And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few (Acts 17:10-12).
Berea stands out as an oasis in a dreary landscape of persecution and trial. Paul and Silas had preached for three weeks in Thessalonica. Their message had been accepted by a large number of Greeks and noble women. But the Jews created an uproar in the city against them, and Paul and Silas departed by night, leaving the new-found gospel to those who had received it, and to the Jews the darkness reserved for those who reject the Light of the world.
On the other side of Berea was the Greek city of Athens, to which Paul was soon compelled to make his way. Here the people, in contrast to those at Thessalonica, delighted to hear each new thing that came to their city. To Paul's sermon on Mars' Hill they gave attention and consideration, but only a few accepted the unknown God he introduced to them. They were interested without being convicted or moved by the gospel.
Looking back from the later vantage point of completed missionary journeys, Paul must have emphasized for Luke, who wrote the annals of the early church, the extraordinary qualities of the believers in Berea. What was it that led Paul to regard the Bereans as more noble than those in Thessalonica? Mainly, they gave a willing and unprejudiced reception to novel ideas. To appreciate the candor of these men one must remember how startling and shocking the story of a crucified Messiah would be to the Jews. These Bereans did not carry on a battle of notions with notions, but went to the Scriptures and searched for themselves to see if these things might be true.
And they had the honesty to accept what their investigations disclosed, even though it required a profound revolution in their lives. The enthusiasm for truth is a noble kind of faith, and each one who pursues truth for himself will enjoy a measure of its rewards. The Scriptures that the Bereans searched were the Old Testament, in which they found ample material to verify Paul's claim that Christ was indeed the Messiah.
In later years, as new generations of Christian believers received the Gospels and the Epistles, they were able to verify the truth of Christianity by perceiving in the New Testament the fulfillment of the promise of the Old. Thus the unity of all Scripture became apparent. This unity is very real. There are only four short books of the New Testament that do not contain any quotations from the Old—Philemon, and First, Second, and Third John. The books of Matthew, Acts, Luke, and Hebrews each have more than one hundred Old Testament quotations, often consisting of several verses. And there are only four books in the Old Testament that are not quoted in the New—Ruth, Ezra, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. Thus there is a unity in the Bible that is borne out in both Testaments by such themes as salvation, grace, love, and sacrifice. (God's Word in Man's Language, EUGENE A. NIDA, p. 69.)
Following the period of the pure apostolic church, the apostasy foretold by Paul brought a neglect of the Scriptures and a usurpation of its authority by the Roman pontiffs. It is because of the fate of the Word of God and of its teachings that Wylie said of this period: "The noon of the Papacy was the midnight of the world." In the very early Middle Ages, while popular reverence for the Bible was excessive, popular knowledge of its contents was abysmally small. In the course of time it came to be used more and more for magical purposes. For example, little strips of parchment with Bible verses were fastened to the back of chairs or hung around the neck as charms to keep away the demons.
Before many centuries had passed, the tyranny of the church over men's minds, as this touched upon the use of the Scriptures, was broken by the successive efforts of such men and groups as Peter Waldo and the Waldenses, John Wycliffe and the Lollards, John Huss in Bohemia, and finally Martin Luther. The depths to which the church had fallen is apparent in a pronouncement of Pope Innocent III on the subject of Bible reading by the laity, when he said:
All laymen are to be kept from it, the Bible being so profound in its mysteries that even scholars sometimes get beyond their depth and are drowned. —KENNETH CLINTON, Let's Read the Bible, p. 21.
He ended by quoting Exodus 19:12, 13:
And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death: there shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through whether it be beast or man, it shall not live.
The enlightenment of the Renaissance had made sufficient impact so that when Luther spoke out clearly and posted his theses for his countrymen to read, they were able to follow his thoughts and weigh the evidence he marshaled against the church. To his theses the church responded. "Whoso does not rest upon the doctrine of the Roman church and the Roman pope as an infallible rule of faith, from which even the Holy Scriptures derive their authority, he is a heretic." And Luther's reply, given at Worms, has been the foundation of Protestant affirmation ever since. He said:
I believe in neither pope nor councils alone; for it is perfectly well established that they have frequently erred as well as contradicted themselves. Unless, then, I shall be convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason, I must be bound by those Scriptures which have been brought forward by me; yes, my conscience has been taken captive by these words of God.
Originally the term "Protestant" did not mean one who dissents, but one who affirms. And the Protestants took that name in order to affirm their belief in the sufficiency of the Scriptures as the rule of faith and practice for all Christians. This has been one of the most consistently maintained principles of the Reformation, and we find in our own official statement of fundamental beliefs these words:
Seventh-day Adventists hold . . . that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New testaments were given by inspiration of God, [and] contain an all-sufficient revelation of His will to men, and are the only unerring rule of faith and practice.—Seventhday Adventist Yearbook, 1957, p. 4.
