04.001. Part 1: The Art of Bible Study

The Art of Bible Study The Writer’s Word to the Reader Of making many books there is no end-- Ecclesiastes 12:12. This is still true, and in view of the fact, that so many treatises, large and small, have already been written on the Science and Art of constructing discourse, it may seem needless to add to the number, particularly as the author claims no originality of conception, novelty of method, or exceptional homiletic faculty. The right of a book to be must be justified by its definiteness of aim and purpose; and the object in view must determine both whether it is worthy to be received, and how it is to be judged. The purpose of these pages is more than to contribute a few outlines of sermons, or furnish hints which may be helpful and useful in the framing or framework of effective discourse. It is rather to gather up and crystallize into form some results of years of Bible study, and present conclusions which are the outcome of personal experiment as to the matter and manner of treating Scripture themes--lessons learned quite as often in the school of failure as of success.

There are some principles which underlie all powerful preaching, but which are not only sadly neglected, but little apprehended or understood. These we would thrust into the front rank that a true basis may be laid for the knowledge and use of divine truth. These principles have to do first of all with the art of Bible study.

There are three rules which cannot be too strongly emphasized: Search, meditate, compare.

Search The truths which stamp this Book as Divine, putting between it and every other an impassable gulf, do not always lie on the surface like pebbles on the beach, to be picked up; but rather like gold or gems, in hidden veins or mines, to be dug up. No other book so bears, or so rewards, patient, untiring study. He who searches discovers, even in oft-trodden ground, what is surprisingly new, beautiful, valuable; and such discovery has no limit. The field is inexhaustible in wealth; exploration becomes explanation, with ever fresh disclosures of rich meaning, and practically new revelations of the mind of God.

Meditate

There is a study, akin to rumination, which yields results of singular richness. God bids the reader, like Joshua, “meditate therein day and night”; (Joshua 1:8) to be “like a tree, planted by the rivers of water,” (Psalms 1:3) with roots reaching down where they habitually drink up the celestial moisture. This is a study that demands time to make its deepest impression. He will be a “forgetful hearer” (James 1:25) of the word, or a superficial reader, who rests content with a hasty or casual glance. Into this mirror--the Perfect Law of Liberty--one must continue looking. Unlike the sensitive plate in the camera, the mind takes few instantaneous impressions which prove lasting; it needs the time exposure and the fixing solution.

Compare The Word of God is its own interpreter: one part corrects or confirms another. Often the Book is its own lexicon, defining its terms, and its own commentary, expounding its meaning. It reflects its Author’s unity, but it is a unity in diversity: unless there be careful comparison of its various teachings, the diversity is seen without the unity, so that, instead of all roads leading to one golden milestone, diversity seems divergence; what God meant as counterparts and correspondences appear as contradictions. But, when we search, meditate, and compare, what at first seemed blemishes become beauties, challenging further investigation, which in turn is repaid by new disclosures and revelations.

These three rules, however important, are not exhaustive. Other three, put beside them, are, if possible, more vital to the best results: Pray, believe, obey.

Pray The devout frame is the secret of clear vision: “Open Thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of Thy law!” (Psalms 119:18) This is a Temple of Truth of which the Builder holds the key, and unlocks only to the praying soul its secret chambers. The “Princes of this World,” in their pride of worldly wisdom, stand without; while the little child who is self-distrustful and humbly seeks to be taught of the Spirit, goes within. Here we best “advance on our knees.” The arrogant pretentiousness of unsanctified learning, which levels the Word of God to the human plane, and assumes that there is in it no supernatural element, is, in the matter of Bible study, a sort of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which hath no forgiveness. Whatever else a preacher does in preparing for the pulpit, let him above all pray. Otherwise, like Elisha’s servant, who at first saw nothing, though the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire, he will remain blind to the highest verities. There is no clarifier for spiritual vision like Prayer. It is God’s eye salve.

