Suggestive outline Bible studies and Bible readings

Preface

The work of the present volume was undertaken by tlie editor in response to the earnestly expressed desire of many with whom he has had sweet fellowship in the truth, who wished to have access to many of the readings in his possession. Furthermore, the desire seemed to be general for a book which should take in a larger scope of truth than a former volume of similar character, touching at least on all of the principal points that should be used in testimony for the Master.

The careful topical arrangement and analytical index, which are features of this work, will commend the book to Bible students, and will, we trust, meet a long and widely felt want. If it results in a fuller and deeper study of those precious portions of the Word which are too often neglected, it will have met the purpose and desire of the one who has been greatly blessed and instructed in its collection and arrangement.

Thanks are due for the special favors so kindly and readily granted by many honored teachers of the Word of God, to whom we are indebted for the larger part of the valuable matter which appears in these pages.

JOHN H. ELLIOTT.

ADVANTAGES OF BIBLE READINGS.

BY REV. GEORGE F. PEiTTECOST, D.D.

" Bible readings " is a term of very wide application. It may apply to the old-fashioned — and it ought to be an ever new and current fashion — expository service, or to a topical reading and explanation of the Scriptures, to the simple reading of Scriptures from different portions of the Word that are germane, without note or comment, or, it may be a homiletical reading of a whole chapter or book. Any or all of these kinds of Bible reading are profitable and legitimate.

It is a term now used in contradistinction from mere textual preaching, in which a single text is brought to the attention of the people, and that text opened, developed, and applied. A Bible reading, on the other hand, leads the people over a wide tract of Scriptures, and gives a many-sided view of a subject from a Biblical, rather than from a pulpit, standpoint. In the one case, it is as though an ardent admirer and lover of flowers should pluck a fair and beautiful rose from his green-house, bring it into his parlor, show it to his guests, and descant on its beauties, give them a whiff of its fragrance, and then pick it to pieces, showing them in turn leaf, petal, corona, and stamen. In the other case, it is as if the same man should carry his guests into his rose-house and walk with them through that wilderness of beauty and floral wealth, pointing out, in general terms, the difference in variety, or some striking feature of a particular flower, leaving them to pluck, here and there, as they went through, to carry away with them. Both methods are useful and desirable — neither should be neglected. Upon the whole, I think the Bible reading the more important and productive of the most good ; helping the people more than the modern and almost exclusive method of textual and essay style of preaching. As to the advantages of Bible-readings, I would suggest the following: —

1. You get a more compresensive knowledge of the mind of the Spirit. Take, for instance, a case like this: The Epistle to the Romans abounds in striking texts, from each of which an isolated truth may be strikingly illustrated. But the whole book deals with a grand thought ; viz. : The righteousness of God, and how He can be so, and yet the justifier of the ungodly. Now, there would be great advantage in so reading the thread of this argument out of the book, and pointing out the illustrations and exhortations of the apostle in the course of his argument. Or, take the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is, in the main, an earnest entreaty to the Hebrew converts not to depart from the faith of Christ and go back to Judaism. It becomes, in its development, a magnificent setting forth of sin and unbelief as the great enemies of the believer, and the atonement and "Word of God (for faith to rest on) as the great cure and defense for this double disease and two-headed enemy. No mere text, or a dozen of them, could in anywise give a congregation any adequate idea of that sublime book, containing, as it does, such a wealth of instruction and comfort. And yet a reading, or two or three, would put a congregation of Christians in possession of the hidden treasures of grace therein. Here, for instance, is a little analysis of the book which would afford twelve readings from it — one based on each chapter: 1. The Sin-Purger. 2. The Captain of our salvation. 3. Christ the Head of His house. 4. His people's rest. 5. The Great High Priest. 6. The Forerunner. 7. The Surety of the better covenant. 8. The Minister of the sanctuary. 9. The perfect Offering. 10. The obedient One. 11. Object and Pattern of faith. 12. The Prince and Pattern of faith. 13. The great Shepherd of the sheep. Around these leading thoughts, in these chapters, all the chapter may be grouped and embraced. Or, take " the better things of Hebrews," and you have a rich mine. Or the key-word " o??ce," as it appears in the same book, and you may unlock a mine of riches with it. And so, indeed, every book in the Bible may be treated, with untold advantage, and in a way that preaching from a single text could never afford.

