THE STANDARD by Earnest Christian

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 18, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 32.

THE STANDARD.

By Earnest Christian

Is the Bible our standard of faith and practice? Are we to judge of our religious state from the correspondence of our experience and practice with its teachings? So says the whole Protestant church. Whatever they divide upon, they are united in this, that the word of God is the supreme law of human action. Here they meet upon common ground. And this is the true view of the case. If the Bible is of any authority, it is of the highest authority. By this word we must be judged at the last day, and by this word we should prove ourselves. The great tendency is to ignore the teaching of the Bible. And it requires watchfulness and energy to resist the common tendency. In a rapid stream he who would not be borne down by the current must row hard and constantly. Preaching by explaining and enforcing the word of God has well nigh gone out of fashion. The text is generally taken from the Bible, though some modern pulpit orators base their Sunday-evening discourses upon popular proverbs, slang phrases, or quotations from Shakespeare. But from whatever source the text is taken, the body of the sermon is made from the sayings of men, or from the periodical literature of the day. We have a great deal of preaching for the times; we need preaching for eternity. Preachers are demanded who can "speak with authority, and not as the scribes," who read smooth essays that lull their hearers into a feeling of false security.—Earnest Christian.