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Related Topics:
Bibliology (The
Written Word)

This is page 2 of 7 in the series:

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How to Enjoy
Your Bible

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Introduction: How to Enjoy Your Bible

By: E.
W. Bullinger

“Man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live.” Deut. viii.
3.

THUS is it asserted that the WORD and the WORDS of
Jehovah constitute the food of the New nature.

As in the natural sphere so in the spiritual, the desire
(or appetite) for the food which is the proper support of each
respectively, is the sign of natural and spiritual health.

Attention to diet is becoming more and
more recognized as essential to nutrition and growth.

A low condition of bodily health is produced by
inattention to the laws of nature as to suitable diet. As this leads to
the “drug habit,” or to the immoderate use of stimulants in the natural
sphere, so it is in the spiritual sphere. A low condition of spiritual
health is produced by improper feeding or the neglect of necessary food,
which is the Word of God; and the end is a resort to all the many modern
fashions and novel methods and widely advertised nostrums in the Religious
world in the attempt to remedy the inevitable results.

The Root of all the evils which abound in the spiritual
sphere at the present day lies in the fact that the Word and the words of
God are not fed upon, digested, and assimilated, as they ought to be.

If we ask the question, Why is this the case? the answer
is, The Bible is not enjoyed because the Bible is not understood.
The methods and rules by which alone such an understanding may be
gained are not known or followed; hence the Bible is a neglected book.

The question Philip addressed to the Eunuch (Acts viii.
30, 31) is still greatly needed:

Understandest thou what thou readest?

And the Eunuch’s answer is only too true today:

How can I, except some man should guide me?

The following pages are written with the object of
furnishing this “guide.” Certain canons or principles are laid down, and
each is illustrated by applying them to certain passages by way of
examples. These are intended to be taken only as examples; and the
principles involved are intended to be used for the elucidation of other
passages in the course of Bible study.

The Word of God is inexhaustible. It is, therefore,
neither useful, nor indeed practicable to extend these examples beyond
certain limits.

By the aid of these twelve simple canons or rules, other
passages and subjects may be taken up and pursued both with pleasure and
profit-subjects which are even yet matters of controversy and of
conflict.

We have to remember that the Bible is not a book of pure
Science on the one hand, nor is it a book of Theology on the other. Yet
all its science is not only true, but its statements are the foundation of
all true science.

And, it is Theology itself; for it contains all that we
can ever know about God.

The cloud that now rests over its intelligent study
arises from the fact that it is with us today as with the Jews of old “The
Word of God has been made of none effect by the traditions of men” (Matt.
xv. 1-9).

Hence it is that on some of the most important
questions, especially such as Biblical Psychology, we are, still, in what
the great Lord Bacon calls “a desert.” He alludes to those “deserts” in
history, where discovery or research comes to a stand-still, and we get
schoolmen instead of philosophers; and clerics instead of discoverers.

The Reformation came as an oasis after one of these
deserts. Men were sent from the stagnant pools of tradition to the
fountain-head of truth. But within two or three generations the Church
entered the desert again; Creeds, Confessions, and Catechisms took the
place of the open Bible; the inductive method of Bible study was
abandoned, and to day it is scarcely understood.

One party abides by “Catholic consent” or the “Voice of
the Church.” Other parties in the same way abide by the dicta of some who
had stronger minds. Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Darby, and Newton would be
surprised today to find that those who question what they believed are
treated as guilty of presumption, and of a sin to be visited with
excommunication!

These good men little thought that the inferences which
they drew from the Bible would be raised to a position of almost equality
with the Bible itself.

The result of all this is too painfully evident.
Controversies, bitterness, strifes have been engendered. These have taken
the place of simple Bible study. If studied at all it has been too much
with the view of finding support for one or other of the two sides of
these controversies, instead of with the object of discovering what God
has really revealed and written for our learning.

Failing to understand the Scriptures we cease to feed on
them; then as a natural consequence, and in inverse proportion, we lean on
and submit to “the doctrines of men,” and finally reach a theological
desert.

Bishop Butler has pointed out the way back to the land
of plenty and of delight. He has shown that the only way to study the Word
of God is the way in which physical science is studied. He says:1 “As it is owned, the whole scheme of Scripture
is not yet understood, so if it ever comes to be understood before the
restitution of all things, and without miraculous interpositions, it must
be in the same way as natural knowledge is come at, by the
continuance and progress of learning and liberty, and by particular
persons attending to, comparing, and pursuing intimations scattered up and
down it, and which are overlooked and disregarded by the generality of the
world.”

On this another writer2 has remarked, “Thus, the way of discovery still
lies open to us in Divine things if we have only the moral courage to go
to the fountain-head of truth, instead of filling our vessel out of this
or that doctor’s compendium of truth . . . Were Bishop Butler’s method of
inductive research into Scripture more common than it is we should not
have stood still so long, as if spell-bound by the shadow of a few great
names. ‘It is not at all incredible,’ Bishop Butler adds, ‘that a book
which has been so long in the possession of mankind should contain many
truths as yet undiscovered.’ Such a saying is worthy of Butler. It is only
a philosopher who can allow for time and prescription. The majority of
mankind think that they think; they acquiesce, and suppose that they argue
; they flatter themselves that they are holding their own, when they have
actually grown up to manhood, with scarcely a conviction that they can
call their own. So it always was, and so it will ever be. The Divine
things of the Word are no exception, but rather an instance. The more
difficult the subject, and the more serious the consequences of error, the
more averse the majority are to what is called ‘unsettling men’s minds’;
as if truth could be held on any other tenure than the knight’s fee of
holding its own against all comers. Protestantism has brought us no relief
against this torpid state of mind, for, as the error is as deep as the
nature of man, we cannot expect any deliverance from it so long as the
nature of man continues the same, and his natural love of truth almost as
depraved as his natural love of holiness.”

But the way of discovery, as Bishop Butler has pointed
out, still lies open before us; and it is our object in this work to enter
on that way, and study the Bible from within and not merely from
without.

We believe that only thus we shall be furnishing just
that help which Bible students need.

It may be the work of others to explore Geography,
History, Natural History, Chronology; the antiquities of Assyria,
Palestine, Egypt, and Babylon; all these are legitimate subjects of
systematic research, which cannot but help us in understanding more of the
Word of God.

But our object is to “Open the book”; to let it speak;
to hear its voice; to study it from within itself; and have regard
to other objects and subjects, only from what it teaches about them.

The method of the “Higher” criticism is to discredit a
Book, or a passage on internal evidence. Our method is to establish
and accredit Holy Scripture on internal evidence also, and thus to derive
and provide, from its own pharmacopoeia, an antidote to that subtle and
malignant poison.

This method of study will reveal more convincing and
“infallible proof” of inspiration than can be adduced from all the
reasonings and arguments of men.

Like Ezra of old, our desire is to

“OPEN THE BOOK”

and let it speak for itself, with the full conviction
that if this can be done it can speak more loudly, and more effectively
for itself, than any man can speak on its behalf

May the Lord deign to use these pages, and make them to
be that “guide” to a better understanding and a greater enjoyment of His
own Word.

This is page 2 of 7 in the series:

Previous Page

How to Enjoy
Your Bible

Next Page

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