The art of enjoying the Bible, by Edward Leigh Pell

Front matter

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(Date)

Contents

I. A Question of Pi^easure II. Getting Ready . . .

III. Manner of Approach

IV. The Matter of Method .

I. A Question^ Of Pleasure

He finds little profit who finds little pleasure in seeking it. The rule holds good in every sphere of activity: in hunting, in fishing, in gold-seeking, in scientific investigation, in searching the Scriptures — in every exacting quest the most valuable "finds" are reserved for those who find most pleasure in toiling for them. The man who quickly tires of carrying a gun brings back little game; the man who finds no delight in scrambling over the rocks finds little gold ; the man who never reads a chapter in the Bible, without first turning the leaf to see how long it is, will not grow rich in heavenly wisdom. One cannot draw treasures out of a mine by a yawn.

To read the Bible with profit, one must not only know how to read it ; one must know how to read it so as to enjoy it. To enjoy a simple story, one needs only to have an appetite for it, and to dive into it. To enjoy a book of complex character — a vast storehouse of intellectual and spiritual riches — one must have, besides an appetite for it, some conception of its value ; and one must know how to get at its contents.

One reason why many people do not enjoy the Bible is that they have never learned that there is anything in it to enjoy. It has not occurred to them that the Bible has any practical use. They keep it in the same way and for the same reason that they keep a family relic — because it is sacred, and they feel better for handling sacred things; and they expect to be rewarded not by anything that they may get out of it, but as a prize for honoring it.

Put a stem- winder in the hands of your boy, and it will be to him nothing more than a toy, until one day he happens to turn the stem and the wheels start off, and it becomes a living watch. Most of us have got to go on an expedition of discovery through our Bibles before we will learn that the Old Book is not a toy, but a living time-piece that tells off the minutes as they fly, and points to the twelfth hour and to the night coming when no man can work.

The prevailing ignorance of the Bible is not of the negative sort; the trouble is not the lack of ideas about the Book, but that the ideas are wrong. Five ugly blisters need puncturing :

1. The Bible is not a chest of relics. Some people profess to dislike the Book for the same reason that they dislike musty odors or dead men's bones. This is mere chaff. The Bible is made of ancient documents, but it is not a whit more ancient than

A QUESTION OF PLEA8VRE. 9

the beautiful vase formed to-day out of materials which have existed since the beginning of creation. If it is old, it is old in wisdom, not in heart.

2. It is not a curiosity shop. There is a prevailing notion among young people that the Old Book is to be valued chiefly for its puzzle corners and the nuts it gives them to crack. Sunday Schools of the "vainer sort" are responsible for this notion. So long as prizes are awarded children for answers to curious questions, just so long will they search the Book with no higher motive than to learn where it is said that a man stood behind a tree eating a mouse.

3. It is not an amulet. A great many people laugh at the poor negro's rabbit foot worn at the throat to keep off evil spirits and — use a Bible instead. They keep a Bible in the house for the same reason that some people are said to keep bees in the yard — for luck. A chapter read ever so mechanically before going to bed eases the conscience, soothes the nerves, softens the pillow and exorcises the ghosts.

4. It is not a literary production, as such. I am heartily sick of the sentiment which crops out of nearly all of our modern methods of biblical study, that the Bible is valuable chiefly as a literary feast or an intellectual gymnasium. It is true that it is literary in form — that it contains the best poetry, the most entertaining history, the highest philosophy — but it is literary in form only, not in purpose. Its poetry was not given us to criticise, its history to

10 ART OF ENJOTINQ THE BIBLE.

question, its philosophy to speculate upon. There would not have been a line of poetry, or history, or philosophy from Genesis to Revelation if the purpose of the Author could have been better secured by other means. The world has never needed a revelation to unfold the power of language or to establish a principle of rhetoric.

What, then, is the Bible ?

It is a word, ^ot words, not a miscellany, not an encyclopedia of familiar quotations, not a conglomerate or ^ ^composite" mass of facts and figures, but one word ; one complete expression of one will.

It is the word. Not one of many revelations of the same authority counting equally with the imbecilities of the Koran and the incoherencies of the Mahatmas, but the word; the best word, the final utterance of its Author.

It is the word of God. l^ot the word of Moses, or Paul, or David, or John. Not the record of many minds, though the work of many pens. How do I know it is of God? Because it inspires God-like lives and lends a hand in making them. Because when we are at enmity with him it is the last book we want to read. Because the nearer we get to him the better we understand it.

