The Bible by E. J. Hardy

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 14, 1903

The Bible

By E. J. Hardy

WHAT the Bible is may best be learned from the Bible itself. Perhaps in our day we read too much about the Bible and too little in it. We should be less concerned to prove that it says what we have been taught to accept, and more concerned to let it speak directly for itself. Above all, we should be prepared not only to believe certain things contained in it, but to act upon its teaching as a whole. What is wanted is to distinguish between essential Biblical truth and the dogmatic formulation of it. Not seldom when we imagine that we are contending for revelation we are

really only contending for our own interpretation of it. Let a man be honest with himself and with his Bible; let him accept if he will without any misgiving the canon that the Bible must be interpreted “like any other book,” and his reward will be to find that by a reverent use of this freedom he becomes assured that the Bible is not like any other book.

— Rev. E. J. Hardy, M. A.