2. This method awakens an astonishing interest among the people in the Bible itself, and helps and inspires them in their own personal study of the precious volume. Any method that sets the people to reading and searching the Scriptures for themselves is a best method.

3. It greatly enriches the life and mind of the preacher himself. The minister who studies texts alone, or, indeed, who studies texts so largely as most ministers do, can never be a /"wZ^ Biblical preacher. Besides, it gives to the minister such a wealth of material, that his embarrassment will be for opportunities to preach, and not where his next sermon is to come from. My Wednesday evening Bible reading service always supplies me with more " texts " to preach from than I can possibly use up for " sermons." After a course of Bible readings in a New England city, a distinguished clergyman and doctor of divinity came to me and said: "These Bible readings are a revelation to me." " In what way ?" I queried. "Why, in this: / never dreamed there was so much material for sermons in the Bihle.'''*

AND BIBLE EEADIXG^.

He had fallen into the pernicious habit of using the Bible to supply him with suggestive texts, and then weaving the sermon from his own brain or from books. What the Church needs to-day, and what sinners need too, is to be flooded and saturated with God's thoughts, and not with our thoughts about God's thoughts.

4. Bible readings tend to promote a much better style or manner^ in preaching. That is, it encourages the preacher in the use of the easy, conversational (not necessarily colloquial) style of address, which does not weary the people as the modern, bad, semi-oratorical manner does. There are but few orators in or out of the pulpit ; and it is the worst of folly for a man who is not an orator by the gift of God, to attempt to be one by the aid of the master of elocution. Any man who is called to preach can talk or discourse (AaAew) the GosjDel. Even a man of ordinary talent can be a man of extraordinary interest, if he only be the bearer of rich and precious gifts. The Church has too long depended on great human abilities in her ministers; she will be far richer when she demands of her ministry more of God's words and less human thinking poised on oratorical wing, and flashing with rhetorical light. Many a good minister who has failed as a pulpit orator may be a successful and sought-after man, if he will abandon that role, and be the simple bearer of good news and the teacher of God's thoughts. I know a man, and all the world knows him, who utterly failed as a preacher, but who, with his heart burning to communicate the Gospel of Christ, said to himself, I can, at least, read God's Word to the people ; and now no building in any city can contain the people who are always anxious to hear him read God's Word and offer his homely, but heart-burning' comments upon it as he goes rushing along, Bible in hand, from Genesis to Revelation, gathering and scattering honey from every book in his bee-like flight through the garden of the Lord. ]\Ien wonder at the secret of his power, and don't understand why many a great preacher has empty benches for an audience, w^hile this unlettered man has crowds of the common people — yes, and the uncommon too — to hear him gladly. " Why and what ? " Answer: "They come to hear the Word of God, not the thoughts of men."

5. It was the Master's method, and also that of the great apostle. "And He preached (e/laAei) the word unto them " (Mark ii, 2). He talked to them of the Scriptures. No oratory here. No preaching in the modern sense here — simple discourse, m which he repeated and commented on the Word of God as to his disciples (Luke xxiv) : "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets. He expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself." What a Bible reading that must have been ! Some modern preaching critic, doubtless, would call it a " grasshopper exegesis "

(with a sneer at the Bible reading method), because, forsooth, instead of expatiating on one text the Master jumped from one passage to another to give a whole idea of Himself. Paul did likewise: "And when they had appointed to him a day, there came many unto his lodging, to whom he expounded and testified the Kingdom of God, persuading them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses and out of the prophets, from morning until evening" (Acts, xxviii, 23). This was Bible reading. I do not wonder that he felt the need of the parchment he left at Troas, and longed for it, and charged Timothy to bring it to him. These were no well written sermons that he wanted to preach over, but the Scriptures out of which he wanted to give Bible readings.

BIBLE READINGS.

BY A. J. GORDOif, D.D.