It is a letter from our Father. If we love him, whether we can get any sense out of it or not, if it is the only letter he has written us, we will treasure it ; we will try to read it now and then. And if we love

A QUESTION OF PLEASURE. 11

him we will not feel like picking flaws in it; we will not have the heart — or the lack of it — to criticise the spelling, or the grammar, or the ignorance it exhibits on scientific matters. And because he is our Father we will take his word for what occurred before our time, ho\^5ever impracticable it may appear to us to-day.

It is a letter of invitation. It invites us back home; back to a Father's heart; back to an inheritance ; back to forgiveness, peace, joy, life eternal.

It is not only an invitation to heaven; it gives us full directions how to get there. My guide-book to Europe I find dull reading. But if I should decide to go to Europe the first thing I would want would be that guide-book, and I would find it the newest, freshest, most indispensable book in my library. And that is just what a man finds his Bible to be when he wakes up one fine morning and says, deep down in his heart, that he is going to heaven. As we walk the deck of the ship of life we usually learn whither the passengers are bound by the guide-books they hold in their hands.

!N^ot only does it give full directions about the way, but it contains supplies enough for the whole journey ; it is the commissary of the soul. God's word is bread. Like the manna given to Israel, it is intended for daily use ; like the loaves which Jesus brake, the more we eat the more we have; like the handful of meal in the widow's barrel, the more we give to others the more we have left for ourselves. Multitudes of God's children are starving while the pantrj shelves groan beneath the weight of nutritious loaves.

And then there are directions for times of sickness — a complete family physician, describing every disease of the soul and pointing to an infallible remedy.

And lest we have other needs along the way, there are placed here and there through the Book hundreds of sight drafts, endorsed by our Lord himself, with the space for the amount left blank to be filled out according to our faith. They are like the ten-dollar notes a mother laid between the leaves of her boy's Bible when he was about to leave home, which he did not find until he had played the prodigal act and hungered for husks.

Is the outfit complete? Ought not the traveller to have a lamp for his feet ? Hold the Book up on a dark night of sorrow and see! Every page shines with the light which comes from the face of God.

But to know that the Bible contains what we need is one thing; to feel that it contains what we want is another. Few things are so hard to open as an oyster until you want the oyster. The self-complacent, comfortably full man is not likely to find his way into either the Bible or the oyster. I do not say that one must never go to the Book until he is hungry, but that to read it with enjoyment one must have an appetite for it.

A QVE8TI0I} OF PLEASURE. 13

HoNv can I acquire an appetite for the Book ?

A sweet girl falls into the silly habit of eating salt. First it is taken in immoderate quantities in the food. Then it is dipped between meals. Then the bloom vanishes, and bj-and-by the system is disordered. Food is forced until it can no longer be forced. What is the remedy? First, stop the salt; second, straighten out the system; third, take plenty of air and exercise. Sometimes a child of God falls into the habit of dipping, not salt, but sin. Just one little appetizing sin. Soon it ceases to be a luxury and seems a necessity. The bloom fades. The blood is dried up. The entire spirit is disordered. The Word of God, once nutritious food, becomes stale and flat. The salt habit and the sin habit are very much alike. So are the methods of treatment. The sin must be put aside. The whole system must undergo a thorough cleansing. Then the patient must have air (the air that comes in through the closet window from the fragrant banks of heaven — the atmosphere of prayer), and exercise — exercise unto good works; a deed of love ; a word of sympathy ; a helping hand stretched out ; a good, rapid walk to carry glad tidings to some one in sorrow. A little while and the pure air and brisk exercise will bring back the appetite to the cleansed system, and the soul will hunger, first for the sincere milk and then for the strong meat of the Word.

U ART OF ENJOYING THE BIBLE.

Finally, to enjoy the Bible one must know how to get at its contents. This I shall attempt to show in the chapters immediately following.

II. GETTma EEADY

How to study the Bible is largely a question of preparation. One must have the proper means for getting at and appropriating the treasures of the Book.

