| Week-Day Religion |
Chapter 2 |
Page 2 |
As to the method of reading, several suggestions may be made. It is important to have a good copy of the Bible, well bound, with clear, plain type and with references. On many passages there is no commentary so helpful as the reading of the references. Scripture interprets Scripture. Hence, a copy without references is shorn of much of its value. We want a copy, too, that will last for many years. A book is like a friend; it grows familiar and confidential with use. At first shy and distant, it lets us into its heart after we have long pored over its pages. It opens of itself to the choicest chapters, and it seems to carry its sweetest secrets on the surface for us. A Bible that we have long used seems to say things to us we never hear from a strange or new book. Besides, it is good to mark our Bible as we read it. Any precious passage that we find may be indicated on the margin by some sign or by drawing a line about it or under the sacred words. Thus we write our own spiritual history on the pages of our Bible. These marks are memorials, also, showing where we once found blessing – stones set up to mark our Bethels and Peniels and Ebenezers. A book thus read, and holding on its pages such treasures, becomes in a few years inestimably sacred and precious. Hence the importance of having at almost any cost the very best copy of the Bible that can be obtained – one that can be used for a lifetime.
No one can afford to dispense with the old fashioned way of reading the Bible through consecutively. It is well to do this every year. Some open at random and read whatever comes under their eye, without method or plan. Others read over and over a few favorite passages. In both cases large portions remain neglected and are never read at all. Reading the whole volume in course, in regular daily portions, we become familiar with every part, and discover the very richest things in places where we least expected to find any beauty or blessing.
But in addition to this it is well to pursue other special methods. Topical reading is excellent. We select a subject and by the aid of concordance, reference and text book find out all the passages in the whole Scripture which speak of it or throw any light upon it. Thus we learn what are the doctrines of the Bible. In this way we may bring all the teachings of men to the bar of God’s truth; we may verify the doctrines of the Church; we may refer all questions that arise in our own minds as to belief or as to duty to the infallible test; and thus we shall build our personal creeds, not on the formulated statements of theologians, but on the simple words of inspiration.
Page 2
<< Prior Page 1 2 3 4 Next Page >>