
strong urging of much forbearance and generosity, but the counsel of
literal folly. Meanwhile the certainties and duties of the Bible outnumber
its riddles and its curiosities many-fold. The importunate call to holy
practice ceases not. From each of a thousand passages of the Good Book
there issues a patient rebuke for the curiosity monger, "What is that to
thee? Follow thou me."
This leads us to the third use of the sword as seen in our illustration.
The gallant soldier took the weapon and used it in harmony with its
intent. So the Bible should be employed preeminently as a means of
spiritual defense and warfare. The Scriptures are profitable, not for
immoral justification, not for mere criticism however exact and searching,
not for the solving of superficial riddles, but "for doctrine, for
reproof, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." To go to the Bible
with the motive revealed in these great words is to recover the Bible to
its divine purpose as the book of human practice. Such a motive lifts the
volume above any mere literary or historical aspects. There is, for
example, the oft-quoted story about Benjamin Franklin's experience at the
Court of France. He was passing an evening with a company of cultured
ladies and gentlemen. The conversation turned to the subject of Oriental
life. Franklin read aloud to the company the book of Ruth. Struck by the
beautiful simplicity and spirit of the narrative, his hearers expressed
their delight and desired to know in what book the charming pastoral could
be found! It is safe to say that these men and women needed the lesson of
fidelity in the book of Ruth far more than they needed the sense of its
literary merit.
We must always return to the idea that the key to the Bible is the deeply
religious instinct and motive. Nothing else will really open its pages.
Nor does the Bible herein wholly differ from other literature. There are
men and women so thoroughly cultivated on the so-called practical side of
their natures that it would be punishment for them to read Whittier, or
Longfellow, or Lowell, or Tennyson for a full hour. The demands of
business or social life have killed the poetic impulse. So many persons
may crush from their natures the religious instinct and then wonder why
the Bible does not appeal to them! The truth seems to be that a person
gets from the Bible about what he seeks. It takes divinely opened eyes to
see the wondrous things in the law. The psalmist, therefore, prayed that
the change might come over himself rather than over the parchment. The way
to illumine the sacred page was to illumine him. The Book may lie in a
great light, but what can the Book do for a man with closed eyes? Seneca
tells of an idiot child in his home who, becoming blind, insisted always
that the room was dark! Herein is another parable.
It is only this disposition of the seeing eye and the obedient hand that
can bring the Bible to us in its main purpose. Having this disposition we
shall not suffer ourselves to be lured into interesting byways. We shall
have a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. Our spiritual purpose
will defeat all needless criticism and all needless dissection. Having
this purpose, we will turn to the early chapters of Genesis. Instead of
debating whether in a literal garden Adam and Eve were tempted by a
literal serpent to the eating of literal fruit, and were driven through a
literal gate, while a literal angel with a literal flame running along a
literal blade guarded against reentrance, we shall be moved by the thought
that we have lifted ourselves in puny rebellion against God, and that we
have gone forth from our place of innocence, and that the third chapter of
Genesis recounts the essential history of our souls. Having this religious
purpose, we shall read the story of Job with a view to securing its
spiritual lesson. We shall not permit any critical arguer to confine us to
the question of the historicity of Job himself. We shall rather lay hold
of the teaching of that marvelous book, with its colossal debate, and we
shall see that, whether the book be a history or a parable or an allegory,
it drives crushing suspicion from the world by teaching that suffering is
not always the result of sin, and brings cheerful trust into the world by
teaching that afflictions bravely endured must have their reward. The man
who back in that dim and far age got hold of the teaching of the book of
Job must have somehow caught the inspiration of God himself. The common
ground in all these mooted portions of Scripture is really a large and
wealthy place; but only a common spiritual purpose will ever bring
conservatives and progressives together in the knowledge and peace of God.
One almost hesitates to discuss the book of Jonah in this connection
because petty debates have robbed it of much of its deeper meaning. The
nature of the book doubtless lies beyond earthly settlement. Whether we
declare that Jonah's journey was as historical as those of Saint Paul, or
that it was as parabolic as the journey of the prodigal son, we can find
no sure end of the debate. But all the while the teaching of the book
waits for our obedience. The individual lesson seems to be that whenever a
man turns his ship from the Nineveh of duty toward the Tarshish of
pleasure he will directly come to rough and perilous seas. In other words,
the man who flees from his God-assigned work sooner or later gets into
trouble. The missionary lesson is just as plain. Back yonder in a time of
racial narrowness, some one caught the inspiration from God and declared
that the Lord of all the earth cared for all the people of the earth. The
infinite love traveled beyond all our little boundaries. The personal
lesson and the missionary lesson of the book of Jonah are sufficient to
keep individuals and churches busy for a thousand years to come. The
spirit with which we approach the book of Jonah will decide whether we
shall become petty debaters, or men and women with dutiful purpose and
missionary zeal.
The conclusion is that when we seek the Bible with the motive of holy
practice we never meet with disappointment. The religious purpose saves
the Book for us and saves us by the Book. This purpose will likewise bring
us face to face with the Hero of the Divine Word. Other sacred literatures
may offer us high moral precepts, and they may occasionally give us
glimpses of spiritual ideals. But one Book alone gives us Christ. One Book
alone reveals the Redeemer. The climax of practice to which the Scriptures
call us is the following of Christ. In all our studies in these chapters
we have found that the supreme lessons centered in his teaching and in his
example. The Man, the Home, the School, the Workshop, the Market Place,
the Playground, and the Hospital all wait upon him for their guidance and
their warning. But Jesus is more than the way and the truth; he is the
Life. He is more than the Exemplar of Practice; he is the Helper in
Practice. He walks the pages of the Bible even as he walked the ancient
paths, and his disciples may still say, "Behold the Lamb of God, which
taketh away the sin of the world." Other sacred books may offer
revelations of morality; the Bible offers the revelation of a Saviour. The
Bible is not its own goal. Jesus is the end of its revelation. The devout
in all ages have been ready to use the heart of the verse of a familiar
hymn:
Beyond the sacred page,
I seek thee, Lord;
My spirit pants for thee,
Thou living Word.
