There was a day, which still may be with us, when we were known as the "people of the Book." It was a day when those who attended our evangelistic services watched in awe as text after text flowed fluently off the speaker's tongue. "We have never heard anything like it," they declared. And they were speaking the truth. Never had they met a man who could use the Bible so dexterously. A man who was master of such textual manipulation, such skill in producing a multiplicity of verses out of a Biblical hat, was a man to be admired, a man to be trusted. "He must be right, my dear. He proves everything he says from the Bible!"
How proud we were of such perceptive judgment! It confirmed what we already more than half suspected—we were masters of the Book.
And what was the value of such opinion? The praise came from laymen, from those who were ignorant of what we were professionally handling. It is not difficult to impress the uninitiated, but it is dangerous to accept their adulation. It can lull us into a belief that we know more than we really do; it can drug us into a complacency that impedes academic and spiritual growth. Our ability to quote texts, to prove the Biblicity of Adventist doctrine, to give an impromptu Bible study, or to preach a sermon on any topic from Creation to Eden restored may represent nothing more than a prolonged use of Bible Readings for the Home.
We confess to the perils of our calling. The need to guide the wandering into the way of truth does oblige us to use strings of texts drawn from every part of the Bible; but woe to the minister who is content with such superficial facility in the handling of God's Word. Our deeper need is for a thorough, personal acquaintance with the whole Bible, beginning and end and all that lies between.
God has chosen to speak to His people through a Book. As we all know, but so easily forget, this Book consists of sixty-six separate books written by more than thirty different authors. If He had wished, the Inspirer of the Sacred Volume could have appointed the whole to one prophet and have made a study of His message more simple, though probably less interesting. But the Lord, for excellent reasons, chose to employ many contributors, often isolated from one another in space and time, yet united by the common direction of the Holy Ghost. This divine methodology has complicated our study of His will, but has made the process infinitely more exciting, more rewarding, for those who will take the trouble to trace it through the various forms into which it is cast.
The Bible student's prime intellectual duty is to acquire a personal knowledge of each of the holy books on which he bases his faith. Without this initial acquaintance with the author, the content, the historical and geographical background of each book, he moves blindly, picking out a gem here and there, but unable to perceive their place in the author's pattern of thought, and oblivious of their significance in the master design that makes one whole of many parts. Unless he studies the individual books he is ever liable to misapply an isolated text and to wring a wrong interpretation from words that contain truth. Without a built-in knowledge of a scripture's context he cannot fully defend his view against those who use the same words to support a different teaching. For these few reasons, to name no others, the minister needs to make his main approach to Scripture a book-by-book study.
How can this be done? There is probably no better introduction to any book for the English-reading student than a rapid perusal of the Authorized, or King James, Version. In spite of a spate of new translations the old version still merits its pre-eminent place in the affections of Bible lovers. Not only for its hallowed traditions or the matchless beauty of its language but also for its surprisingly faithful rendering of the original does it deserve continued respect and regular congregational use.
After that preliminary reading it is time to turn to another rendering. A study of the same book in the R.S.V. or some other standard version will throw fresh light on familiar words and help the reader to see the prophecy, the Gospel, or the Epistle from a different angle. The same story told in different speech assumes a freshness that stimulates thought, breaks through the veil cast by too-long familiarity, gives a firmer grasp of subject matter, and often leads to a reassessment of the author's purpose and achievement. But a word to the wise—be not overaddicted to many translations. In study, use as many as necessity demands and time and money will permit, but do not flaunt a multiplicity of renderings in the pulpit. Digest the useful variants before confronting the congregation, but as a general rule do not bombard them with "Moffatt says this . . ."; "Weymouth puts it this way .. ."; "The R.S.V. suggests . . "The N.E.B. has a new way of putting it." The quoting of many versions bewilders the ordinary Christian, and may possibly break down faith in the Inspired Word on the part of some. Many of the best sermons that have been and ever will be preached had their feet firmly planted in the Authorized Version.
But just as strenuously should we resist the temptation to become a one-version man, the minister who acquired a "modern" translation twenty years ago and since then refers to no other!
The informed student will not place undue reliance or emphasis on such free renderings as J. B. Phillips' The New Testament in Modern English. While this work brilliantly succeeds in its declared "attempt to translate" the Testament "into the English of today," it is essentially a paraphrase, and should not be used indiscriminatingly for interpreting disputed passages unless one is sure that in those particular instances Phillips has adhered strictly to the best Greek text. A sparkling sermon can be preached from a free translation, but its glory is dimmed when someone discovers that the version on which the oratory was based bears little relation to the original!
When the chosen book has been read in at least two versions, the student should have a reasonably sound idea of its contents. But many insistent questions will be clamoring for answers that are difficult to educe from the Bible alone, answers that call for the opening of a commentary. And there we should remember that the commentary has not been written to provide us with ready-made studies on the book in which we are interested, but to provide us with facts around which we can build our own picture of the book's background. We need to master those historical, geographical, sociological facts—all that is included in the term "Introduction"—before incorporating them into our study. Then we shall speak with authority, and not as reincarnations of the scribes and Pharisees.
This triple exercise, reading in two versions and soaking ourselves in a technical knowledge of our selected book, will have introduced us to many embryo sermon texts and topics. The occasion comes when we need to develop one of these possibilities into a full-grown homily. When that moment arrives we switch from our broad survey of the book to a microscopic examination of one small section of it, and that calls for an additional instrument if the results of our study are to be reasonably reliable. If we are to be sure of a correct interpretation of a verse or passage, we need to check its wording against the original Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. A commentary will help us in a secondhand sort of way, but the most satisfactory procedure, one that will give a quiet confidence to our exegesis, depends on a personal comparison between the original and the translation.
At this juncture we hear muffled noises off-stage—protests from conscientious objectors, those who object to any suggestion that we use one or all of the three Biblical languages. We hear the rumble, but regret that it should ever be raised in this education-conscious age when most of our ministers have enjoyed at least a nodding acquaintance with Greek and Hebrew during their college careers. But the unlinguistic have no great cause for alarm since the suggested reference to the original calls for little more than recourse to a lexicon and a book of word studies. This elementary exercise will not make us linguistic authorities, but will enrich our knowledge of the text and enable us to preach from a sure textual foundation. It may also arouse a deeper interest in ancient tongues and lead to a modest fluency in handling them. Above all, persistent effort to grasp a book's message in the language in which it was written will, if we allow it, increase our appreciation of the Inspired Word.
But if we go any further into that subject we are into another article, so, back to the books!
What will this study of books do for us? That may seem a selfish question, yet really it is not so, for what affects us affects our congregations. A thorough, methodical study of one or two books, leading ideally and eventually to similar treatment for all the books, will bring us into intimate touch with their authors. We shall see what they saw, think what they thought, and personally meet the God and Saviour they knew.
We shall absorb the philosophy of the Bible and share in its wide grasp of history. We shall relate the parts to the whole, and not be deceived into taking a few parts for the whole. We shall be saved from making molehills into mountains and from attempting to reduce spiritual mountains to molehills. We shall be furnished with a balanced view of God's Book.
By feeding the minister, book study will bring banquets to our hungry—we almost said starving—people. The man who has satisfyingly fed his own soul on the bread of life will not fail to feed his congregation on the same diet. And those who enjoy such fare will grow in spiritual stature; they will be ready for the strongest meat we can supply from the heavenly larder.
When that spiritual-intellectual development takes place in our churches we shall be fulfilling the high obligations of our ministry. And here is a guarantee: It will take place—if we study the books.
