p. 13 | Study the Word by J. Q.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 26, 1910

Study the Word

By J. Q.

A RUGGED Christian experience is inseparable from a diligent study of the Bible. The present lamentable lack of consecration to the teaching of the Word of God had its origin in a neglect of the book itself. At a Bible class in a town of the Middle West, a woman with almost three quarters of a century of Christian experience, gave this wholesome suggestion:—

God has never promised to give us something for nothing, or to make us wise concerning his truth without some effort on our part to apprehend it. A passive receptivity best suits our lazy natures, but it would prove just as profitless here as in any other field, material or mental.

We all admit that it is impossible to gain a knowledge of any subject without study, and, in fact, close, hard, persistent study is exacted from one who would become even moderately proficient in any serious branch of learning. But what student would approach any subject, even the least important, in the idle, slipshod, half-hearted way in which much of our so-called Bible study is undertaken? And surely no other subject is more important than God speaking to us through his Word.

The world's reformers have been men and women with a thorough knowledge of the Scriptures, and the need of the hour is a return to the old paths, bowing the will in submission to the authority of God's Word. When this is done, practical results will follow. The predigested element enters altogether too largely into our experience. J. Q.