NEW THOUGHTS 
 ON AN OLD BOOK 
 
 WILLIAM A. BROWN 
 
tihrary of t:he theological ^^minaty 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 
 
 B553d 
 
10 
 
 ^t^Un^(^. 
 
 4^Ltrwf r> AJ.41-C^'U 
 
 O..^ 
 
 
 LAj^i^Uc. <? Cfl-- U^r\^ 1 t-L^^ A r^fJ /^i^iyue, CLtf ^.'/[a^^ 
 
 (JUJLaj^ Q-' jL^/LiU>^-^ V 
 
 Co 
 
NEW THOUGHTS 
 ON AN OLD 
 
 BY ^ 
 
 WILLIAM A. BROWN 
 
 THE ABINGDON PRESS 
 NEW YORK CINCINNATI 
 
Copyright, 1920, by 
 WILLIAM A. BROWN 
 
 The Bible text used in this volume is taken from the American 
 Standard Edition of the Revised Bible, C9pyrighted, 1901, by 
 Thomaa Nelson & Sons, and is used by permission. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 OKdiPTBB PAGE 
 
 I. What Is the Greatest Achieve- 
 ment? 5 
 
 II. It Was Theirs: It Is Now Ours. 15 
 
 III. A Simple Question OF Authors . 24 
 
 IV. Where They Already Had Been 37 
 V. The First Book About the Last 
 
 Things 47 
 
 VI. So General They Become Par- 
 ticular 53 
 
 VII. Illustrating the Ancient Art 
 
 OF Personal Letter- Writing 62 
 VIII. The First Volume of an Inter- 
 rupted Series 75 
 
 IX. Why They Were Called Names 83 
 X. Native Sons Using Exclusively 
 
 A Foreign Tongue 87 
 
 XL Map-Making which Was Unin- 
 tentional 94 
 
 XII. When Charity Began at Home. 98 
 
 XIII. One Conference that Regis- 
 
 tered A Decision 102 
 
 XIV. Strange Travelers Venturing 
 
 ON New Trails 107 
 
4 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XV. Fallen Heralds Who Lie in 
 
 Foreign Lands 124 
 
 XVI. The Attribute of Everlasting 
 
 AS Applied to Books 131 
 
 XVII. The Highest Expression of the 
 
 Christian Life 140 
 
 XVIII. The Proposition as It Now 
 
 Stands 149 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 WHAT IS THE GREATEST 
 ACHIEVEMENT? 
 
 If you were asked to name the great- 
 est achievement of all the long Christian 
 centuries, what would you be most likely 
 to suggest? 
 
 These twenty Christian centuries will 
 be ever memorable as marking man's in- 
 creasing mastery over the forces of the 
 natural world. The partial liberation of 
 the mind of man has resulted in eras of 
 inventions and in epochs of discoveries. 
 And in a world of majestic wonders, who 
 shall name the most glorious single achieve- 
 ment of all the Christian centuries? 
 
 The Christian centuries have been par- 
 ticularly the centuries of discovery. There 
 are no longer many unknown lands. 
 Long-shut doors are now opened into all 
 the world. Great freedom of travel 
 tends to make the people of the planet 
 at home anywhere. The tides of immi- 
 gration are just setting in. People from 
 almost everywhere are following freely 
 
6 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 the fortunes of trade and the favors of 
 developing industries. A higher power 
 than the concert of nations is making for 
 the open-door poHcy of the whole world. 
 And that power will eventually set an 
 open door into all nations — a door which 
 no man can shut. 
 
 Then these are the centuries of the in- 
 numerable inventions which to-day lighten 
 the loads too long borne in exhausting 
 weariness by the beings who were made 
 in the image of the divine. The short- 
 ened hours of toil afford added hours of 
 leisure for the studied pursuit of culture 
 and learning, and make for the ameliora- 
 tion of the untoward social conditions 
 of mankind. These lessened hours of 
 fatiguing labor are not the least among 
 the manifest mercies which have come 
 into the world through the inventive 
 genius of man's free spirit. 
 
