Your ShelfYour Projects

LIVING BIBLES

6%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1902

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 79, No. 4.

Read the full edition

LIVING BIBLES.

By PHILIP GIDDINGS.

PHILIP GIDDINGS.
WE have many paper Bibles printed in ink; what is needed is a larger edition imprinted by the Spirit in flesh.
The need of the world is not ideal but real Bibles,—not for the “love” which we spell l-o-v-e,—the letter starveth. The love we appreciate is not that “in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth.” “God so loved . . . that He gave.” True love always acts.
Words are only promissory notes to pay their written value in deed, on the first opportunity. Neglecting so to do, we forfeit honesty. Such a note of the highest denomination of pious sentiments, of doctrine, or of creed, is of no value to the world until we cash it.
The story runs: A beggar once asked alms of a priest, and was refused even a penny. “Then give me a blessing,” suggested the beggar. And the priest, readily raising his hand to bestow it, was prevented. “Stop!” said the beggar, “if your blessing is so cheap, I won’t have it.”
This is a practical world in which we live. The Bible that meets its wants must be practical. The world’s advertisement to-day is, Wanted: A society of illustrated Bibles. In other words, a society not of Bible leaves, but of Bible lives.
Speaking of a missionary, a native once said: “There goes a Bible man. He does what the Bible says.” Oh, could the world see men as Bibles walking!
Men may debate a theory, but not a result. Christians are designed to be the living solution of written problems. To speak Bible, and do something else, is irony—to make satire of the Bible.
It is but natural that the heathen should judge of Christianity by the fruits in those who profess it, and choose or refuse accordingly. What men fail to understand in creed, they will grasp in deed.
Among the passengers on my return from Haiti was a three-year-old Spanish child. Speaking to me in her language, she remarked something at which she expected me to laugh. Not understanding what she said, I did not. She was disappointed, and requested me to laugh,—“Ree,” said she,—at once suiting the meaning of the word with the illustrative action of a grin. I laughed then.
We may not understand Spanish words, but we comprehend the action. After all, when we get to the root of the matter, we shall find that whether Spanish, Hebrew, or other languages, there is a reducible “common measure” to all; and that is the doing it. The most effectual teachers are illustrators.
A dishonest man will not be heard on the principles of honesty, nor a drunkard on sobriety, let him speak ever so wisely. “He cheweth the cud, but parteth not the hoof.” He will not do.
The purpose of the Bible is that we be and do what it says. “In reading God’s word he most profiteth not always, that is most ready in turning of the book, but he that is most turned into it, who is most inspired with the Holy Ghost, in his heart and life altered and changed into the thing he readeth; he that is daily less and less proud, less wrathful, less covetous, and less desirous of worldly and vain pleasures; he that daily, forsaking his old vicious life, increaseth in virtue more and more.”
Has the object of the Bible been met in us? Are we being changed into what we read? Are we only turning the Bible? or are we being turned, by the Bible, into the Bible?
“Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.”
Do not forget that your life may be the only Bible your neighbor ever reads. Your words, your actions, are ever spread before him as so many pages to be read. He is forever scanning you carefully, looking for a blot here, a blemish there, or some absolute mistake. You may think lightly of some inconsistent action; he does not, and is quick to take advantage of such to defend his own shortcomings. “The one argument I never could answer,” said an infidel after conversion, “was the consistent life of my Christian mother.”