Bible readings have come to be one of the most interesting features in the religious service of many of our churches. The interest that has grown up in connection with these exercises should be the occasion of sincere gratitude on the part of all lovers of the truth. The time is very recent when it was the problem to know how to win the attention of the church-goers to scripture exposition. Now the most attractive service which can be offered to many congregations, is the Bible reading. We are acquainted with a pastor who holds one service on the Lord's Day, in which he simply reads the Word, without note or comment, letting one passage interpret another, and one text light up another; and so great is the interest in the service that the church is always crowded when it occurs.

We have sometimes heard severe criticisms passed upon the method, now much employed, of expounding the Scripture by the concordance, taking some word-phrase in a given text, and tracing it through the whole Bible, and so unfolding the meaning of a passage by tracing out all the threads of thought running from it and woven up with it. It is charged that it is an indolent method, making little demand for severe thought and rigid meditation. But we are inclined to think that it is the simplest and most natural plan of Scripture exposition. The anatomist, when he would study the structure of the human body, picks up a nerve or a vein or an artery, and follows it out in all its branchings. Every doctrine has its nerves running through the whole body of Scripture ; every text has its veins through which the life blood of its thought courses ; and the true anatomical method is to dissect and trace out these nerves and veins.

The tracing of a word throughout the Scripture is not a fanciful or trivial method of study. For words are inspired when found in the pages of the Bible. They are the shining way-marks which the Holy Ghost has fixed for us, to guide us throughout the mysteries of Scripture. They are often the illumined footprints by which we can trace the way of Him "whose goings-forth have been of old, from everlasting." Hence the word-study of the Bible is by no means to be despised. And we believe that it is not too much to say, that of the commentaries which have been written on the Scriptures, the concordance is the best. Hear the weighty testimony of Bishop Horsely on this point. He says : " It is incredible to any one who had not made the experiment, what a proficiency may be made in the knowledge that maketh wise unto salvation by studying the Scriptures with reference to the parallel passages, without any other commentary or expositor than that the different parts of the sacred volume mutually furnish for each other." Let the most illiterate Christian study them in this manner, and let him never cease to pray for the illumination of the spirit by which these books were dictated, and the whole compass of abstruse philosophy and recondite history shall furnish no argument with which the perverse will of man shall be able to shake this learned Christian's faith.

Of course we do not imply that Scripture study should end with the concordance. After the threads have been traced out and unraveled from the web of Scripture, then comes the reweaving them into such patterns of beauty as shall delight the eye, and into such o'arments of o-race as shall fit the various forms of human need. We need despise nothing that can make the gospel plain and attractive ; illustration, argument, experience and parable ; anything that may help man to discern the meaning of the word. But all is to be woven into and upon the strong warp of literal Scripture truth.

WHY WRITTEN.

BY A. J. G0ED02S", D.D.

NoTHLSTG is more important for us than the discovery that the Word of God is the absolute resting place for our faith, Christ is, indeed, the supreme object of faith ; but, since we know him onl}^ through the Scriptures, we must believe the Word in order to believe on Christ. There are many ways through which the temptation 2

10 OUTLIJSTJE BIBLE STUDIES

comes to us to take our eyes off from the written testimony of Scripture, and to fasten them on something else — upon tradition, or religious experience, or the testimony of conscience ; but a glance at the matter will show us how absolutely God shuts us up to his Word for all that we need to know for our salvation and life.

Let us consider four passages from the Gospel and Epistles of John, as showing the purpose of his writing : " But these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that, believing, ye might have life through His name (John XX, 31).

Here is the evidential purpose of the Word. Christ proved Himself the Son of God by many signs and wonders before his crucifixion; and "He showed Himself alive after His passion by many infallible proofs." Record was made of these things that we might have the strongest possible evidence of the Sonship of Jesus Christ. Many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book; but these are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God." This is the first thing we are required to believe. " Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God" (1 John v, 1). "But how may I know that He is the Christ ? " it may be asked. Not from tradition, not by some extraordinary revelation of the spirit to the heart, but by the record of facts which God has caused to be written. The first look of faith is fastened to evidence. There are things which we are required to believe without evidence, as we shall see later. But this truth of the Sonship of Jesus rests solely on the record of the miraculous facts by which he proved himself the Christ.