There are persons of unquestionable sincerity who shut their eyes to the meaning of many passages by deliberately ignoring all external aids to interpretation. They tell us that the Bible interprets itself, or that the Holy Spirit will interpret it for them without the aid of secular and unhallowed learning. To say that one can understand the Bible without external aids is putting it a little stronger than the most enthusiastic hater of human learning would endorse after a moment's reflection. A knowledge of the English language is an external aid, but it is generally acknowledged to be essential to the understanding of the English Bible. If our Father had the same opinion of human learning that some of his children ha^-e, no doubt he would have given u^ a book unencum-

16 ART OF ENJOriNG THE BIBLE.

bered by any hmnan language whatsoeyer. If the Holy Spirit giyes us the ability to catch the meaning of a text without knowing anything of its form, there is no more reason why plain people should confine themselyes to an English version than that they should read the Bible only in Syriac. There is no such thing as interpreting the Bible without outside helps. We haye this treasure in earthen vessels, and we must have regard for the vessels. And we must have regard for the Holy Spirit, who, whatever he may do for those who are too weak to do anything for themselves, does not encourage laziness by doing for us that which we can do for ourselves. One might as well neglect to learn his letters in order to understand his Bible, as to neglect to secure all the information he can get from whatever source to enable him to understand the style and arrangement, the methods of thinking, the customs, surroundings and history which form the clothing or body of the Word. It is easy to believe that the "ignorant old woman in the lane" understands the Bible better than the greatest scientist living who is not on terms of friendship with its Author, but it is just as true that this old woman (who, by the way, we have not found to be as ignorant or feeble in intellect as she is painted, ) would be able to understand the Bible a great deal better if she had the equipment of the greatest scientist living in addition to her own.

A busy man will find in a teacher's Bible and a

GETTING READY. 17

good Bible dictionary all the helps that he is likely to find helpful. Indeed, there is hardly anything else one could ask for except a good commentary, which is a thing to be desired, provided one has the money to buy it, the time to use it, and the common sense not to abuse it. It is not every man that knows how to use a crutch. If you have a scholarly friend at your elbow, you will ask him one question to-day, two to-morroAv, three the next day, and it is only a question of time when he will be doing all your thinking for you. A commentary often proves a very good thing in its place, but it should never be in a very convenient place. Its business is to help us when we have gone the full length of our rope, and if we go to it for help before we have done our level best we will soon be doing our level worst. Go to a commentary not for what you don't know, but for what you can't find out.

One word of caution needs to be added. In consulting a commentary it is not enough to know of the author of the interpretation that he is pious, learned or brilliant. A man may have all of the qualifications which these terms signify, and still be utterly incapable of finding the true meaning of a passage. It is this fact — or, rather the failure to recognize this fact — that causes so many people to be carried away by every wind of doctrine. A man with a clerical air comes along with a strange theory. People ask, "Is he smart?" "Is he scholarly?" '^ "Is he a good man ?" And if they get satisfactory answers to each of these questions they are his. But it takes more than piety, brilliance, and learning to unlock the treasury of the Word. The distinguishing mark of the Bible is its perfect sanity. It is the sanest of all books. To interpret it one must have, whatever else he may have, a perfectly sane mind. The most absurd interpretations that have ever been placed upon the Scriptures have been made by men of undoubted brilliance and piety, who were sadly lacking in common sense. When a man brings us a new interpretation we not only want to look at his heart, we want to look at his brain. Are there any indications of a loose screw ? Is he a little off ? Is his mental health unsound ? Such a man may interpret poetry for us, if he chooses to try, but we do not care to have him interpret our Bible for us, however pious or learned he may be.

But it is one thing to o^vn helps and another to make them your own. Distribute a dozen saws among as many men, and in three minutes you will be able to put your finger on every mechanic in the group. A man and his tools fit. Distribute a dozen Bibles in a prayer meeting, and you will know in an instant who are Bible students. Some people's fingers are all thumbs the moment you put a Bible in their hands; others turn the leaves as if their fingers were attracted to the right text by magnetism. Have one Bible for your study and use no other.

GETTING BEADY. 19

Practice turning the leaves — one at a time, ten at a time, a hundred at a time. Continue the practice until you can find any book at the first turn, any chapter at the second, any verse at the third. In turning the leaves use the thumb and first finger. Turn at the top on the right hand, and at the bottom on the left hand, and never yield to the temptation to turn any other ^vay. Stick to these simple rules, and you will soon acquire such facility in the use of the Book itself that it will no longer be a trial to look up references, and you will thus get out of your way one of the most serious hindrances to the enjoyment of Bible stiidy.