Believe

It is a unique law of spiritual life, that knowing is not in order to believing, but believing is in order to knowing. Faith is not so much the result, as the condition, of the highest knowledge. Disbelief and unbelief have a strange power of arresting spiritual intelligence and hindering spiritual instruction. Persisted in, they produce incapacity, putting fetters upon the understanding. God sent Isaiah to say to Ahaz, “If ye will not believe, surely ye shall not be established.” (Isaiah 7:9) Here is a delicate play on words, difficult to convey by translation: “if ye will not confide, surely ye shall not abide.” The deep meaning is that if they would not believe they would not be established in knowledge. The mere scientist prides himself on his incredulity: he x believes only what he scientifically knows, and laughs at Christian faith as credulity. But the docile disciple learns that only by implicitly trusting the Word of the Lord can he climb to the loftiest heights of certainty. Doubt dims the eye; distrust cramps and cripples the spirit. When a preacher begins to doubt, his pulpit loses its dynamic, and becomes destructive of faith, rather than constructive.

Obey

Nothing can be more important, even to the understanding of the truth, than to practice it. “If any man will do His will, he shall know of the teaching.” (John 7:17) Obedience is the great organ of spiritual revelation. Doing the will of God is the divine condition of spiritual light--of further illumination. Disobedience brings darkness, and is darkness. The preacher must himself practice what he preaches, otherwise spiritual vision will be dim, and, if the blind lead the blind, only the ditch is before both. To translate into holy living what one is learning is the supreme secret of teaching the truth to others. The experimental element imparts strange authority and unction to testimony: it enables the preacher to speak as a witness--one who knows. Then it is that the tree, planted by the river of God, transmutes into sap the water of the living Word, and so makes possible the leaf, bloom, and fruit of abundant service. In a word, from first to last the true Bible student needs to keep in the presence of its Author, who is its only adequate Exegete, Commentator, Interpreter. None can explain His own Text Book like the Master Teacher Himself; and to be a docile pupil in His school is to acquire that spiritual learning which fits for spiritual teaching, and for which the best instruction of human schools can never be a substitute. Indeed, unsanctified scholarship rather makes the Cross of Christ of none effect.

We venture to put in a plea for expository preaching, which has a charm and a power of its own. Many modern sermons are untextual, isolating the text from its surroundings, and losing therefore the light reflected upon it by the connection. The critical study of the original tongues has great advantages. One grand correction to the loose notions of inspiration, now prevalent, is the devout and minute examination of the very words of Scripture, their number and gender, mood and tense, case and voice, derivation and arrangement. Such study will show with what divine discrimination the language is chosen, and that the words could be displaced and replaced by no others without loss of sense and force. After a thousand readings, new wonders are revealed; words grow in meaning, and come into new relations with one another, and with the thought of God, somewhat as stars, gazed at, range themselves in constellations. To perceive such wealth of significance, such skill in selection and arrangement, proves to the student that inspiration covers not only the “concepts” but the language which is the incarnation of the thought.

But, while Biblical study should be minute in details, it should not be less careful and painstaking in seeking to find and bring out the full range and scope of the truth. The grammar and lexicon should prepare for the commentary. The microscopic examination which reveals delicate forms of expression and shades of meaning, however valuable in itself, cannot compensate for the lack of that telescopic vision which takes in, with wider sweep, the whole firmament of truth. Words belong in sentences, sentences in paragraphs, paragraphs in discourses and arguments, which extend through chapters, or, perhaps, a whole book; so that only by surveying a Gospel narrative or an epistle from some commanding “inspiration point,” where it is seen in its unity and totality, can we get the keenest insight into particulars. For example, certain single words and phrases are found to have in them a world of suggestion, not simply as sage sayings or wise proverbs, in separation, but as members having an organic relation to the whole body of teaching. In the human frame, a capillary is an interesting object for microscopic study--an exceedingly minute, hair-like tube with its delicate bore; but no capillary can be understood without tracing its connection with the entire organism. These small vessels unite the extremities of veins and arteries, so that without them the circulation of the blood would be impossible. And Biblical phrases, whatever wisdom they exhibit in themselves, have a vital connection with the whole system of revealed truth. They often sum up what has gone before, and anticipate what is to come after. Some of them are connecting links between different dispensations, or the two Testaments, revealing a deep divine purpose and plan, which could not have been known to the human writer, and therefore proving a higher Authorship.