Believing, on the testimony of what is written, that Jesus is the Christ, we "have life through His name." But how do we know that we have life when we have believed ? These things have I written unto you that believe on the Son of God, that ye may know that ye have Eternal Life, and that ye may believe on the name of the Son of God " (1 John v, 13). Here the thought is taken up exactly where the previous text dropped it. Believing the record, know that Jesus is the Christ; believing that Jesus is the Christ, we have life. And now these things are written that we may Jcnow that we have life.

The constant tendency is for believers to search in their own hearts for the evidence of their renewal and sonship. No doubt there are such evidences to be found, if they are truly born of God. But God does not send us these chiefly or first of all. The testimony of the word is first. The testimony of the consciousness is secondary. The inward witness we would not deny; but this can be trustworthy only as the transcript and fac simile of the written witness of Scripture.

From what is written we know Jesus Christ to be the Son of God ; from what is written we know ourselves to be the sons of God through faith in Jesus Christ. And to every temptation to doubt and distrust, we should oppose with the same weapon that Christ tlirice used against the Tempter. "It is w-ritten " ( John i, 12, 13; iii, 30; V, 24 ; vi, 47 ; 1 John v, 11, 12), "and these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full" (1 John i, 4). What things? These : that the life w^as manifested ; and through this life w^e have not only sonship, but fellow^ship, one with another, and pre-eminently "with the Father, and with his Son, Jesus Christ." Even our joy must have its spring in the record. We rejoice because from God's Word we know^ that w^e are sons. We do not know that w^e are sons because of the joy which w^e have in our own hearts. Joy comes from the great and wonderful truth which God tells us in his writings, but which we Gould never have found out ourselves alone, that we have fellow^ship, actual birth-kindred ship, with Christ and the -Father.

This joy will be perennial and full, because, instead of being pumped up from the shallow reservoir of our ovrn feelings, it flows down ifrom God himself through the channel of his Word. " These things w^rite w^e unto you that your joy may be full ; " full because the fountain is in God and Christ, and not in self. " We also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by w^hom we have now received the reconciliation" (Phil, i, 26; iv, 4; John xvi, 22; xvii, 13). " My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not" (1 John ii, 1).

Does it give license to sin, to know that by the atonement of our (Savior, our sins have all been taken away and freely forgiven ? So it has often been said; but not so does it seem to the Holy Ghost and "to us. One sight or remembrance of the blood that w^as shed for the remission of our sins is mightier than all other arguments combined for dissuading us from sin. To be told that Jesus Christ has so settled the whole question of sin between us and God that now not the mercy only, but the very justice of God, demands that w^e should be forgiven when we confess our transgressions; what motive against continuing in sin is more powerful ? We have fellowship with the Father and the Son," indeed, and, through them, " with one another " (i, 7). That is for our joy. But instantly occurs the "thought of sin, the sense of which may well mar our joy, and check our rejoicing's. Yes ; but " the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin " (i, 7) ; " and, if we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." " My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not." Where can we find such dissuasions against sin as in the record of what Christ has suffered and accomplished. to put away sin " (Rom. vi, 1, 2, 6, 15 ; Heb. vi, 6).

PRINCIPLES OF INTERPRETATION.

First, the Bible is a plain book, addressed to men without reference to the distinctions in human society that are made by rank, wealth, and culture. It was to the people at large, and not to a learned few, Jesus gave the command, " Search the Scriptures " (John V, 39). Of the Bereans it is said, "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word in all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily whether those things were so " (Acts xvii, 11). The stamp of nobility, therefore, which God recognizes is a searching, not a casual reading merely, but a devout and diligent searching of the Scriptures, not only on the part of the educated, but of those esteemed by the world as ignorant ; " For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe " (1 Cor. i, 21). " Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit ; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. * * * Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing Spiritual things with Spiritual " (1 Cor. ix, 12). Hence the uncultivated who know nothing but the words which the Holy Ghost teacheth, may have far greater Avisdom than eminent scholars admired for their literary attainments; and the former may meet the opinions and theories and expositions of the latter with the solemn summons: "To the law and to the testimony; if they speak not according to these words, it is because there is no light in them " (Isa. viii, 20). The prophets were directed to speak to all the people (Ex. xix, 8; Lev. ix, 23; Num. xi, 29; Deu. xxvii, 15; Ps. Ixvii, 3; Jer. xxvi, 8) ; and the Epistles are addressed to " all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord " (1 Cor. 1, 2). There is not the slightest doubt, then, that God's Word is adapted to all, and intended for all, and consequently it is both the duty and the privilege of all His people, without exception, to make it their daily and delightful companion, and to search its sacred pages " as for hid treasures " (Prov. ii, 4).

