Away from the Word by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jul 11, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 27.

Away from the Word

By Editor

THE discussion, the real struggle, in the International Sunday-school ranks over the text of the lessons, is of intense interest to the student of prophecy, as showing the trend of religious thought. A few years ago there was no question whatever, so far as we know, over the text; it must be purely Biblical. But now, according to the report of the meeting in the Call, the Methodist Church North and South, the Congregationalists, and the Northern Presbyterians, desire to—

issue lessons in which the “lily,” as the theologians say, shall precede the text. They would draw their examples and parables from the every-day life of the twentieth century, in an effort to show the children of their Sunday-schools that all virtue and righteousness was not lost with the saints. With them, they declare, it is a question of expediency. On the other hand, the ministers of most Southern churches, strongly supported by the Canadians, hold that no literature can be more inspiring than the Word of God, and no illustration more striking than the parables of Christ. With them, too, it is largely a matter of expediency, they say, as well as a certain amount of jealousy for the Bible.

There is also the question between the two systems of lessons, the uniform, in use since 1872, and the graded, which have been issued by the committee within the last three years, in accordance with the demands of certain progressives in the Sunday-school world.

The Rev. J. R. Sampey, of Louisville, Kentucky, a member of the lesson committee, tells us that of a series of 572 lessons in the graded series, 57 are termed “extra-Biblical,” and ten are on the great book of nature. But most of the nature teaching at the present time is not only extra-Biblical, but anti-Biblical. It tends toward either infidelity utterly, or pantheism; and as soon as the bars are let down, and others things are admitted into the Sunday-schools, the great danger is that all these anti-Biblical teachings will come trooping in with all the rest, just as they are in our seminaries and colleges at the present time. We sincerely hope that those who hold for the Bible text will be victorious. It is not a matter as to whether there are as good people now as there were then; but the book was given by inspiration; it comes to us as the Word of God; it contains, as all Protestant creeds have declared, all that is necessary for our salvation. Stick to the Word. The only way we have of determining what is authority in the religion now is not through an infidel science or theological speculation, but, is it in harmony with the Word? There are thousands of Bible believers outside of San Francisco who are anxiously waiting the answer that shall be given by the decisions in that convention. It ought not to be a matter of expediency on the part of either party. It ought to be a matter of high and holy principle. Upon that must the Christian stand.