There is one important tool which the Bible student does not have to buy, and which is often overlooked on this account. I mean his brain. Like praying, like playing upon a musical instrument, like writing, to read the Bible with delight one must be in an electric condition of mind. You want a bright, fresh hour, when the brain is awake and the heart hungry. The man who never opens his Bible except at midnight when he is ready to drop from fatigue and drowsiness, simply sees the words on the page; they do not enter his mind.

But the best material or intellectual preparation will not in the smallest degree make up for the lack of preparation of the heart — the spiritual instrument . with which we grasp the spiritual truths of the Word. The Bible is not an iron safe, to be opened by those

W ART OF ENJOYING THE BIBLE.

who are keen enoiigli to discover the combination ; it is rather a rare and delicate flower, that must have a certain atmosphere before it can be induced to unfold its petals and disclose its honey-cup and share with you its sweet perfume. The atmosphere of the Bible is the atmosphere of prayer. Or, to change the figure, the keynote of the Bible is the keynote of prayer. A great deal of time is wasted trying to catch the heavenly notes of the Book, when we are utterly unprepared to hear them. Ordinarily you cannot lay down a newspaper and enter at once into 3^our Bible, for the simple reason that your heartchords are not strung taut enough. The morning paper is tuned to the ordinary level of every-day life and thought, while the Bible is keyed up to a level with the thoughts which men think when they leave the busy street and go out upon some mountain-top and uncover their heads to the cooling breeze, and look up into the blue veil which separates the holy place into which they have entered from the Holy of Holies. It is not until we are in a condition to talk to God that we are in the best condition for God to talk to us.

Besides, the Bible is the text-book of the Holy Spirit, and it can never be learned outside of his. school. We are children still, and we know not how to read unless the Teacher keeps his finger upon the words and prompts us when we fail to call them right.

And so, if I had but ten minutes to read my Bible,

GETTING READY. 21

I would spend five getting ready. I would go off to some qniet spot — the same place every day, if possible — the same place I go to when I would speak to God in prayer. I would shut the door on the world ; I would open the window toward heaven. Then I would be still. I would be still until every worldly thought took wings — until the brain ceased to whirl and the heart became as calm as a twilight hour. Then I would look up. I would look up until I was conscious of His presence — until I could almost feel the breath of His love fan my cheek. And then I would open my Bible and listen for the still, small voice of Him who neither strives nor cries, neither is His voice heard in the streets.

^'But suppose you cannot reach this high pitch — what then ?" Tlien I ^vould open my Bible anyhow. The first few verses will be meaningless, but if I pull through them slowly, they may arouse me sufficiently to grasp those which follow. Sometimes they will not. Sometimes all methods will fail. Sometimes I would allow myself to be led by the impulse of the moment. I would dip here, there, any^vhere, trying to awaken my appetite. Even then I might fail. What of it ? Because I had no appetite at dinner yesterday, will I stay away from the table to-day ?

SELECTED HINTS.

Have your pen at hand, that you may note such references as occur to you in the margin, and that vou may be able to indicate any passage which has shone out like a star to your soul. I think I coull tell the history of my life in a series of verses, selected from every part of the Sacred Book, which have been ray beacon-lights all along its course. — F. B. Meyer.

You should have a blank-book in which to enter the results of your study. I do not advise any system of Bible-marking. Keep your Bible clean to express to you God's thoughts, not to serve as a journal, or a diary of your own. The best blank-book for library purposes is an interleaved Bible ; the best for use in the class is a little blank-book to be carried in the pocket; better than either is a combination — a small blank-book to jot down the thought at the moment; to serve as the merchant's day-book and an Index Kerum or an interleaved Bible, into which these thoughts are transferred from time to time ; to serve as the merchant's journal and ledger. — Lyman Ahhott.

Inspired men only know how to read inspired books. The best commentary on the Bible is a devout and ecstatic soul. The mere scholar may read the letter; the saint detects the inner spirit. ^'Spiritual things are spiritually discerned." — Zions Herald.

Another invaluable aid is meditation. Secular study demands active exercise. God in infinite love has so arranged that in Christian study hours of quiet meditation are as necessary as those of active brain

GETTING READY. 2S

labor. There are times when you will learn faster by being still than any other way. — Anon.

