Your ShelfYour Projects

READING THE BIBLE

20%

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, Cal. · Sep 22, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 37.

Read the full edition

READING THE BIBLE.

By Editor

It is related of Thomas Carlyle that a gentleman at whose house he was stopping asked him to read for morning worship, when he began at the first chapter of Job and continued reading until he had completed the book, saying as he finished, "That is a wonderful poem, and to be understood needs to be read through at one sitting." The host, as might naturally be expected, never again asked Carlyle to read the Scriptures at morning worship.
But Carlyle had the correct idea of Scripture reading—the idea that should be applied not only to the book of Job but to many other books of the Bible, although we would by no means recommend such lengthy reading at family prayers. There, a few verses are often better than even an entire chapter. But it is a great mistake, especially in reading the minor prophets and the epistles, to take them in fragments. One who, in his rigid adherence to the rule of just so many chapters a day, reads the first chapter of the epistle to the Galatians, for instance, as the last of his chapters for one day, the second, third, and fourth the next day, and the fifth and sixth the third day, loses more of the force and beauty of the epistle than can be expressed.
We do not say that one should never read in one of the epistles without reading all, but we do say that everybody ought to make it a frequent practice to read an entire book at one sitting. Never mind if it does break into your course; better break that than lose the benefit of the connection. It won't hurt to read a little more. It is not a great thing to do. People will sit down and read in a newspaper more matter than is contained in any one of the epistles, and not think they have performed a great feat.
Read the Bible through by course as much as you please; but do not neglect reading by books, and studying by books, and you will find that you are beginning to know the Bible as never before.