Second, as the Bible is a plain book designed for people of common understanding, its deepest teachings may be learnedwith the aid of the Holy Spirit, who has been given without measure to all real believers; and we have no right to put upon its statements any other meaning than that which the simple and accepted sense of its words implies. For example, when we read the opening verse of Isaiah: "The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem, in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah," we must take it for granted that the vision is really concerning Judah and Jerusalem, and not concerning ourselves of the present dispensation, whatever profitable lessons we may gather from it for the Christian Church. If Judah does not mean Judah, and Jerusalem does not mean Jerusalem, all through the prophecy, then, as Dean Alford well says to those who deny the clear assertion of the Holy Ghost about the two resurrections, separated from each other by the interval of a thousand years : " There is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to anything." So when we find in the New Testament that one verse out of twenty-five refers directly or indirectly to the second coming of Christ, it is fatal to all correct principles of interpretation, and to any hope of understanding the Bible, to suppose that nothing more is meant than death, or the destruction of Jerusalem, or some other important event in the history of individuals and nations.

If the Lord Jesus, and the Holy Ghost who dictated the w^ords used by the Apostles, had meant death, they would have said death; and if we are at liberty to imagine that when they constantly spoke of His coming, they had in view something that has no more resemblance to His coming than midnight has to noon day, it will be apparent that their teachings become as vague and indefinite as the ambiguous utterances of the ancient heathen oracles. Long ago the Psalmist could say: "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path," and "the entrance of thy words giveth light " (Ps. cxix, 105, 130) ; but unless we take the words of Scripture in their plain, obvious, commonly accepted, and historical sense, they can only shed darkness along our way, and the need of an infallible Church to interpret will be at once perceived. Third, "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness; that the man of God [w^hether learned or unlearned, ordained or unordained] may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works" (2 Tim. iii, 16, 17). The Scripture means writing, and a w^riting is made up of w^ords, and words are composed of the letters of the alphabet; so that the words and letters of the sacred Scripture are given by inspiration of God. In hundreds of instances in the Old and New^ Testaments, we are told that " the word of the Lord came " to the prophets and people, and that " God said," and

" God spake." It is not enough, therefore, to hold that the thoughts are inspired, nor is there the shghtest ground for the assertion, often made by those who ought to know better, that there are different degrees of inspiration, as superintendance, elevation, and suggestion, but the child of God should dismiss such fancies with contempt. All Scripture is inspired, and hence every little word is worthy of close attention, as we often find Christ and the Apostles establishing a great doctrine upon a single expression in the Old Testament, and upon the difference between the singular and plural number. "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts, knowing this first, that no prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time [at any time] by the vd.ll of man. But holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost " (2 Peter i, 19-21). There are many who tell us it is well to avoid prophecy ; but the Bible declares it is well to pay heed to it. There are many who tell us it is a dark place; but the Bible declares it is a light that shineth in a dark place. Moreover, no prophecy is limited to the range of the prophet's vision at the time it was uttered, nor to the fulfillment in the mere letter of the event predicted ; but it reaches on to the grand climax in the world's strange history, even to the second coming of Christ, For the prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spake [as well as thought,] as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue" (2 Samuel xxiii, 2). "This Scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost, by the mouth of David, spake before concerning Judas " (Acts i, 16).

Fourth, all Scripture is about Jesus Christ. " Search the Scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are they which testify of me. * * * Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me; for he wrote of me "(John v, 39, 16). "And beginning at Moses, and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. * * * These are the words which I spake unto you while I w^as yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the Psalms concerning me " (Luke xxiv, 27, 44). For three Sabbath days Paul reasoned with the Jews out of the Old Testament Scriptures, opening and alleging that Jesus is the Christ (Acts xviii, 28). Paul persuaded them concerning Jesus, both out of the law of Moses, and out of the prophets, from morning till evening (Acts xxviii, 23).