Instances of the wide-reaching bearing of single words will occur to every Bible student. The “wherefores” and “therefore” of Paul and Peter are often links in a chain of reasoning, reaching over a wide space, the conclusion losing force unless every link between the premises and final conclusion is traced. To appreciate and apply that great saying: “Wherefore, He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him,” (Hebrews 7:25) the argument of the whole Epistle to the Hebrews must be mastered. When Paul writes to the Romans, “I beseech you therefore, brethren by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies, a living sacrifice,” (Romans 12:1) that word, therefore, draws its force from all the preceding chapters. When Peter writes to the Elect Dispersion, “Wherefore, girding up the loins of your mind, being sober, hope to the end,” (1 Peter 1:13) he is appealing to these pilgrims of hope, strangers in an enemy’s country, sojourning for a season, on their way to the heavenly inheritance, to avoid entanglement with hindrances, intoxication with frivolities, and diversion from eternal verities to temporal vanities. Paul, in writing to Corinth, “Therefore, be ye steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord,” (1 Corinthians 15:58) is summing up, in one grand exhortation, the only extended and exhaustive argument on the resurrection of the dead anywhere found in Scripture. That final conclusion is the apex of a pyramid, in which all its lines and angles meet--the capstone and crown of a structure of argument which must be seen in its entirety or the massive grandeur of the theme is lost to view.

Comparative study of Scripture yields also rich suggestion and often helps greatly in exposition.

Comparison of narrative with narrative, or of different statements of one essential fact or truth, discloses both resemblances and differences, otherwise unnoticed. Careless readers confuse records of distinct events, treating them as identical; as, for example, the accounts of the healing of the centurion’s servant and of the nobleman’s son, (Matthew 8:5-10, John 4:46-53) yet at least eight marked points of divergence separate these two occurrences. In one case, a nobleman, himself apparently a Jew, pleads in his own person for his son; the malady is fever; he begs Jesus to go with him, but He does not; the father’s faith is rebuked for its weakness, and the healing word is connected with Cana. In the other case, a centurion, himself a Gentile, pleads, through Jewish Elders, for his servant; the malady is palsy; he bids Jesus not to come Himself, but He apparently goes; the faith of the suppliant is commended as great and the word of healing is connected with Capernaum.

Again comparison unveils suggestive correspondences, as when we put side by side the three conspicuous references to “thorns and thistles”--the signs of curse. (Genesis 3:17; Isaiah 55:10-13; Hebrews 6:1-8; Hebrews 10:26-31) These are first mentioned as the sign that even the ground was cursed for man’s sin. Then they are referred to by the “Evangelical Prophet,” as displaced by signs of blessing when God’s gracious rain, coming down from heaven, makes the earth fruitful in seed for the sower and bread for the eater, and the fir tree and myrtle, beautiful, fragrant and useful, the planting of the Lord, spring up in their stead. And, finally, with these previous passages obviously in mind, the writer to the Hebrews contrasts the receptive soil of the believer’s heart with the stubborn unbelief of the rejecter of grace; the one, as ground on which the rain oft comes down, which drinks in God’s gracious moisture, and responds, bringing forth grateful herbs, and so receiving new blessing from above; the other, under the same heavenly outpour, persisting in its noxious crop of evil, and being rejected, and, nigh unto a second cursing, to be swept by the burning fires of God’s wrath. The contrast suggests a double message, equally mighty for warning to sinners and encouragement to saints. A searching study of Scripture will reveal an undoubted mystical element, a peculiar quality or faculty which it is difficult to express in words, of suggesting a deeper meaning which escapes the careless casual reader. For example, the whole Word of God is indirectly prophetic, forecasting what is to come. Rites and ceremonies, precepts and promises, fasts and feasts, persons and events--all have a typical bearing. The Messianic element pervades the entire fabric of Scripture, like a concealed pattern in a tapestry; and where at first glance it was most obscure, to the practiced eye it afterwards appears most obvious, as the astronomer sees the “patterns” of the heavens, the constellations and zodiacal signs, where the common eye sees only scattered stars. In the works of God, every enlargement of visual power and observation, through the lenses of the telescope, microscope, and spectroscope, brings to light hitherto hidden marvels of the Creative Hand. So, in the Word of God, every increase of real insight reveals new proofs of the same Divine Mind and Hand. The Bible thus becomes a new firmament showing His handiwork, declaring His glory, drawing to itself the steady gaze of the student, and fascinating him with its ever-new wonders. Sometimes phrases which have been hopelessly enigmatic, or construed as poetic and figurative, prove to be literally true, in the light of historic and scientific discoveries, and to have wrapped up for centuries the secrets of nature or the future. This mystical element in Scripture will be found in parabolic forms, of which there are three: Parabolic sayings, as in Luke 15:1-32 and John 15:1-27; parabolic doings, or acts, as in miracles of healing, all of which have a moral meaning, (Luke 5:24; Luke 5:32) exhibiting in the physical sphere Christ’s power over spiritual ailments; and parabolic objects, or forms and patterns, as in the Tabernacle, its structure and furniture, priesthood and vestments, sacrifices and ceremonies. The blessing upon those who search the Scriptures is by no means confined to such as have access to the original tongues. There are many prevailing notions and types of training for the work of the Gospel ministry. But, if efficiency be the standard by which they are to be tried, almost any other qualification may be more easily dispensed with than a true knowledge of the English Bible, or the Word of God in the familiar tongue of the people. What is needed is a practical mastery of the Book as a whole; and if there must be a choice between a linguistic, technical scholarship on the one hand and a practical working familiarity with the Book as a guide to souls, on the other, without hesitation the latter must have preference. We heard a pulpit orator, in the course of a brilliant concio ad clerum, sarcastically sneer at those who, “with a limp-covered Bagster under their arm, go about to teach the ignorant, having never themselves seen the inside of a university or a theological school,” while before him sat more than one man, his Bagster in hand, who, with “little Latin and less Greek,” could far surpass him in thorough knowledge of the contents of that Bible and in the skillful use of such knowledge in leading souls to God.

