Bible Study in School by M. E. KERN

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 5, 1908

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 10.

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Bible Study in School

By M. E. KERN

The Bible in Education—No. 5

Bible Study in School

M. E. KERN

In closing this series of articles, I wish to say a few words about the study of the Bible, as such, in our schools.

To know a few texts, and be able to put them together, to teach a line of thought which some one else has developed, is not the highest result of Bible study. We can not teach the doctrines of the Bible by rote. I heard a rather ludicrous illustration of this idea of teaching subjects without the student's getting a real, first-hand research knowledge of them. A zealous teacher had taught some intermediate students the prophecies of Daniel. He had taught them how to prove that the date 457 B. C. was the proper date for the beginning of the twenty-three hundred days, teaching them to repeat what is said in commentaries,—that the date is established by the Canon of Ptolemy, which is substantiated by more than twenty eclipses. Imagine his chagrin when on his last day of school, while having a kind of exhibition of the school's work, he asked a boy to give the proof that the date 457 B. C. is the correct date, and the boy replied, “Ptolemy shot off his cannon, and caused more than twenty eclipses.” It is more often true than we realize, that we do not know what we are talking about, those who have had a training in the schools not excluded.

We have a special message which is present truth, but it includes and is built upon every experience of God's people through preceding ages, and upon every revelation which has been given. “Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning.” Then study it all and study deeply, and focus the light of God's complete revelation upon the mighty questions of the present; for new controversies are springing up, and old ones are arising.

We need to develop in our schools stalwart defenders of the Bible against the infidelity within and without the professed church. Our students must be thoroughly established in the unadulterated truth from the living fountain of truth, that they may be able to meet the subtle philosophies of so-called Protestant Christian lands, as well as of Mohammedan and heathen lands. We are developing our young people for the broadest and most far-reaching service in this world, and they should have a broad and deep knowledge of the Great Book. We should have young men studying this Book in the languages in which it was written, to take part in the translation of the Bible into other tongues, and there should be among us more men who are authorities on the original languages, for every position of our faith will be questioned, and every means will be taken to discredit the truth.

And let us not cheapen the Bible and cause our students to lose respect for it by cheap Bible teaching. Let the Bible classes be the strongest in the school. Teach the student that he must “sink the shaft deep into the mine of truth, that he may obtain the celestial gold,—that wisdom which will make him wise unto salvation.”—Christian Education, page 101.

As some one has said, the mental vice of these newspaper days is superficiality. But let us not in this study which is to be the basis of all study,—in this study of God's thoughts,—encourage this evil. Let us not hastily clutch after many things, which perhaps are pleasanter, but let us teach our students to plod, to be accurate and thorough, persistent and logical.

The child who in school really conquers one thing, will as a man conquer many things. Those portions of the Bible that have been our chiefest study, we have been admonished to search still. The effect of this thorough study of the Bible upon the mind of the student will be wonderful, for we have been told that “as a means of intellectual training, the Bible is more effective than any other book, or than all other books combined.”—Id., page 126. As to the effect on character, we are told that “if God's Word were studied as it should be, men would have a breadth of mind, a nobility of character, and a stability of purpose that is rarely seen in these times.”—Id., page 58. Wonderful results follow a right study of the Word of God. O, we want these results!—breadth of mind, nobility of character, stability of purpose; and such breadth of mind, nobility of character, and stability of purpose, as is rarely seen.

With the grand principles of healthful living and Christian education, and with the noblest purpose before us that can appeal to any one, we have the privilege of developing the strongest, noblest, and best young people that this generation has seen. May it be so!

Let us, then, appreciate, more than we have, the Book of God as an educational book. As well exclude the glorious sunlight from our schoolrooms, and try to light them with tallow candles, as to exclude from education the Bible. Let us receive in its fulness that light from heaven which alone interprets, completes, and systematizes all our earthly knowledge into one organic whole, alone revealing of all books the true nature of God and man, and their relation to each other.

College View, Neb.