The Protestant emphasis on personal access to God, and personal responsibility for one's belief, based on the Word of God, was sound. As with any great movement, there was a fringe that made a fetish of the Bible and were guilty of making it an object of worship in itself. Others, on the basis of certain erratic interpretations and translations, led men away from its central theme and message.
The Bible in This Generation
Our own church, beginning with the 1844 movement, was a completing of the Protestant Reformation. This insistence on a return to the Bible for the basis of our church beliefs led to our acceptance of the seventh-day Sabbath, baptism by immersion, and the doctrine, held by Tyndale and Luther, and later abandoned by most Protestant churches, that immortality is conditional. Our belief that death is a sleep, and that the wicked will eventually be permanently destroyed, is not generally shared by the present-day descendants of the first Protestants.
The Spirit of prophecy, which has guided our church since its early years, has succinctly stated the position of our church with regard to the authority of the Bible and the need to search it.
It is the first and highest duty of every rational being to learn from the Scriptures what is truth, and then to walk in the light and encourage others to follow his example. We should day by day study the Bible diligently, weighing every thought and comparing scripture with scripture. With divine help we are to form our opinions for ourselves as we are to answer for ourselves before God.—The Great Controversy, p. 598.
We must study the truth for ourselves. No man should be relied upon to think for us. No matter who he is, or in what position he may be placed, we are not to look upon any man as a criterion for us.—Testimonies to Ministers, pp. 109, 110.
A solemn responsibility rests upon the shepherds of the flock to lead our people into the kind of earnest Bible study here suggested.
It is significant that at the time the attention of the world was being called to the Bible truths reaffirmed by our church in the middle of the last century, there was a new assault made on the veracity of the Bible by a variety of critics. The theories of Darwin displaced belief in a literal creation of the world as described in Genesis. Bible critics with fragmentary knowledge of antiquity but astounding self-confidence began to contradict Bible chronology, Biblical history, and the authenticity of the books of the Bible. To believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible became a mark of gullibility. Denominations waged internal conflict over doctrines that had been a part of their ecclesiastical heritage and were no longer accepted by a portion of the clergy. The line between the fundamentalist and the so-called modernist was clearly drawn.
Now this tide of higher criticism seems to be ebbing. The Bible is emerging with new power as the inspired Word of God, "the literature of power," as DeQuincy called it. Recent archeological discoveries have brought to light much material that verifies the truth of passages in the Bible that were formerly denied by critics as being inaccurate. More and more critics appear to be revising their views.
Articles that have appeared in the Review and MINISTRY in recent months by Dr. Siegfried Horn and others have brought to our attention some of the late archeological discoveries and their importance in verifying Biblical records. W. F. Albright, one of the more famous living Orientalists, who began his work and study as a confirmed critic, has gradually revised his views regarding the accuracy of the Bible. He writes in "The Bible After Twenty Years of Archeology (1932-1952)," Religion in Life, vol. 21 (Autumn, 1952), p. 550:
New archaeological material continues to pour in, compelling revision of all past approaches to both Old and New Testament religion. It becomes clearer each day that this rediscovery of the Bible often leads to a new evaluation of Biblical faith, which strikingly resembles the orthodoxy of an earlier day. (Quoted in The Review and Herald, April 12, 1956.)
Would it not be tragically ironic if this Book, which has triumphed over its various enemies through the centuries, should now be in danger of having its message lost to us through our apathy, our bustling lives, or our attachment to things trivial and inconsequential?
The significance of the story of the Bible and its influence in human life up to our day is this: It has been written by men who devoted their lives to testifying to its truth. Many of them died because of this testimony. It has been preserved through the ages in the providence of God, by the loving labor and the heroic courage of men and women who knew its value. It has been attacked by men who feared and scorned it, and defended by men who prized and loved it. Now it has come to us, and in this day when it has become a best-seller, with more than six million copies or portions, in almost eleven hundred languages and dialects, going into circulation each year, we find a tendency to accept our legacy with indifference and neglect. Someone has truly said that many of the Bibles given away should be inscribed: "From one who has not read it to another who will do likewise."