If men seek the Exemplar who will give them a goal for their practice,
they find such an Exemplar in the Christ of the Bible. If they seek the
Inspirer who will give them a longing for the perfect practice, they will
find that Inspirer in the Christ of the Bible. If men seek the Saviour who
will help them on to the perfect practice, they will find that Helper in
the Christ of the Bible.
Indeed, it may be said to be characteristic of the Bible that it not only
offers the perfect program, but that it offers the perfect help. This was
true even of the Old Testament. Jehovah was the strength of life. His
power was as immediate as his presence. He was a present help in time of
trouble. He was a present Guide in time of perplexity. The Christian
revelation seems to bring that consciousness of divine help nearer to men,
and to make it more real. Hence the Christian faith goes over all the
world seeking to win men to God and his righteousness. Everywhere it
proclaims a redeeming God. An ideal without a Saviour may become a
despair--a tormenting impossibility, the lure of the final falsehood. The
Bible gives the ideal and then it adds, "It is God which worketh in you
both to will and to do of his good pleasure." The Bible warns against
temptation, and then it tells of One who was himself tempted in all points
like as we are, yet without sin, of One who is able to succor them that
are tempted. The religion of the dead code becomes the religion of the
living Person. The Ideal becomes Example, and both Ideal and Example are
found in a Saviour.
With all this in our purpose, as well as in our creed, we come to the
Bible in full harmony with its primary intent. We find now that for every
moral and spiritual emergency the Book has its message. If it were
necessary we could list these emergencies and show the word that the
Bible has for each of them. Here is an illustration that serves as well as
a thousand for making the main point. The Gideons have been placing the
Bibles in the hotels of America. Travelers seldom go to their rooms
without seeing upon the table a copy of the Book. The organization that
has done this good work often receives accounts, anonymous or otherwise,
of the help given by the Bibles that its work has supplied. Here is a
letter received from a young woman:
Perhaps a word will help you to realize that the little "Good Book" on
the table in a lonely hotel room helps some. Last night, after
fighting the fight that any young woman with any appearance fights, I
found myself in Chicago at this hotel. I had papers, magazines, books,
and other reading matter, but for a joke--yes, joke--I picked up the
Bible. It fell open at the seventieth psalm. Can you imagine the
impression it made on me? I read it again and again. Needless to say,
it helped and I feel better, happier, and not so much alone.
Picture the full circumstances, and we may feel that the help went deeper
and wrought more than this letter indicates. If this young woman was at
the beginning of that dreadful path of death that invites careless
travelers, how much must these ancient words, so graciously modern, have
meant to her? "Make haste, O God, to deliver me; make haste to help me, O
Lord. Let them be ashamed and confounded that seek after my soul: let them
be turned backward, and put to confusion, that desire my hurt. Let them be
turned back for a reward of their shame that say, Aha, Aha. Let all those
that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: and let such as love thy
salvation say continually, Let God be magnified. But I am poor and needy;
make haste unto me, O God: thou art my help and my deliverer; O Lord, make
no tarrying." Any study of the authorship or date of this seventieth
psalm, or any theorizing as to the identity of "The chief musician," or
even any discussion of the particular circumstances under which the words
were originally written would not have solved the life problem of a young
woman coaxed on toward carelessness. The psalm was penned to make God
real, and his help real. Doubtless it performed that office long ago; and
surely it performs that office now whenever a needy heart supplicates the
good God by means of the ancient prayer. "Thy word have I hid in my heart,
that I might not sin against thee"--this was the psalmist's statement as
to the reason for carrying portions of the ancient revelation with him on
all his journeys. "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By
taking heed thereto according to thy word"--this was the use of God's
Word prescribed for all time. The writer of the one hundred and nineteenth
psalm did not have our Bible, but when he wrote these two verses he had
within him the purpose of our Bible. He brought the ancient law within its
primary intent, and he gave the principle by which all later Scripture
should be employed. The Bible is to be placed in the heart as a defense
against sin. The Bible is intended to cleanse the ways of life. The Bible
is given to lead us to Him who is himself the Perfect Life and who offers
the Divine Grace.
All this means that the best apologetic for the Bible is the earnest and
honest use of the Bible. We may well use the apostle's fine phrase and say
that those persons who follow the ideals of the Bible under the
inspiration of the Saviour of the Bible are "living epistles known and
read of all men." They are the modern evidences for the ancient Book, the
human and divine proofs of the human and divine Book. The Bible does not
fail the soul that searches its pages for the paths of truth and
righteousness. The prayer of the ritual is that we may "read, mark, learn,
and inwardly digest, that by patience and comfort of thy Holy Word we may
embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life." In
everything that bears on making men worthy subjects of everlasting life
the Bible is the sure guide. All sincere souls that come to its chapters
with this primary and spiritual intent will find their due reward. They
may stand before the open Book confident that the voice of God will speak
through the written Word and determined that they themselves shall ever be
in the attitude of eager listeners, saying, "Speak, Lord; for thy servants
hear."