It needs no unusual discernment to see, if the eye be not blinded by prejudice, that one sign of the times is the demand for a more thorough teaching of the English Bible and a more biblical type of preaching. Humble men who, by painstaking study become well acquainted with the Word of God, get spiritual insight into its meaning, and learn experimentally how to handle it as the sword of the Spirit, are used of God to a marked degree; while scholars, expert in criticism, but lacking in a devout spirit toward God and a sympathetic spirit toward men, are comparatively set aside in soul winning. The greater part of the beauties of God’s Book is to be seen in any good translation, and in none more than in our noble English version. He who can read this only will find that careful, prayerful reading of a whole gospel or epistle at one sitting is like mounting the Matterhorn to survey the wide landscape around and beneath. To read thus continuously and studiously until the whole scope of a book is grasped will disclose the key words that unlock its secret chambers; as when, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, search shows how those three brief injunctions, draw near, lay hold, and hold fast, express all its practical lessons. Devout study will, like the miner’s pick-axe, constantly open up new veins of rich ore, dislodging fresh nuggets of precious metal, suggesting other unexplored depths with still richer treasures; and, after hundreds of years, in our “Anglo-Saxon” Bible we shall find new and unexpected depths of meaning which evidence a Divine authorship, having lost little of their force by transfer to our own tongue. That preaching will not fail to convince and convert, sanctify and edify, and qualify for service, which is saturated with the Word of God; and native preachers, from heathen tribes, have proven this, though they had no translation to depend upon but a rude and blundering attempt, based upon imperfect knowledge of a language now first reduced to writing and scarcely furnishing any adequate terms to convey Divine thoughts. The fact that those who comparatively get a mastery of the Bible in their own tongue are often so conspicuously useful has found more than one recognition in our day. Conferences and conventions, such as those at Mildmay and Keswick in Britain, and Northfield and Winona in America, find their main attraction in systematic Bible study and exposition. For a like reason training schools, such as Mr. Moody founded at Chicago, Dr. Gordon at Boston, and Dr. Guinness in London, have had a larger body of students than many of the more classic schools of theology, because they provide fuller facilities and give more time for Bible study and send forth men that, if knowing little else, are, like Apollos, mighty in the Scriptures.

