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Attitude
of Bible Reading
Bible
Study of
Have you ever seen a straight river? Canals are straight
but all rivers
seem to be crooked. We call it “meandering.” Why are rivers crooked? Because
the natural tendency of a river is to take the easiest way around any obstacle.
So rivers are always crooked
and they always run downhill.
Some
people are like rivers. They are too lazy and immature to put forth much effort
into walking with God. For them it’s easier to watch T.V. than to pray and
easier to read their newspaper than their Bible. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
Bible
Study of
A U.S. Army officer told of the contrast in his pupils during two
different eras of teaching at the artillery training school at Fort Sill
Oklahoma. In 1958-60 the attitude was so lax that the instructors had a problem
getting the men to stay awake to listen. During the 1965-67 classes
however
the men
hearing the same basic lectures
were alert and took copious notes.
The reason: these men knew that in less than six weeks they would be facing the
enemy in
One
reason that Bible study seems to be irrelevant to many Christians is that they
have no interaction with non-Christians
no vital ministry to growing
believers
and no personal and internal struggle for godliness
all of which
are factors that bring the truths of the Bible to apply to life. ── Michael P. Green《Illustrations for Biblical
Preaching》
Bible
Study of
There is a story about a teenage boy who was deeply interested in scientific
subjects
especially astronomy. So his father bought him a very expensive
telescope. Since the young fellow had studied the principles of optics
he
found the instrument to be most intriguing. He took it apart
examined the
lenses
and made detailed calculations on the distance of its point of focus.
The youth became so absorbed in gaining a technical knowledge of the telescope
itself that he never got around to looking at the stars. He knew a lot about
that fine instrument
but he missed seeing the wonders of the heavens.
As
Christians
to know all the facts and figures contained in the Bible is not the
end for which God has given us this Book. The purpose is that we might see God
and know him. ──
Michael P. Green《Illustrations
for Biblical Preaching》
Men do not reject the
Bible because it contradicts itself
but because it contradicts them.
Traditional.
Many of us would agree
with Peter when he says that parts of Paul's letters are hard to understand!
And there are difficulties and apparent discrepancies in other parts of the
Bible too. On this matter of discrepancies
I remember reading something
written by an old seventeenth-century Puritan named William Bridge. He said
that harping on discrepancies shows a very bad heart
adding: "For a godly
man
it should be as it was with Moses. When a godly man sees the Bible and
secular data apparently at odds
well
he does as Moses did when he saw an
Egyptian fighting an Israelite: He kills the Egyptian. He discounts the secular
testimony
knowing God's Word to be true. But when he sees an apparent
inconsistency between two passages of Scripture
he does as Moses did when he
found two Israelites quarreling: he tries to reconcile them. He says
'Aha
these are brethren
I must make peace between them.' And that's what the godly
man does."
James Packer
Your
Father Loves You
Harold Shaw Publishers
1986.
Maria Fedorovna
wife of
Czar Alexander III and empress of Russia
once used a comma to save a prisoner
from Siberian exile. Alexander's warrant had read
"Pardon impossible
to
be sent to Siberia." Maria intervened and moved the comma so that the note
read
"Pardon
impossible to be sent to Siberia." The prisoner was
subsequently released!
Source Unknown.
According to Luscher
since
1850 biblical criticism has proposed more than 700 theories
all supposed to be
the last word in science. By now more that 600 of these have become outmoded
and discarded in the light of a more enlightened and extended scholarship.
Luscher.
A wealthy woman who was
traveling overseas saw a bracelet she thought was irresistible
so she sent her
husband this cable: "Have found wonderful bracelet. Price $75
000. May I
buy it?" Her husband promptly wired back this response: "No
price
too high." But the cable operator omitted the comma
so the woman received
this message: "No price too high." Elated
she purchased the
bracelet. Needless to say
at her return her husband was dismayed. It was just
a little thing--a comma--but what a difference it made!
Leslie B. Flynn
The
Twelve.
"I have come to the
conviction that no man knows enough to attack the veracity of the Old
Testament. Every time when anyone has been able to get together enough
documentary 'proofs' to undertake an investigation
the biblical facts in the
original text have victoriously met the test."
Prof. Robert Dick Wilson
of Princeton
who held several doctorates and knew 45 languages and dialects of
the Near East
as quoted in R. Pache
The Inspiration and Authority of
Scripture.
For practical purposes the
words infallible and inerrant are interchangeable. When we apply them to the
Bible
what we are saying is that only those who accept as from God all that
Scripture proves to tell us
promise us
or require of us
can ever fully
please him. Both words thus have religious as well as theological significance;
their function is to impose on our handling of the Bible a procedure which
expresses faith in the reality and veracity of the God who speaks to us in and
through what it says and who requires us to heed every word that proceeds from
his mouth. This procedure requires us not to deny
disregard
or arbitrarily
relativize anything that the writers teach or to discount any of the practical
implications for worship and service which their teaching carries or to cut the
knot of any problem of Bible harmony
factual or theological
by allowing
ourselves to assume that the writers were not necessarily consistent with
themselves or with each other.
For me to confess that
Scripture is infallible and inerrant is to bind myself in advance to follow the
method of harmonizing and integrating all that Scripture declares
without
exception
I must believe that it is from God
however little I may like it
and whatever change of present beliefs
ways
and commitments it may require
and I must actively seek to live by it.
James Packer
Your
Father Loves You
Harold Shaw Publishers
1986.
The end result of all of
this is sadly illustrated in the book
Reforming Fundamentalism
by
George A. Marsden
which informs that 85% of the students in one of America's
largest evangelical seminaries stated that they do not believe in the inerrancy
of Scripture. Beyond that
a poll of 10
000 U.S.A. clergymen (of whom 74%
replied) by sociologist Jeffery Hadden in 1987 clearly reveals the effects of
this significant change of belief through the passage of time. When asked if
they believed that the Scriptures are the inspired and inerrant Word of God in
faith
history
and secular matters:
95% of Episcopalians said
"No."
87% of Methodists said "No."
82% of Presbyterians said "No."
77% of American Lutherans said "No."
67% of American Baptists said "No."
This sad commentary speaks
for itself.
The Gideon
January
1994
pp. 12-13.
A man in Kansas City was
severely injured in an explosion. Evangelist Robert L. Sumner tells about him
in his book The Wonders of the Word of God. The victim's face was badly
disfigured
and he lost his eyesight as well as both hands. He was just a new
Christian
and one of his greatest disappointments was that he could no longer
read the Bible. Then he heard about a lady in England who read braille with her
lips. Hoping to do the same
he sent for some books of the Bible in braille.
Much to his dismay
however
he discovered that the nerve endings in his lips
had been destroyed by the explosion. One day
as he brought one of the braille
pages to his lips
his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters
and he could feel them. Like a flash he thought
I can read the Bible using my
tongue. At the time Robert Sumner wrote his book
the man had "read"
through the entire Bible four times.
Robert L. Sumner
The
Wonders of the Work of God.