 And yet the greatest achievement of 
 the Christian centuries is not found in 
 the world of art or science, nor in the 
 realm of discovery or invention. The 
 greatest achievement of the Christian 
 centuries is the Bible. Of the making of 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 7 
 
 books there is no end; but among all 
 the myriads of books there is this one 
 book which is above every book. "Bring 
 me the book!" the man of letters ex- 
 claimed; and the attendants asked him, 
 "\ATiat book?" And he replied, "There is 
 but one book!" In that saying the man 
 of letters expressed the true judgment 
 of mankind. 
 
 The Bible is the literature of power. 
 A youth gone wrong found his mother's 
 copy of the Bible opened upon a bench 
 in the garden, and read, "Put ye on the 
 Lord Jesus Christ, and make not pro- 
 vision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts 
 thereof"; and this youth, wonderfully re- 
 deemed by that single, searching, con- 
 victing word of God, devoted his life to 
 the work of the Lord, became the mighti- 
 est Christian thinker of his day, and, 
 after the lapse of fifteen hundred years, 
 still holds the theological thinking of the 
 world in the grasp of his powerful hand. 
 
 The Bible is the literature of power. 
 A German monk read the phrase, "The 
 just shall live by faith," and, transformed 
 by that living word of God, he found a 
 
8 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 better way of access to the Father of 
 us all, and through the fuller revelation 
 of heavenly grace, this monk burst asun- 
 der the fettering bonds which bound men 
 in slavish fashion to lifeless forms of 
 worship, and, further, that wonder word 
 of illumination concerning justifying faith 
 made radiant a world which was lying in 
 deep spiritual darkness, and ushered in a 
 new birth of freedom for the moral and 
 intellectual realms. 
 
 The Bible is the literature of power. 
 An English scholar sat in a wayside 
 chapel, listening as an untutored man 
 laboriously read Luther's preface to the 
 Romans; and suddenly he heard those 
 marvelous words, "Therefore being justi- 
 fied by faith, we have peace with God 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ." And as 
 this English scholar heard these gracious 
 words of Christian assurance he felt his 
 heart grow strangely warm, and the peace 
 of God which passes all understanding 
 came to abide in his life; and out from 
 that humble chapel in which an almost 
 illiterate man was poorly reading some 
 great passages from the living Word of 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 9 
 
 God, this school man, newly born, went 
 into the spiritual leadership of the Church 
 of God. 
 
 The influence of the Bible upon the 
 abiding literature of the world is in- 
 calculable. What literary desolations 
 would be wrought by removing from all 
 libraries the other books whose writing 
 has been inspired by the Bible! The 
 mark of the Bible is seen in the legisla- 
 tion of the most advanced peoples in the 
 world. In music and in art, the greatest 
 sources of suggestive power are the chal- 
 lenging phrases found in the Word, of 
 God. The Bible is the book of the brother- 
 hood of man, and the fountainhead of 
 all true democracies. The Bible is not 
 only the inspiration for larger liberties, 
 but its presence and study in a nation 
 is a guarantee of continued freedom. 
 "The Bible is the sheet anchor of Amer- 
 ican liberties" still stands as the judg- 
 ment of America's foremost warrior states- 
 man. 
 
 A ruling monarch from a distant land 
 had come to England. He was shown 
 the places of historic interest in old 
 
10 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 London. He toured rural England and 
 later journeyed to the seats of learning 
 as well as to the places of power. He 
 saw the crown jewels of that realm upon 
 whose imperial sway the sun never sets, 
 and later he looked upon the grand fleet 
 of that proud mistress of the seas. And 
 then he was brought into the presence of 
 her gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. 
 All that the visiting ruler had seen of 
 pomp and splendor had produced a pro- 
 found impression upon his mind, and 
 now, in the presence of the crowned head 
 of so vast an empire, he asks the queen 
 to tell him the secret of England's great- 
 ness. And taking a copy of the Bible 
 in her hand, the Christian sovereign of 
 the world's greatest empire said: "The 
 Bible is the secret of England's great- 
 ness." 
 
 Saint Paul's Cathedral contains many 
 monuments, but among all the memorials 
 chiseled in stone or painted upon canvas 
 there is no monument erected to the 
 genius who designed the Cathedral. There 
 is, however, an inscription; but that in- 
 scription is quite enough, for it reads: *Tf 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 11 
 
 you seek his monument, look around 
 
 you." 
 