Some theological schools, of the best order, have established and endowed a chair of the English Bible, and filled it, not with some mere fossil of linguistic learning, but with some thoroughly spiritual teacher, himself an effective preacher, who would be fitted to quicken spiritual life and power in others. Such experiments have proved so successful that their success is no longer doubtful. It is possible that in seeking too large a range of education, concentration is sometimes lost, and we get our minds more occupied with science, philosophy, history, poetry, systematic theology and theoretic homiletics, than with the central, vital truths around which Redemption revolves. It may be well to study the ‘structure of the bow and arrow, but it is more important to learn to be a good archer and hit the mark. From whatever point of view regarded, the devout and diligent study of God’s great Book cannot be too strongly urged upon, not only preachers, but all disciples. But especially do we crave the trumpet tongue of some new Luther, to peal out in the ears of all who attempt to guide souls, those twin injunctions of our Lord: “Search the Scriptures” and “Preach the Gospel”--commands so vitally linked with each other and with all true service as to he inseparable. Any man who hopes, in God’s eyes, to fill any useful and honored place in the present era, as a preacher of the Gospel, must undertake so far to be master of his Bible, as not only to understand its great message but how to present it with all the spiritual force which a thorough knowledge of its contents will impart. Nor is “preaching the Gospel” by any means so common as one might think. This hackneyed phrase was never meant to narrow the range of our testimony by running our appeals in a rigid rut. It is inclusive of all Biblical truth which bears on Redemption as a Divine scheme or a human experience; or, as Dr. Alexander Maclaren so well says: “He who fixes one arm of his compasses in the cross may sweep over as wide a circle as the other arm of his compasses allows.” But there is much that finds its way into the modern pulpit which it would be more laxity than charity to justify as Gospel preaching. Historical lectures, poetic essays, ethical discourses, philanthropic appeals, however entertaining and instructive, may be far from Biblical and evangelical. “Preach the preaching that I bid thee” limited Jonah’s message and should define ours. In a matter so solemn as that of representing God to men as His ambassador, diversions are perversions. To go beyond our instructions forfeits our unique authority. The pulpit is not a mere platform. It has its distinct province, and political harangues, rhetorical word painting, and moral lectures are outside its sphere.

Two centuries ago, when Blackstone the lawyer went the round of London pulpits, he could not tell, in most cases, from what he heard, whether the preacher were a follower of Confucius or Buddha, Muhammad or Christ. Were the experiment repeated today in too many cases it would be with like results. The writer, visiting a cathedral on a Sunday, heard from a distinguished canon an ornate sermon. Amid much that was instructive there was not one vital Scripture truth or one word to help a sinner to salvation or a saint to holiness. It was a plea for Anglicanism, undisguised by even a thin veil. The same day, at evening, he heard the late Mr. Spurgeon on Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians. (Ephesians 3:17-19) It bristled with saving, sanctifying, edifying Bible truth. It was full of the love of God in Christ; it introduced the hearer to the science of Divine mensuration--the depths and heights unfathomable of the grace that reaches even the least and lowest. It represented the Gospel of salvation at its very core and pith. A similar experience, with like contrasts, befell the writer in his own land. In a stately church edifice, a “pulpit prince” was eloquently glorifying humanity; using a text, full of gospel truth, only as hook on which to hang his own wares--appealing to the better element in manhood, in a way that might as well have befitted Rufus Choate, John Morley, Moncure D. Conway, or Keshub Chunder Sen. In substance he said that human nature has infinite capacity for improvement, and he who is at the ladder’s foot may climb to the highest rung if he will. Just afterward, crowds were flocking, though in intense summer heat, to hear a thoroughly Biblical preacher unfold a Scripture germ, somewhat as an Oriental magician makes to grow, before the bewildered eyes of observers, a seed which bursts into leaf, bloom, and fruit. From that gathering, throngs went with the vital truths of the Word lodged in their hearts.

Between these two styles of pulpit discourse there is no comparison as to worth or power. Yet, while the former baffles all but masters of the literary and esthetic who possess oratorical genius, the latter, with its superior practical advantages, is within reach of those of mediocre ability who are diligent and devout. And it is a strange proof of the perversity of human nature that so many are caught in these snares of carnal ambition, while they instinctively feel the higher value and effectiveness of a thoroughly scriptural and spiritual type of preaching.

