LIMITED IN HIS KNOWLEDGE OF SCRIPTURE
By Editor
ON an editorial page in what is supposed to be one of the greatest dailies of our nation, there recently appeared some paragraphs on the subject of keeping the great nations well armed in order to insure peace. One of these paragraphs reads: "We are assured by the Scripture that men will beat their spears into plowshares when the lion and the young lamb lie down in peace together. At present lions still exhibit a fondness for young lamb as a dietary tidbit. And until the prophesied change in leonine table manners has taken place, it is just as well for a prudent people to forge their agricultural implements from old horseshoes and other scrap and keep their spears handy to use in sudden emergency." There is a doctor of divinity on the editorial staff of the paper from which this quotation is taken. Some kind of arrangement should be made by which that talented minister should examine the editorials dealing with Scripture, that go into that paper. Possibly the writer of the paragraph thought that there was Scripture proof for his assertion, or that there was some such Scripture text. But all believers in the Bible should be very thankful that the many absurdities which are charged up to the Scriptures do not exist. There is no scripture which says that the time will ever come in this wicked world when swords will be beaten into plowshares, or spears into pruning-hooks, much less that that time will come when the lion and the lamb lie down together. There is a scripture, however, which says that in the last days many people will say that the swords should be beaten into plowshares, and the spears into pruning-hooks, but these people are not authorized by the divine prophecy to make any such utterances, and people who are making those statements are fulfilling prophecy. A leading cause of the absurd notions that people have in regard to the Bible is that so many undertake to quote Scripture who do not know the Bible. They have heard certain things said about it, and take for granted that these are so, and then they glibly quote them. The foregoing quotation from the editorial of the great daily is a splendid illustration of what may not be found in the Bible. Yet why should an editorial writer in a paper of national repute say such erroneous things?