 There are no monuments erected to 
 the Bible. However, there are innumer- 
 able memorials which are scattered widely 
 over both hemispheres — memorials which 
 have been occasioned by the Bible. Yon- 
 der monastery upon a lonely mountain 
 in the desert lands of Arabia will be 
 remembered forever as the place where an 
 ancient manuscript of the New Testa- 
 ment was found. A library is justly 
 famous because closely guarded within its 
 protecting vaults is a partial copy of 
 the first books in the Christian Scriptures. 
 Over the seas there is a room to be known 
 all down the ages, because a few men 
 met for a brief time within its inclosures 
 to work upon the translation of the 
 ancient words of the Bible into modern 
 speech. But there are no monuments 
 which have been erected to the Bible 
 itself. Like the fabled one of old, every 
 bit this Book may have touched has be- 
 come beautiful and memorable forever. 
 And yet even more like the One of whom 
 it speaks, the Bible has caused monu- 
 
12 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 ments to be erected to people and to 
 places while apparently forgetful of it- 
 self. 
 
 If you seek a monument to the Bible, 
 look around you. A careful investigation 
 of contemporaneous history in contrast 
 with the world into which the apostles 
 were sent will reveal monuments to the 
 Bible so numerous that no man can count 
 them. For to the earnest student of the 
 progressive history of the Christian cen- 
 turies mighty monuments to the Bible 
 will appear in changed customs, in puri- 
 fied languages, in humanized legislation, 
 in refined manners, in ennobled art, in 
 developing sciences, in growing democ- 
 racies, in shared riches, in disseminated 
 knowledge, in multiplied freedoms, in en- 
 larged liberties, in increasing good, in 
 decimated evils, in renewed peoples, in 
 uplifted races, and in the countless mul- 
 titudes of redeemed souls to whom the 
 Word of God brought life and light. 
 
 Man shall not live by bread alone, but 
 by every word which proceedeth out of the 
 mouth of God (Matt. 4. 4). 
 
 The word of God is living, and active, 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 13 
 
 and sharper than any two-edged sword, 
 and piercing even to the dividing of 
 soul and spirit, of both joints and mar- 
 row, and quick to discern the thoughts 
 and the intents of the heart (Heb. 4. 
 12). 
 
 Every scripture inspired of God is 
 also profitable for teaching, for reproof, 
 for correction, for instruction which is in 
 righteousness: that the man of God may 
 be complete, furnished completely unto 
 every good work (2 Tim. 3. 16, 17). 
 
 Seeing ye have purified your souls in 
 your obedience to the truth unto un- 
 feigned love of the brethren, love one 
 another from the heart fervently: having 
 been begotten again, not of corruptible 
 seed, but of incorruptible, through the 
 word of God, which liveth and abideth. 
 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory 
 thereof as the flower of grass. The grass 
 withereth, and the flower falleth: but the 
 word of the Lord abideth for ever (1 Peter 
 1. 2*2-25). 
 
 The Bible is the greatest achievement 
 of the Christian centuries, as well as the 
 most priceless heritage of all mankind. 
 
U NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 And they to whom the world is indebted 
 for this priceless literary treasure are the 
 real benefactors of the races of men. 
 
 Who, then, are the men to whom the 
 world owes the fact that there is such a 
 book as the Bible? 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 15 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 IT WAS THEIRS: IT IS NOW OURS 
 
 It is exceedingly difficult for us to 
 imagine a time when there was no Bible. 
 With what pitying eyes we read, in an 
 early history, that there was no open 
 vision in those days. For long, lonesome 
 centuries men saw through a glass darkly. 
 
 And it is even more difficult for us to 
 conceive the almost incidental way in 
 which many of the books of the Bible 
 appear to have been written. Such 
 fascinating stories are treasured in the 
 traditions of the church as to the manner 
 of the writing of some of the books in 
 the New Testament. WTiat a wonderful 
 enrichment would come to our general 
 knowledge if we could fully recover the 
 circumstances concerning the writing of 
 all the books in the Bible! 
 
