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The Scriptures

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 30, 1872

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 39, No. 20.

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The Scriptures.

By A. Weeks

How we should prize the Bible, believing, as we do, that it is the word of God! But it seems to be the tendency of mankind not to value highly a thing that is easily obtained; for it is a fact that none are so poor that they cannot obtain a copy of the Bible. It is also a fact that we sometimes find, among Christians (?), the Bible almost wholly neglected.
Did we live in the time of Edward I., when it required the earnings of a common laborer for fifteen years to purchase a copy of the Bible, methinks we would prize that sacred book when once we had secured the privilege of reading it. But it is not so now. The Bible has become a very common book.
During the first fifty years of the existence of the British and Foreign Bible Society, it is reported to have issued upwards of twenty-nine millions of copies of the sacred writings. And of the American Bible Society, it is said that, during the first fifty years of its existence, it issued seventeen millions of Bibles and Testaments. How extensive has been the work of circulating the Scriptures by these two societies alone, to say nothing of the circulation of them by other similar associations and private parties which are numerous.
It is evidently not from a want of Bibles that the Scriptures are not searched, according to the injunction of our Saviour in John 5 : 39.
We understand the word “scripture,” as used by our Saviour, and by Paul in 2 Tim. 3: 16, to mean those books that were at that time considered canonical, that is, the Old Testament books. While from this, we find that the Old Testament, as well as the New, is profitable for doctrine, we go no further than the great religious bodies of the land have done.
Art. 5, of the Methodist Discipline, reads as follows: “The Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of faith, or be thought requisite to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scriptures, we do understand those books of the Old and New Testaments, of whose authority was never any doubt in the church.”
The Bible Dictionary of the American Tract Society says: “The entire Bible is the rule of faith to all Christians, and not the New Testament alone; though this is of special value as unfolding the history and doctrines of our divine Redeemer and of his holy institutions. The fact that God gave the inspired writings to men in the languages most familiar to the mass of the people who received them, proves that he intended they should be read, not by the learned alone, but by all the people, and in their own spoken language.”
Must it not be very offensive in the sight of God to have those who have named the name of Christ neglect the study of that word which is to guide them to Heaven? How can we comply with God’s requirements when we do not know what they are? And how can we receive the reward of the righteous, when we will not learn the conditions of that reward?
May the Lord help us to heed the injunction of our Saviour, as did the noble Bereans (Acts 17 : 11), and search the Scriptures in gratitude to God for the sacred volume.
A. WEEKS.
Smith’s Creek, Mich.