Today the Bible is an "accepted" book. But it is a sad fate for anybody or anything to be merely accepted. Acceptance is like tolerance, the lowest level of fellowship among people. The Bible is now a ubiquitous book. It is to be found in five-and-ten-cent stores on the counters with pencils, scratch pads, and glue, on the twenty-five-cent book racks with murder mysteries and novels, and in conspicuous isolation on the dressers of hotel rooms. It lies on tables, hides in cupboards, gathers dust in the libraries of many homes. It may be brought out from its retirement during religious-. emphasis week, but what a sad fate for anything to be accepted—and then forgotten.
The Bible's Influence on the Life
A certain town, desiring to show its Bible-consciousness, staged a marathon to read the entire Bible through in one session. Volunteers read continuously for seventy-four hours, amplifying the reading so that listeners outside the county courthouse could hear the complete rendition. As a spectacle or stunt, this was a success. As a spiritual exercise to bring the Word of life into one's life, it left much to be desired.
There are many approaches to Bible study, and each person must determine how best to appropriate its blessings to his own experience. Unless the Bible is read in faith, however, it falls short of being the Word of God to the reader. God cannot speak to closed or biased minds.
To hear God speak requires, even more necessarily, a devout mind. Biblical scholarship and the correction of errors cannot be unimportant, but the one indispensable thing, if the Bible is to be to us the Word of God, is a receptive attitude of spirit and responsiveness of will.
The Bible student must empty himself of every prejudice, lay his own ideas at the door of investigation, and with humble, subdued heart, with self hid in Christ, with earnest prayer, he should seek wisdom from God.—Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students, p. 463.
We ought to read the Bible devotionally, accompanying it with prayer, waiting before it in quietness and with self-examination to see what God's word is for us. Unless we do this we are likely, on the one hand, to fall into a barren and sterile pedantry as we try to dissect it, or on the other hand, to become dogmatic and intolerant toward those who have interpretations differing from our own.
We are on dangerous ground when we cannot meet together like Christians, and courteously examine controverted points. . . . Those who cannot impartially examine the evidences of a position that differs from theirs, are not fit to teach in any department of God's cause.—ELLEN G. WHITE in The Review and Herald, Feb. 18, 1890.
There are many ways to approach Bible study. The Bible itself is a book of such infinite variety that to study it always from one angle is to miss much of its blessing. It lends itself to many metaphors. It is a standard for all people and all ages, by which they can measure their religious fervor and their devotion to the eternal principles of truth and righteousness. The Bible is also a treasure house, in which are stored gems on every page. It is an armory, containing both weapons for offense and equipment for the defense of the Christian soldier, with a supply to fit the age and size and strength of each who comes. It is a mosaic, intricate and involved, whose beautiful individual parts fit together to make a grand mural stretching from the beginning into eternity. Such a book rewards its readers according to the devotion and care given to its study.
The study of the Bible will develop the mental power as nothing else can.
There is nothing more calculated to strengthen the intellect than the study of the Scriptures. No other book is so potent to elevate the thoughts, to give vigor to the faculties, as the broad, ennobling truths of the Bible. If God's Word were studied as it should be, men would have a breadth of mind, a nobility of character, and a stability of purpose rarely seen in these times.—Steps to Christ (Pocket ed.), p. 90.
The Bible is history, literature, and theology. To neglect the study of any of these facets is to miss part of its treasure. As history, it has been the target of the higher critics, nevertheless it has held its place until now the Bible is casting light on the monuments and buried records of unknown early eras.
As literature the Bible is without a peer. Here you can find poetry—both lyric and epic—drama, narrative, philosophy, discourse, argument, oratory. The influence of the English Bible runs like a golden thread through the entire web of our literature. Tyndale's translation of the New Testament, judged by its influence, has been called the greatest work of English prose ever achieved by a single writer. The translators who produced the King James Version adopted much of the phraseology of Tyndale, and it has been said that 80 percent of the words of this edition were his.
While appreciating its influence in developing the mind, the scope of its history, and the excellence of its literature, we must find in the Bible the communion with God that comes when we view it as His personal message to each of us. The Bible's dynamic power is spiritual. It has power to change our lives for the better. "The Scriptures are the great agency in the transformation of character."—Christ's Object Lessons, p. 100. In times of crisis people turn hopefully to its pages. The needy turn to it for help; the lonely turn to it for comfort. The thirst of many is the secret desire for its living water.
As ministers and workers upon whom rests the fearful responsibility of preparing men and women to meet their God, it is incumbent that you be students of the Word. There is no other way, no substitute, no short cut, by which you can become qualified to carry the task to which you have been called. It is your responsibility as ministers to bring your members, by all means at your command, to become students of the Word. Even though some may have grown up in Adventist homes and have had the privilege of a Christian education from the first grade on into college, it does not necessarily follow that they will have the nobility of the Bereans in that they will be daily students of the Word.