 The two general divisions of the Bible 
 are the Old and the New Testaments, 
 comprising sixty-six books, with numer- 
 ous authors and many centuries covered 
 
16 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 in their writing. And yet the Bible is 
 really one book. It is a book with one 
 theme — the theme of redeeming love. It 
 is a book built upon one thread — a scarlet 
 thread, whose red strands entwine the 
 whole revelation of the bleeding heart of 
 God for the lost and sinning sons of men. 
 
 We speak of the Word of God as our 
 Bible. But in what sense is this book of 
 God our Bible? 
 
 The most casual American, in reading 
 the Word of God, discovers quickly that 
 the Bible is a foreign book. Its scenes 
 are all laid in distant lands and among 
 alien peoples. Its figures of speech are 
 so strange that entire libraries of books 
 are needed for their proper understanding. 
 Its modes of thought are at variance with 
 the accepted rules of the modem mind. 
 Its language is so foreign that it is diffi- 
 cult at times to fully apprehend its deeper 
 meaning. Its imagery reflects a world 
 totally different from the one in which 
 we live and move and have our being. 
 Its customs and ceremonies are altogether 
 outside the common range of experiences 
 of the native-born in our race. Its chief 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 17 
 
 characters bear names with which we are 
 not naturally familiar. Its story largely 
 concerns an almost forgotten period in 
 the world's history. The message of the 
 Bible, however welcome it may be to us, 
 comes mediated by a race other than our 
 own. For the Bible is an Oriental book. 
 The authors of the books of the Bible 
 were for the most part Asiatics. The 
 holy men of old who spake and wrote as 
 they were moved by the Holy Ghost 
 were mostly members of the Semitic race. 
 
 And yet we may in all sincerity speak 
 of the Word of God as our Bible. But 
 in what sense is this book of God our 
 Bible? Evidently, not in the sense that 
 w^e discovered it ourselves, and certainly 
 not in the sense that we wrote it our- 
 selves. The Bible is our Bible simply 
 because we accepted it as a most gracious 
 gift from the people of another race. To 
 what persons in particular are we thus 
 in everlasting debt for this great gift of 
 the most precious literary heritage of all 
 the ages.^ 
 
 The Bible has so long been in the 
 possession of our people that it is well- 
 
18 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 nigh impossible to fancy a time when our 
 race was outside the pale of revelation 
 and without the Word of God. While 
 the Bible had its rise among the Orientals, 
 yet to-day its greatest triumphs are in 
 the Occidental lands. Although the au- 
 thors of the books of the Bible were 
 mostly Asiatics, nevertheless to-day this 
 book of the revealed will of God holds its 
 completest sway over the minds of the 
 American and the European. The Bible 
 has so fully become the possession of the 
 highly favored peoples of these evan- 
 gelized lands that it is now quite incon- 
 ceivable to suppose the time when our 
 people were without the Bible altogether. 
 
 The Bible was first brought to the 
 ancestors of our race by foreign mis- 
 sionaries. In recounting the modem fruits 
 of foreign missions, it is now the quite 
 common practice to look to lands other 
 than our own, apparently all unmindful 
 of the fact that the largest results of 
 missionary labor are to be seen in all 
 that is best in Europe and America. It 
 was so long ago that the foreign mission- 
 aries first brought the Bible to our race 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 19 
 
 that we have almost altogether forgotten 
 that we ourselves are the descendants of 
 the converts of foreign missionaries. And 
 if it had not been for the work of foreign 
 missionaries the Bible would never have 
 become the common possession of the 
 people of our race. 
 
 And yet, wonderful as is the giviog 
 of the Bible to the people of our race, 
 it is one of the least of the marvelous 
 achievements of the foreign missionary 
 enterprise. So far as we are concerned 
 the bringing of the Bible to us has been 
 of inestimable value. Even so there have 
 been many other events of equal impor- 
 tance in the illustrious history of foreign 
 missions. 
 
