01. Bible Study

Bible Study Some of Its Laws, Methods and Principles As History teaches philosophy by examples, both exhibiting and testing ethical principles, so practical results both manifest and prove the utility of methods. For many years certain laws and modes of scripture research have been adopted and approved in actual daily practice, and with such growing confidence in their value and helpfulness as to suggest their formal statement and illustration, in hope of aiding, in some measure, other bible students, and especially those who are either comparatively beginning such study or who, by reason of other necessary secular labors, have less leisure for systematic search into the Word of God. We are all dependent in part upon the experience of others. It is a necessity that there should be a division of labor, for we cannot all, in one short life, do everything; and so each of us is appointed of God, to some specific form of activity, both to accomplish and accumulate somewhat for ourselves, and to contribute somewhat to the common store and stock of knowledge and experience from which others may draw. It is a law both of privilege and of obligation, that we should pass on what we learn, give what we get, communicate what we receive. It is only selfishness that is content to hoard; all noble living spends; and so one naturally desires to suggest what has been tried and proven to be valuable and useful in that first of all the sciences and fine arts, the accurate understanding of the inspired Word of God. The method here followed will be to indicate, first, a law, principle, or mode of scripture study, and then give some amplifications, applications, corroborations and illustrations of it.

Manifestly the Word of God consists of form and substance, expression and conception, what is external and what is internal; and the natural and normal method in study will be from what is without to what is within. That famous saying of Wordsworth, however, “Language is the incarnation of thought,” suggests that the ideas and the words which embody them are inseparable, and cannot really be studied wholly apart from each other. The shell of a nut is so related to the kernel, and the shell of a mollusk, to the animal that inhabits it, that each variety has its own peculiar enclosure or tenement, adapted to its nature and uses, and could not exchange with another; and we shall find, as we examine closely the literal element in the Word of God, that we are passing, by unconscious and gradual steps, into the spiritual content. We shall, however, approach our great subject as from the outside, proceeding from what is general to what is special, and from the letter to the spirit; seeking to begin at the beginning, with what is fundamental and rudimental, and as far as practicable advancing, step by step, from vestibule and outer court to inner chambers and inmost shrine. There should be in all this advance no careless, prayerless step; the place where we stand is holy ground, and should be trodden with reverent feet; and, if such an attitude is imperative for one who ventures to act as guide, it is scarcely less needful for those who would follow. We trust, therefore, that the reader will peruse these pages in sympathy with the spirit and motive with which they have been written, seeking only to “know the scriptures” and “the power of God.”

First, then, we take a glimpse of this divine book as a whole; then look at its language and literary features, its words as indexes of its thought; then at its ideas, ideals and conceptions, advancing toward what is mystic and mysterious.