THE BIBLE

Southland Times, Issue 20202, 13 June 1927, Page 8

THE BIBLE

NEW INTERPRETATION SERMON BY REV. J. CHISHOLM DEPLORABLE LACK OF KNOWLEDGE At Knox Church last evening Rev. John Chisholm continued his series of sermons on topical subjects, “The Bible” being the title of his fifth sermon. Mr Chisholm began by stating how little the average man and woman knew of the Bible, even though it was a great book. It had been printed from Genesis to Revelation in 108 languages, and parts of it in 576 languages: and its circulation from British presses alone totalled fourteen million copies per year. Lecky in his noted work “The History of European Morals” has said —“It has covered the globe with countless institutions of mercy absolutely unknown to the pagan world.” The Bible was a library of books, sixty-six in all, written in different ages, separated by hundreds of years, history, allegory, poetry, philosophy and letters, all gathered together by the process of use. The sacred writings that were most used and gave most inspiration survived. A kind of unconscious choice was made until the number was finally approved by early church councils. Within this collection we find traditions dimly emerging out of the mist that obscure the earliest prehistoric times, and also thousands of years later we find stories of rhe founding of the Christian Church and the letters of friendship and counsel that passed from the founders to their churches. And yet the unity of the whole is unmistakable. What then was the bond that bound these books together? We felt that they were all in direct connection with God’s historical revelation, which culminated in Christ. By a gradual process of revelation, crude and hazy at first, they led us to Jesus of Nazareth, God’s perfect revelation. The preacher said that his first recollection of the Bible was at family worship. The Bible was a sacred thing and he had grown up never doubting the authority and infallibility of the book. Quoting Paul, he said, ‘•When I became a man I put away childish things”; and the old child notion of the Bible was one of these things. The Bib’e was not free from error. In it there were contradictions. The world was not created in six days. It was not possible to believe that God would send bears to tear up little children for calling out names to an old prophet. It was a ridiculous thing to imagine that God would punish a man by keeping him alive in the belly of a whale for three days. In the New Testament also there was not agreement in every detail in the four gospel stories. Was the Bible then losing its authority? No. It was only that his, the speaker's, childhood with the Bible was ended and he had entered upon the work of a man. The great trouble to-day was that grownup men and women when they found that facts would not fit in with their childhood views of the Bible tossed the whole thing over and turned down that book which w’as the greatest in all the world. Nowhere did the Bible itself make claim to infallibility. That claim arose after the Reformation when Protestants set the Bible up in place of the Pope as the infallible Word of God. Protestants to-day suffered from that. Many people, especially young people, in their childish ignorance, had thrown over the Bible, because of the false position it had been placed in by so many of its zealous defenders. Young people were so poorly equipped as far as religion was concerned that they were ready to lose what faith they had in Jesus Christ when they became convinced that the story of the fall was not literal history. It was necessary that the Bible should get its right place and be properly understood and interpreted. It must be realised that the religion and the morality which the Old Testament recorded were tentative and relative; that many horrible and foolish things were recorded in it with approval, which it would be un-Christian to approve to-day; and that the mere quoting of isolated texts, here, there and everywhere from writings extending over centuries as texts revealing the mind and purpose of God for us was wrong and unreasonable. If it should be asked how was the plain man to discriminate if there were statements in the Bible that might misinform him, the reply was that no statement would mislead the man who was honestly seeking the way to God. If spiritual guidance were being sought, then refer the man absolutely to the Bible. He would take what he wanted and leave out what he did not understand. When a man took medicine he did not need to swallow the bottle. If a man wanted a knowledge of ancient history he could get that elsewhere, but if he wanted to know about the preparation made by history for the coming of Christ he would be referred to the Old Testament. If a man wanted enlightenment about the formation of the globe and the beginning of life upon it he could get it from some scientific volume; but if he desired to be impressed with the relation of God to the world and its life he would be referred to the Book of Genesis. If a man craved a knowledge of the times of Christ there were many works he might profitably study; but if he wished to know Christ, and through him to see God, he would be referred to the Gospels. The Scriptures treated as a flawless, historical or scientific record would disappoint; treated as a means of religious education they could not fail. They were infallible there. The Bible gave us knowledge of Jesus; Jesus gave as knowledge of God; God, as Jesus revealed him, was the true light of life. The Bible was a sacred book, and was a guide to Jesus, to God and life divine. Mr Chisholm concluded with the following sentence—“We need to get back to the Bible to-day, for the world must know Jesus Christ, and apply His great principles and teachings to its modern problems if it is to be saved.”