 The missionaries have largely mastered 
 the languages of the peoples of the planet. 
 At almost infinite pains these men of God 
 have listened to the well-nigh unintelligible 
 jargons of the various unlettered races; 
 and then, after mastering their rude ways 
 of unlettered and unwritten speech, have 
 given both a language and a literature to 
 m^Tiads of men. In this one way alone 
 the missionaries have been of incalculable 
 
20 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 benefit to the orthographies of the world. 
 That the missionaries have done their 
 Hterary work well may be inferred from 
 the fact that to-day all the reading people 
 on the planet have the Word of God in 
 the tongue wherein they were born. The 
 translation of the Scriptures alone into so 
 many languages is a task so monumental 
 as to justify all the labors of all the mis- 
 sionaries from the days of the apostles 
 until now. 
 
 Then, too, the circulation of the Scrip- 
 tures in all lands has been carried on so 
 industriously and against such bitter oppo- 
 sition as to merit the approbation and to 
 receive the praise of the true lovers of 
 real heroism in all the world. And, marvel 
 of marvels! the very church which was 
 set as the pillar and ground of the truth 
 has at times forbidden the distribution of 
 the Word of God in the language of the 
 people. The foes within the church have 
 always been far mightier than the forces 
 without the church. The foreign mis- 
 sionary has often found that his worst 
 enemies are they of his own ecclesiastical 
 household. Even so, the missionaries 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 21 
 
 triumphed still; and the circulation of the 
 Scriptures in every land attests the fidel- 
 ity and the heroism of these men of God 
 who loved not their hves unto death. 
 With ennobling enthusiasm they carried 
 abroad the Word of eternal life. Many 
 fires could not quench their devotion: 
 neither could the floods drown it. 
 
 The work of the missionaries has made 
 the peoples of the world accessible to one 
 another. ^Vhen the gospel has once come 
 into its rightful place in the life, a person 
 is no longer willing to live in isolation. 
 Mankind is so made that nationalities will 
 not always be content to dwell in exclusive 
 provincialisms. Some day all that nar- 
 rows and contracts will be finally done 
 aw^ay. Racial prejudices will vanish for- 
 ever in the presence of the fuller light 
 which comes from a better knowledge of 
 one another. And in this vital way the 
 missionaries are fast furthering the fed- 
 eration of the world. 
 
 Then, too. Christian missions has for- 
 warded the rapidly forming civilizations in 
 mission lands. The proclamation of the 
 gospel message awakens always a desire 
 
22 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 for better things. Institutions for human 
 advancement follow ever in the wake of 
 the missionaries of the Christ. And, 
 through it all, belated peoples begin to 
 form nationalities; and these nationalities, 
 as though driven by an irresistible power, 
 drift all unconsciously toward democ- 
 racies; and the day is not far distant when 
 all kingly governors of the world will be 
 of the people's own choosing. 
 
 Far greater even yet are the vast social 
 reconstructions which are being wrought 
 by the missionary's message in every land. 
 Children the world around are coming into 
 a new heritage through the discovery of 
 the thought of God for the childhood of 
 all the races of men. The emancipation 
 of woman from the age-long burdens 
 which have borne her down is most mar- 
 velous indeed. And now the serious 
 attempt to meet the total social needs of 
 all men is more wonderful still. It is 
 this everlasting, regenerating, vitalizing 
 gospel which meets every need that the 
 missionaries have carried into all lands. 
 
 But not one of these represents, nor 
 even all of them, unprecedented achieve- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 23 
 
 ments though they are, represent the 
 greatest accompHshment of the mission- 
 ary enterprise. For the most extraordinary 
 achievement of the entire missionary enter- 
 prise is the Bible itself. This is the fact 
 which stands incontestable: apostolic mis- 
 sions did not grow out of the New Testa- 
 ment, but the New Testament rather, 
 grew out of the active labors of the first 
 missionaries among the apostles. 
 
 One of the ancients was wont to say 
 that every address should begin with an 
 incontrovertible proposition. This chap- 
 ter closes with an incontrovertible propo- 
 sition: If it had not been for the mission- 
 ary enterprise, the world would never 
 have had the Bible at all. 
 
24 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 A SIMPLE QUESTION OF AUTHORS 
 
 Who wrote the books which comprise 
 the New Testament? 
 
