Helps to Bible Study by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Aug 6, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 30.

"Helps to Bible Study."

By Editor

THIS is the name of a pamphlet of 78 pages, consisting of short Bible-readings written and compiled by a committee of ten persons selected by the students of Battle Creek College, near the close of the last term. The thirty-two readings touch upon nearly all the points of faith held by Seventh-day Adventists. The questions, in the main, are simply and naturally put, and the references subjoined are to texts that would most readily establish the points. The "Hints to Bible Workers," are worthy of a careful reading by all who do Bible work. Price, 25 cents. Address Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Mich.

We have no doubt of the utility of this and similar works, if they are used as they should be. If they are used as "helps to Bible study," they will be found a ready means of getting a good outline of Bible truth. But no one should get the idea that the Bible-readings that are published from time to time are for the purpose of saving him the labor of getting up Bible-readings, when he has occasion to hold them. No person should think of giving a reading which he has not himself prepared. It need not be entirely different from any other on the same subject; but it should be the work of the one who gives it. Only under one condition may one person use a Bible-reading prepared by another, and that is, that he has studied it so thoroughly that he understands every point as well as did the one who wrote it.

Some one will say, "This would shut off a good many from holding Bible-readings, for many do not know how to prepare them." Then they should learn. Anybody who understands a Bible subject can prepare a Bible-reading on it, and he who does not understand a subject well enough to get up a reading on it, ought not to give one. Persons may use the printed readings as models in asking questions, as well as in getting an understanding of the subject, but every Bible-reading should bear the stamp of the one who gives it. No two persons can present any point in the same manner and have it equally effective, therefore one person cannot do effective work with a Bible-reading prepared by another, any more than he could with a sermon prepared by another.

Saul's armor was good, but it did not fit David. One person may get up a Bible-reading in the very best possible manner, yet in the hands of one whose mind is cast in a different mould, it will not be so effective as an inferior one, which he knows how to handle, because it is the product of his own mind.