“HOW TO ENJOY THE BIBLE”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21982, 17 June 1933, Page 21

“HOW TO ENJOY THE BIBLE”

Written for the Otago Daily Times. By the Rev. D. Gardner Miller.

Almost everybody knows something about the Bible. Multitudes read the Bible every day of their lives. But how many really enjoy the Bible? I wonder how many people, casting about for something to read on a wet night, ever pick up the Bible and read it as a book ot romance and adventure, the two duel characters being God and man. Ot course, many pious people will tell _me that it is wrong to speak of “enjoy* ing ” the Bible as you would ‘ enjoy a novel, . I cannot understand that attitude. Frankly I have never found a novel so exciting, or a biography so revealing as I find the Bible to be. It is one ot my joyous tasks to be constantly reviewing books about the Bible, but, believe me, not one ever gives me the thrill and the enjoyment that I get from the Old Book itself. After nearly 30 years daily reading I am still amazed and excited when some old familiar passage leaps out at me with a new meaning. A new sense of the sheer wonder of the Bible came to me the other night as 1 read a little book that is within the reach of every one. It is “ How to Enjoy the Bible,” by Canon Anthony Deane. First published eight years ago, it is now in its tenth edition. It is one of the religious best sellers and can be had for Is (New Zealand price, Is 3d). I spent a whole evening with it —one of (( those very rare occasions when I have a “ night off ” —and found myself richer in mind and blessed in soul for its winsome company. I like Canon Deane’s gallant defence of the Authorised Version, though I have, personally* a very warm side to all modern translations. I also appreciate his “dig” at the perpetual black binding of the Bible. “You enter a bookshop. Amidst its wealth of colour, you ask for a Bible. It will be strange indeed if the happiest book in the world is not offered yon in a binding of funereal black.” That is very well said. I have, for long, agitated for a complete change of binding and “get up” of the Bible. I never could see why young people, especially, should be subjected to the perpetual black binding, close print, and ugly “joinings” of chapters that characterise the Book of Happiness. Every morning as I enter my study the first thing I see is a copy of the New Testament lying on my desk, robed in a coat of many colours. Why the Bible should not be pleasing to the eye has always puzzled and annoyed ihe.

But how can one "enjoy” this Book? Well, the first thing to do is to read it. And it is just there where so many get tired and bewildered with the Bible. Some of my readers may remember the old days when we ploughed through the Bible, chapter by chapter, irrespective of how, why, and when they were written, painfully reading lists of names that meant then, and even now, absolutely nothing to us. That obviously is the way to quench thoroughly any such thing as " enjoyment.” Escape from this senseless drudgery has been made, and much 'enrichment received, by the carefully outlined Bible Readings of the " 1.8.R.A.” and the “ C.Ebooklets. To read your Bible daily with the help of either of these works is to read intelligently —and enjoyment never arises out of ignorance.- Canon Deane makes several capital ■suggestions. First of all, he suggests that for enjoyment we should begin first with the Acts of the Apostles. “He is an unwise reader of the Bible who begins it at the beginning. The right point of departure would be the Book of the Acts, Here he will find an historical reward of a new power at work in the world. It not only revolutionised religion, but transformed man. . . These results, astounding but indubitable, must have had some proportionate cause. . . . The Gospels were written to demonstrate what that cause was. In their pages he finds a story which accounts adequately for the facts he has studied.”. . Another suggestion is to the effect that we should approach the Old Testament more often as a biography than as history. Take a “ life ”of one of the great Old Testament characters and follow it through, in one reading, from book to book, and the result will be an enjoyment and an edification you seldom get by the old method of reading. Apart from the various hints and helps which the author gives, in the most charming and simple language, the book abounds in information about how the various books of the Bible come to be written, and if .. this information is grasped by the ordinary reader—-and there is reason at all why he should find it difficult to grasp—will make the Bible literally a new book to him. * * *

But when all is said and done the value of the Bible is just what at means to youi'self. I ana not concerned at all about the various views of inspiration, literalness, etc., of the Bible. I have had my day of that kind of thing, and have reached the stage where I refuse to be rattled, no matter what the Fundamentalist and Mqdermst say about my views. . I’read the Bible and love it, because in it God speaks directly to me. ThrougU the Bible I have met Christ Jesus and have found in Him my. Redeemer, Inspires Reward—and Friend. By this Old Book I have been shown how to love and serve my fellow-men. The Bible to me is Holy, not because somebody long ago said it was, but because it is the written revelation of a Person who demands my homage. The Book is not greater than the Person. It was the experience that men had of God that produced the Bible. The Bible did not create God; it is the human revelation of God. The Bible hits me hard—sometimes I am almost afraid to it but it always leads me to the feet or Him who died for me. Don’t be upset by what other people ear about the Bible. Go to it yourself, and, if your search is honest, you need never be ashamed of the result.