We are bidden to “Covet earnestly the best gifts,” (1 Corinthians 12:31) and what better gift is there than a thorough insight into the Word of God, with a real mastery of its contents for practical purposes? We know preachers, more than one, who, without any phenomenal powers, have, by painstaking study of the English Bible, fitted themselves so to teach the Word of God that, in the inquiry room, they can meet any perplexity or difficulty that hinders sinner or saint, by turning at once to its Scriptural remedy. To acquire such command of the Scriptures it is well to use always one Bible, so that familiarity with it may serve to fix on the mind’s eye the locality on the page, of all conspicuous texts; so that, without being able always to cite chapter and verse, one can put the finger on a leading precept or promise. There is a pictorial memory that greatly assists a defective numerical memory. The minister of Christ is also a steward of the mysteries of God. (1 Corinthians 4:1) Such stewardship is a solemn trust. “Moreover it is required of stewards that a man be found faithful.” (1 Corinthians 4:2) The preacher must surely know his Bible, and the Lord Jesus Christ who is its grand central theme, and the Holy Spirit who is at once its inspirer and interpreter. Lack of homiletic faculty may be pardoned, or of oratorical genius, but there is a higher faculty of spiritual insight which none need lack, and a practical talent for so using the sword of the Spirit as to prick men’s hearts; and then for so applying the balm of grace as to heal the wound. Wisdom of words often makes the cross of Christ of none effect, while the “foolishness of preaching” is used by God “to save them that believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21) We must not forget, however, that this is no warrant for preaching foolishness, or for being satisfied with anything short of heavenly wisdom. Laziness and shiftlessness are never more unseemly than when they dishonor the high calling of a Bible teacher or gospel preacher. In this work there can never be too much pains, prayer or patience. The subject and object of preaching are too grand to allow of indolent habits or an indifferent spirit. Let him who has but the humblest measure of intellectual faculty whet the edge of his dull weapon upon the Word of God, and prove how a sharp tool may compensate for little strength; while those who possess the alabaster flask of costly culture break it with lavish devotion for the Master’s sake, and outpour its rich contents upon His sacred feet! The pages which follow these introductory words are little more than a record of results reached by the writer, in seeking to study God’s Word according to the method and spirit herein commended to others, and it is hoped that some examples and illustrations of these principles may here be found. The contents are of a varied character; sometimes brief outlines, fragmentary and incomplete, and again fuller studies of great themes; but in either case nothing more than a few specimens, gathered by the way, representing excursions into a territory of Divine truth too vast to be fully explored. Careful study has brought to light hidden parallelisms, symmetry of structure, hitherto unsuspected, but lending new proportion to truth; sevenfold completeness, not apparent on the surface of a passage; or subtle links of connection reaching through chapters. New light has been thrown upon some texts by minute examination of the context, or careful collation and comparison of parallel passages. Sometimes a single sentence, a phrase, or even a word has proved to be the pivot around which other truths revolve and on which they depend. Meditation has given insight, disclosing a wider comprehensiveness of meaning, or revealing new grandeur in some central conception which dominates other subordinate thoughts, and in some cases making all Scripture to stand out as an organism, in which all truth is seen to be vitally and organically related. In a few instances large themes have been traced, like threads, through the entire fabric of Scripture, such as the teaching about the unseen world with its angelic and demoniac hosts, or the doctrine of the Person and Province of the Holy Spirit.

Some repetitions will be found in these Scripture Studies; but it is because the same thought sometimes bears an important relation to more than one theme. But even Paul was not ashamed to repeat: “To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe”--Php 3:1. The reader will easily discover the writer’s partiality for great texts and comprehensive themes; for Biblical phrases which outline the whole plan of Redemption, or forecast the whole future history of the redeemed; for sentences that are turning points in argument, or words that are keys to larger or lesser chambers of mystery. Even Paul hinted that “five words” have sometimes more significance than “ten thousand” others, and it is worth any man’s lifelong effort to find what words, recorded by the Spirit, are specially pregnant with celestial meaning and eternal issues. At least one hope the author indulges: that, however blundering or imperfect these studies may seem to the reader, others may be stimulated to deeper investigation of the exhaustless mines of wealth contained in Holy Scripture, and that more capable and capacious minds may be led to pursue methods which, in this divine field of research, will yield richer results in far more valuable discoveries.

Arthur T. Pierson