INTRODUCTION
Agnes M. Lawson
Hints
to Bible Study
The Colorado College of Divine
Science
Denver, 1920.
Bible study
will never cease to be vital to those who
desire to reach spiritual heights of
attainment and accomplishment. We awaken
on a spiritual staircase that we seem to
have climbed. This is the stairway the
race has climbed and we inherit the
fruits of their labor. There are yet
stairs above us reaching into infinity.
We are the surer of our present position
and the better quipped for the journey
ahead, if the essential steps below us
are firmly embedded in our consciousness.
History has a fashion of repeating itself
and in the light shed by past attainment,
our decisions are the wiser and
truer.
The
spiritual discoveries of a nation devoted
to finding God, which are contained in
the Old Testament, are what make its
study so valuable. This nation called
itself the “Chosen People,”
because it chose to be chosen. Our debt
to them is incalculable. They have given
us an ideal of God that is both spiritual
and practical, “A God who demands
righteousness from his children and will
accept nothing less from them,” yet
one who is interested in our every need
and supplies it from his own bounty.
There were
three great schools of antiquity, each
bequeathing its gems to us, and these are
foundation stones in our modern
civilization. The Hebrew school gave us
spirituality and righteousness, the
Grecian school gave us reason and beauty,
the Romans gave us law and virility. On
this foundation Christianity stands and
places her gifts, attainment and
service.
The Bible is
not one book, but, like the United States
of America, “many in one.”
These books cover a period of about
sixteen hundred years. They are the
history, literature, religious tenets,
ceremonies and experiences of a nation
which felt that its commission was to
present God to the nations, and to
testify to His goodness and holiness. The
Old Testament is the record of the
nation’s search for, and experience
in, this search for God. The New
Testament is the detailed account of the
finding of Him and the experiences
resulting from the knowledge of the
divine nature.
There are
two moments in a diver’s life,
Browning tells us; one when he plunges
for the pearl, the other when he rises
with the treasure in his hand. The Old
Testament is the history of the plunge,
the New Testament is the history of the
rise with the treasure, God. We each
represent those two phases in ourselves,
for what has been discovered and achieved
by the race must be rediscovered by each
member of the race individually.
The Bible is
the record of the quest of mankind for
God. We find it from Genesis to
Revelation to be our own history, for
each of us repeats the race experience in
his own. Can time be better spent than in
conning the texts of the Bible and
gleaning their meaning?
Civilized
man unquestionably considers this Book
his greatest treasure. The spiritual life
is the real, and the Bible has inspired
all that is best and truest in our modern
life. Perception of an idea must be in
the mind of the race before that idea can
be demonstrated. It was revealed to a
seer of the Hebrew race that “God
created man in his own image”;
later a member of this race said,
“The Father and I are one,”
and demonstrated this great truth in the
Resurrection. Man is not material nor in
a material body. He is a citizen of the
Spiritual Kingdom, and his body is
spiritual when he knows the truth about
it. Dominion over the earth is his divine
birthright.
The message
of the Bible is the Gospel, or Good Spell
it casts over us as we come to understand
it. It dispels and exorcises the evil
spell of materiality and its consequent
train of sorrow, disaster and death. We
find that we are allied to Infinity, and
so enter by the door into the life
abundant. Here we live in Reality. We
have left the world conceived by human
imaginings and see in Spirit and in
Truth. We are in eternity and only the
eternal things matter. We have
perspective here and our scale of values
is completely changed. Love, life, truth,
spiritual efficiency, are the things from
which we work.
Surely no
book ever had a more sublime opening
sentence than this Book of books
possesses. The invariable end of
everything is in its beginning. “In
the beginning God,” and this can
have but one climax, God’s
representation in mankind. “The
grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with
you all.” God in the beginning,
God’s graciousness in mankind the
fitting completion.
A few words
in regard to the growth and compilation
of these books into one may be helpful
here. There are two distinct narratives
of spiritual evolution in the Bible.
These two are commenced in the first two
chapters of Genesis and are interwoven
throughout the historic portion of the
Old Testament. One is the priestly or
religious account, the other the
primitive or national account. The former
is the more formal, as befits the
foundation of the church, the latter is
full of human and picturesque interest.
The Priestly commences in the first
chapter of Genesis and is continued
through Chronicles. The Primitive account
commences in the second chapter of
Genesis, is continued throughout the
book, and naturally merges into the book
of Kings. It is the history of the nation
as the Chosen People. Chronicles is the
account of the merging of the nation into
the church, and belongs to a later date.
The same incident is sometimes told more
than once and for a different purpose, as
the national and churchly elements would
see from slightly different
standpoints.
The reader
should always have sympathy in reading
the Bible, for he is tracing the
evolution of consciousness in the race.
Always remember that we have the fuller
light, because these people gathered
“here a little and there a little,
precept upon precept, line upon
line.” This rich inheritance has
been bequeathed to us. Just as the
childhood stories of our great men
interest us, because we can trace the
unfoldment from childhood to manhood, our
interest in the Bible is sustained from
the beginning of race insight to
spiritual demonstration. Whether we study
for the historic account, for the human
interest, or, greatest of all, for the
spiritual experiences and discoveries
found therein, it will retain its place
and hold us its debtors.
The Bible
goes back to remote antiquity when
literature was at its highest
development. We find here allegory,
lyric, drama, history, essays, sonnets,
treatises, rhapsodies. Every form of
literature, both prose and poetry, are
here. Satire and humor are not found
wanting and a wealth of human incident
unrivaled in literature. All, however,
are spiritualized because this nation
from first to last was interested in
things of the Spirit. God to them was not
something to speculate about, He was
something to experience. He was a
Shepherd who watched over his flock,
loved and cared for them and was
interested in their welfare and
progress.
God is
always reaching down to man. Man is
always striving up to God and the Bible
is the Book of the Meeting. This book
grows in value to us as we grow in the
knowledge of spiritual things; it
interprets our own spiritual experiences,
and enables us to see the goal of
mankind, the Resurrection of the human
race, above material limitation and
darkness. It is the inspiration alike for
individual needs, national needs, and
international aspirations. It inspires
the artist, the literateur, the musician,
the merchant and the housewife. It
comforts the sorrowing, and heals the
sick in mind and body. It reveals our
relation to God, and inspires our
association with our fellow man to reach
a closer affiliation. It is therefore not
only the book of the meeting of God and
man; it is the book of the meeting of man
and man, for we never meet our fellow man
until we meet him in Spirit.
* * * * *
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