Search the Scriptures

California Conference of Seventh-day Adventists · Oakland, Cal. · Mar 11, 1875

Search the Scriptures.

THE simplicity of the Scripture is a theme of frequent encomium; nor is there any danger that it will be too highly appreciated. But there is danger that it may be too exclusively appreciated. The Bible is so simple that he who runs may read; but it is so difficult that only he who sits long and thoughtfully over it may most profitably study it; it yields its ripest and best fruit only to the student. It is like a fruitful field which gives a rich yield even to the hoe, but best repays the deep plowing; or like a gold country, where the mere superficial traveler may pick up shining particles of the precious metal in the sands, but where only the miner with pick and hammer, breaking up the hard quartz, gets the best nuggets.

We give three reasons why you should make the Bible, not merely a reading book, but also a study-book.

1. It does not present truth built into systems, but in fragmentary and isolated forms, which it leaves us to gather and put together. There is a system in it, but as there is in a house in the forest which the wood-cutter and carpenter must construct. If the Apostle's Creed were the whole of Christianity it would be easy to commit Christianity to memory. But God has not given us truth thus in epitome. Moses comes bringing it in law; David comes singing it; Isaiah comes bringing the glorious vision of it; Paul comes preaching it; Christ lives it. If one asks what are the essential principles of our American government, he must go to the founders and read and compare the words of Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton, and if one would know what are the essential principles of the Christian religion he must go to the book and cull and compare the various utterances of its various writers. He no more gets the true meaning of the Bible who merely reads without such process of comparison and construction, than he knows astronomy who merely looks at the stars.

2. The Bible is a book of seed-thoughts. It is not God's substitute for thought, but God's inspiration to thinking. There are full-fledged birds in it that sing like the twenty-third Psalm; but there are also nests of eggs like the book of Proverbs, that need our incubation. It abounds with apothegms, parables, proverbs, and paradoxes, which do not reveal their meaning at a glance. The sermon on the mount is accounted a model of simplicity in preaching. So it is. But there are verses in it which do not disclose their meaning without much pondering and some comparison with other Scripture. Take, for example, the precept, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." It is but a superficial view which sees in this command only a warning against censorious judgments. What more does it mean? Take your Concordance, examine every passage where the verb "judge" appears, and decide for yourself.

3. The themes of which the Bible treats are the grandest in the realm of thought. They transcend the reason, they transcend the imagination. It deals with experiences which defy description, with a heart-life which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the imagination of man conceived. It deals with the invisible world, in which every new discovery opens boundless fields for further discovery, still beyond.

Take the simplest and the most fundamental truth in the Bible, the existence, character, and attributes of a living, personal, present God, a God regnant in nature, a God dwelling in the hearts of those that will humbly receive him. The utmost study never can fathom the depths of the Divine Being: can never measure the length, and breadth, and depth, and height of the love of God. The mere reader of the Bible is like the mere traveler on the ocean, who sees the surface of the waves. The student of the Bible is like one who takes measuring instruments and sounds the ocean depths, and studies its hidden currents, and brings from its depths its secret treasures. It is only by the study of the Bible that its teachings concerning the character of the incomprehensible God can ever be understood; and no study can ever exhaust the theme.—Am. Messenger.