Your ShelfYour Projects

The Bible in the Home

11%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 2, 1903

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 80, No. 22.

Read the full edition

The Bible in the Home

By M. E. Olsen

M. E. OLSEN
In this enlightened country, probably every home that can properly lay claim to the title is provided with a Bible. Our need is not more copies of the printed Word, but its application to the problems of the every-day life. The Bible on the shelf can neither comfort, enlighten, nor save. It must be taken into the heart and mind of man before it can do its work.
Some people, even professed followers of Christ, seem to treat the Bible much the same as they would disagreeable medicine. A small dose is taken on Sunday, and then the bottle is carefully corked and put away until a week later, unless some member of the family should become dangerously ill in the meantime. Of course the Bible is always supposed to be on hand in the death chamber, and often people who have shown no interest in its teachings with reference to the present life are willing to accept it as a sort of passport into the life to come. Poor, deluded souls! They have entirely missed the true purpose of life from neglect to study the Word which reveals it. In some few cases they may be able to grasp the promises even at this late date, and lay hold on eternal life; but in the vast majority of cases the life which has been lived in darkness, apart from the bright rays of the Sun of Righteousness, goes out in utter obscurity. Death-bed conversions do sometimes occur, but they are the exception, and not the rule.
If the Word is to exercise an influence in your home, give it a chance to speak. Talk is cheap, we say; vain words, thoughtless words, cruel words,—how they swarm all about us; but the priceless Word of truth, the Father’s message from on high, is but rarely permitted to raise its voice. Therefore, religion languishes in our midst, and the home, instead of being as it should be a heaven upon earth, a haven of rest and peace and joy, becomes a mere stopping place where one eats and drinks and sleeps; sometimes it becomes a veritable babel of jangling and discordant voices.
Suppose we regarded the Bible a real factor in the home life, and gave it an opportunity to do as much of the talking as any other member of the family; what contrasts would we not see! After the next-door neighbor has doled out the latest gossip, read the third chapter of James. After the head of the family has discussed the low wages and hard times generally, read the twelfth chapter of Luke. If there has been altercation, let the Word talk for a few moments about the soft answer that turneth away wrath. If there are expressions of unrest and anxiety, read the beautiful chapter, beginning: “Let not your heart be troubled.”
Why should we not give the Word of God a place in our family conversation? If the Saviour were to make us a personal call, we would hardly want to silence him entirely, and do all the talking ourselves. Yet that is just what we do when we neglect to listen to his Word. It would not matter especially if we did not stand so greatly in need of the divine counsel. Man is by universal consent weak and helpless in himself, ignorant alike of the present, and of what may be in store for him in the future. The problems of life are to his finite gaze inscrutable, its burdens weigh heavily on his spirits. But our loving Heavenly Father knew all this from the beginning, and has therefore given us his Word, which, read in the light which the Holy Spirit throws upon it, makes everything perfectly clear. It is in very fact what David called it, a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path.
We plead with the Christian fathers and mothers, Give the Bible a larger place in the family life. Read it morning and evening at family worship; not hurriedly, as a sort of business transaction which must be brought to a close as quickly as possible, but leisurely, lovingly, prayerfully, with hearts open to receive its divine truths. Find time also during the day to consult this divine guide-book. If you are weary, it will give you rest. If you are anxious and troubled, it will bring peace. If you will only believe the fact, it is Jesus himself talking with you and imparting to you of his own wondrous life.
How it would lighten the cares of housekeeping if the Bible were to form a part of the kitchen furniture! Let it be strongly bound and printed on good paper, in large type. A few loving glances now and then between those covers will give to the mind food for contemplation all the day. In the light of the cross the ever-recurring tasks of home life lose their painful monotony. Life takes on new meaning and beauty. Heaven is no longer a shadowy place beyond the grave, but something very near, and real, and tangible. In short, humanity is joined to divinity; the wandering, wayward child has returned to his Heavenly Father. This is the purpose for which the Word of God was given, and it will accomplish its purpose in every home where it is allowed to bear sway.