The foUoAving list of commentaries was prepared by Professor Townsend for the Bible Reader's Guide : '

In the way of lifting Bible facts and characters into the realm of reality, Dean Stanley's ^'Sinai and Palestine" and "Lectures Upon Jewish History/' "The Life and Epistles of St. Paul" by Conybeare and Howison, Van Lennep's "Bible Lands/' Geikie's "Holy Land and the Bible/' and Thompson's "The Land and the Book/' are invaluable, ^o commentator surpasses Bengel in the power of condensation and perspicuity. His parallel references are unrivalled.

We are safe in saying that for critical and grammatical accuracy no conmientaries quite equal those of Charles J. EUicott.

The established canons of interpretation are to be found in Home's "Introduction'^ (Vol. II.) and in Immer's "Hermeneutics."

Trench, better than any other writer, will aid you in the exposition of the parables and miracles.

Oriella, in the field of prophecy, will be of great service.

Pairbairn is the best guide in the typology of the Scriptures.

Dr. Murphy's commentaries are well up in modern science, and are especially valuable as an antidote to the destructive criticism on the Pentateuch. They

U ART OF ENJOYING THE BIBLE.

are to be prized also for the accuracy of their translations.

The Book of Job has no commentator quite equal to Thomas Wemyss.

Henderson on the Minor Prophets ought to be used.

The Calvinistic student cannot dispense with the commentaries of Moses Stuart, nor can the Arminian student well do without the commentaries of Dr. Wheedon. Perhaps no Bible student in these times should be without both Stuart and Delitzch on Hebrews. The logical and philosophical methods of investigation employed by Stuart are almost a marvel.

The spirituality found in Matthew Henry's commentary makes it of great value.

The sermons of F. Robertson on Corinthians are excellent expositions.

HI.

MAKJSTER OF APPROACH.

The Bible is like most of its readers in that what you get out of it depends largely niDon how yon approach it. It is not abnormally sensitive; it does not put on airs; it is not a stickler for etiquette; it does not draw back from a browned hand, nor shudder at an awkward bow or a rhetorical blunder. But it does require that the man to whom it is to open its heart shall approach it in a becoming manner, and with a spirit at one with its own.

Disregard of this requirement is at the bottom of nearly all failures in Bible study, and is the secret of all destructive criticism. Men have gone to the Bible as they would to an ordinary book, and found only an ordinary book. The Bible cannot prevent us from cataloguing it with other books, but we suffer the penalty of being denied a glimpse of its deeper treasures. It does not reveal to us more than we are r.?ady to admit that it possesses.

The destructive critic laughs to scorn the claim that [25]

the Bible should not be approached as an ordinary book, as if inimnnitj were claimed for it on account of its sacred associations or its supernatural origin. But it is not immunity that is asked ; it is simply the demand that a flower shall be examined on its own soil and in its own congenial climate. It is the claim which the critic himself makes for certain books which he has found to appeal to his higher nature imder peculiar conditions. Every one knows that there are books which yield nothing to the highest intellectual skill, but open their treasures without coaxing to a great spirit. The best equipped scholar in the world, if lacking in certain traits of character, might honey-comb our greatest poems without finding their holy of holies. There are books on w^hich the humble feed every day, which have not so much as a crumb for the haughty spirit. Surely w^hat we ask, and wliat is readily granted for these books which appeal to our better nature, is not too much to ask for the Book which is the mother of them all.

If the Bible is to open its heart to us, we must approach it with sincerity and earnestness of purpose. We do not trouble ourselves to talk with a man whose sincerity we question and whose purpose is not clear. We will tell him the time of day, or show him on his way, as far as we are going; but we will not open our heart to him. We do not cast our pearls before swine; neither do we care to show them to men who want to dispute their purity, or who, incapa-

MANNER OF APPROACH. ^

ble of appreciating them, are moved solely by curiosity.

The Bible is not a book of facts, though it teems Avith them. It is a book of wisdom. It was not writien that we might know, in order to be knowing, but that we might know, in order to be doing. It was not the intention of its Author to teach geography or rhetoric, but to teach those triiths which impel and guide men to him. That these truths should be clothed in the forms in which we find them means nothing more than that God found it best to clothe them as we find them. The man who goes to the' Book impelled only by curiosity finds little except curiosities, and some things to excite his curiosity without gratifying it. It is the most annoying book in the world to a purely curious mind, l^ot curiosity to know, but a desire for wisdom, opens the way to the Book, The key to the will of God is an earnest purpose to do that will when it shall be known. We must read it with a willing spirit, ready to do what Ave find commanded therein; a spirit that will not reject its mysteries nor stumble at its obscurities.