The Golden Oil, Dorothy Whitney Conklin, Pacific Press Publishing Association, Mountain View, California, 1961, 139 pages.
- Bible instructors have long waited for the appearance of this revealing book on the Holy Spirit. The author, Mrs. Dorothy W. Conklin, is a Bible instructor whose principal activity at present is corresponding with viewers of the Faith for Today telecast. She has a long history in denominational Bible teaching. She received her Baccalaureate degree at Aurora College, Illinois, and took graduate studies at our Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C.
A few years ago, while a Bible instructor in New York, Dorothy Conklin guided a group of younger women in a penetrating study of the Holy Spirit in the daily life of the Christian. Now, by means of this informative and devotional gem, students around the world may find this guide a rewarding study. Its pointed Spirit of Prophecy references reveal some challenging thinking.
Observe that The Golden Oil is an Author's Awards Book, which should stimulate denominational writing talent. We know that Dorothy Conklin has literary ability, but may there not be some other Bible instructors and shepherdesses with writing talent also who could produce some inspiring articles for The Ministry?
Louise C. Kleuser
History of Interpretation, Frederic W. Farrar, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1961, 553 pages, $6.95.
Several things are notable about this book. It is a reprint of the Bampton Lecture for 1887, and it was written by the famous F. W. Farrar, whose reputation over long years as a preacher, teacher, author, and as dean of Canterbury Cathedral needs no embellishment here.
One of the permanent perils faced by Christian witnesses is that of using faulty principles of Biblical interpretation, and Seventh-day Adventists are not without blame in this respect. Exegesis is a prime necessity if the Bible is to become intelligible to men, but it has difficulties and perils. It requires a knowledge of the original writers' times and thought patterns, of textual criticism, literature, archeology, language, history, et cetera.
It is a bad habit among preachers and Christian witnesses in general, to take a passage relating to specific persons or circumstances in the Old Testament and apply it literally without modification of any kind, to men and conditions today. That way we can condemn almost everything and everybody, and we often do it with gusto!
Farrar deals with the historical errors of interpretation, the different periods involved, the tasks of expositors, perversions of Scripture, rabbinic, patriotic, and scholastic exegesis, following with Reformation and Protestant phases. His post-Reformation and modern exegesis sections are replete with information and annotation.
Three valuable features of this book are (1) a full table of contents, (2) a good bibliography on each chapter, and (3) a complete index of topics, texts, and authors.
Students, teachers, and preachers really need this valuable reference book on the history of Biblical hermeneutics, with historical and theological interpretation. It gives a proper conception of the Bible, and the brilliant style of Farrar is a joy throughout the book.
H. W. Lowe
The Modern Use of the Bible, Harry Emerson Fosdick, The Macmillan Company, New York, 291 pages, $1.95. (Macmillan Paperbacks.)
Any book by this author will prove both interesting and challenging, for few men have made a bigger impact upon modern Christianity than Dr. Fosdick, pastor emeritus of the Riverside church, New York. A Baptist by denominational affiliation, he is distinctly liberal by theological training. This man now speaks in the sunset of his life, and this book contains his presentations at the Lyman Beecher Lectureship Foundation.
In the phraseology of liberal theology, he emphasizes the importance of knowing the Bible, declaring that it can be known in four ways: First, by becoming acquainted with its beauty spots, such as stories of Joseph; the twenty-third psalm; the Sermon on the Mount; and Paul's chapter on love. A second way is to know its individual books and when and why these were written; and a third is to fellowship with characters of the Bible, great personalities whose writings have influenced so profoundly the centuries. Another way is to see the development of the scriptural structure.
The author then emphasizes that the Bible is a revelation of the spiritual growth of a people. He charges that "the older Hebrew and Christian interpreters, lacking the modern historic point of view and scientific apparatus . . . aliegorized away the things they did not like"—a sweeping assertion indeed. This would seem to belie the very principles the author is advocating in other areas of his treatise.
"As one travels through the Book," says Fosdick, "there is no place on the road where one does not meet some problems which modern folk are facing." If that is so, then we must recognize that theologians of other centuries were presenting God's truth in the language that the people of their generations could understand. Despite the claims of modern liberalism, it may well be that the people of those generations knew God better than we do today.
Certain dangers of this so-called modern use of the Bible the author clearly points out in his chapter "Perils of the New Position"; and there certainly are perils if we think that the only ones who can understand the revelation of God are the liberal thinkers of our day. His statement that "spiritual values often are discerned by a naive and childlike faith when they are invisible to a critical and analytical mind," is true, and needs to be recognized more and more by modern scholarship. Jesus did not say to the little child: "Except.ye become like Peter and John, or the august Philo," et cetera, but He did say to Peter and the other preachers: "Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." It takes childlike faith to comprehend the purpose of God. We would not disregard scholarship, but scholarship per se cannot reveal God. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned, but academic analysis may lead us far from the truth as it is in Jesus.
Those who read this challenging book need spiritual discernment. To speak of "the differential quality in Jesus as the most impressive spiritual fact that this earth has seen," and to say "it is the best we know," and "the fairest production that the race has to show for its millenniums of travail," is to miss the whole purpose of the incarnation and to lose the significance of the truth of the Scriptures, that Jesus Christ was God, the Eternal God made flesh. Dr. Fosdick's statement that He was "God in what sense He can be God, being assuredly man" (!) lacks the certainty of the apostolic message. The New Testament calls men not to imitate Him, as Fosdick suggests, but to receive Him, to yield our minds and our bodies to His control, knowing that from the throne of grace He sends forth His Spirit into our hearts to give us repentance and victory over sin. That is the power of the apostolic gospel, and it is that ring of reality that is sadly missing in these chapters.
R. Allan Anderson
Creative Imagination in Preaching, Webb B. Garrison, Abingdon Press, New York, 1960, 175 pages, $3.00.
The writer of this interesting and instructive book is a Methodist minister and former president of McKendree College, Lebanon, Illinois. He is the author of at least two other works and has written for several well-known magazines.
Creative Imagination in Preaching is different from most books written for preachers and writers in that it suggests methods and ways of collecting sermon material and of getting ideas for the sermon first, rather than discussing ways in which to arrange material which, it is presumed, the minister already has in his possession.
Cultivating a more creative awareness of people and the everyday happenings around us is one of the points brought out in this little volume. Many illustrations of the author's own observations, and how he used them, are interestingly described.
Creative Imagination in Preaching is nontechnical and can, therefore, be read with pleasure and profit by the layman as well as by the preacher.
It is claimed by the author that if the suggestions and methods presented in this book are accepted and followed, they "will end the time spent in preparing to write sermons by fifty to ninety per cent." Let us "strive to notice colors, sizes, shapes, sound, odors, and other specifics," says the author.
This volume would be a boon in the library of anyone who is seeking to find and develop new ideas. The counsel given, if followed, would help us bring a freshness and beauty into our sermons and writings that would find a ready response in the hearts and minds of our readers and listeners.
J. Ina White