 Of the twenty-seven books in the New 
 Testament, seven do not contain in them- 
 selves the names of their own authors. 
 These seven books, although they are ever 
 so few among so many, comprise three 
 fifths of the entire Christian Scriptures, 
 for they are the four Gospels, the Acts, 
 the Hebrews, and First John. Then there 
 are two other smaller books which leave 
 the name of the writer to be inferred 
 from a descriptive phrase. 
 
 What could have been the motive which 
 impelled the writers of the four Gospels 
 to leave out of their books any mention 
 of their names as authors? Doubtless 
 their standing and recognition among 
 Christian believers was so high that it 
 was entirely unnecessary for them to 
 appeal to their authority. It was far 
 otherwise with the apostle Paul. He 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 25 
 
 always was straitened under the stern 
 necessity of proving that he too had the 
 calling of an apostle. 
 
 It is most apparent that the men who 
 wrote the Gospels were particularly eager 
 that all the readers of their message should 
 see Jesus only. They gave themselves to 
 their labor of love with such holy abandon 
 that their own names as authors might 
 have been completely lost. If the world 
 should come to know Jesus as Lord, they 
 were evidently quite willing themselves to 
 be entirely forgotten. 
 
 Fortunately for us, the first genera- 
 tions of the Christian converts have pre- 
 served the names of the authors of the 
 Gospels, and because of the testimony of 
 those early believers we know that the 
 Gospels were wTitten by the men whose 
 names they now bear. Therefore to the 
 end of the ages the lovers of the Lord 
 will speak of the good tidings as the 
 Gospels according to Matthew, and Mark, 
 and Luke, and John. 
 
 The third Gospel and the Acts of the 
 Apostles are from the same pen, and 
 Luke is their author. 
 
26 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 In the epistles which bear his name 
 Paul's name appears alone in Romans, 
 Ephesians, and in the three Pastoral 
 Epistles to Timothy and to Titus. In 
 First Corinthians Paul associates the name 
 of Sosthenes with his own name. In 
 Second Corinthians, Philippians, Colos- 
 sians, and Philemon, Paul includes the 
 name of Timothy along with himself in 
 the introductory paragraphs. In Gala- 
 tians, Paul names "all the brethren that 
 are with me," together with himself, 
 while in the two Epistles to the Thes- 
 salonians appear the names of Silvanus and 
 Timothy in company with the name of 
 Paul. Notwithstanding this array of 
 names, these epistles are all known as 
 the letters of the apostle Paul. How, 
 then, does it occur that these names 
 are to be found in the introductions to the 
 epistles? 
 
 The names of Sosthenes, and Timothy, 
 and Silvanus, and "all the brethren" ap- 
 pear in the introductory verses just as 
 the names of many friends are found in 
 the salutations. What a charming pic- 
 ture of the utter Christian simplicity that 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 27 
 
 prevailed in the apostolic church! There 
 is the completest freedom from arrogant 
 ecclesiasticism. Think of the greatest 
 apostle freely associating with his own 
 far-sounding name the name of so youthful 
 a disciple as Timothy! 
 
 James, the son of Joseph and Mary, 
 and a younger brother of our Lord, is the 
 author of the epistle which bears his 
 name. 
 
 Jude, the brother of James — as though 
 that were honor enough ! — wrote the Epis- 
 tle of Jude. 
 
 Peter is the author of the two epistles 
 which carry his name. The title to 
 Second Peter in some ancient manuscripts 
 bears the name of Symeon. There is 
 necessity for the exercise of great restraint 
 in thinking of all that may lie behind in 
 the author's mind when Peter thus late 
 uses his old-time and childhood name. 
 
 John is commonly recognized as the 
 author of the three epistles and the book 
 of Revelation. 
 
 This leaves the authorship of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews still to be determined. 
 
 In the King James Version of the Holy 
 
28 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Scriptures the title to the Hebrews reads: 
 "The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the 
 Hebrews," while in all the modern ver- 
 sions of the New Testament the title 
 reads simply, "The Epistle to the He- 
 brews." Thus Hebrews stands alone as 
 the one book in the New Testament about 
 whose authorship there is serious differ- 
 ence of opinion. 
 
 All thoughtful readers are impressed 
 with the marked difference of style be- 
 tween the opening verses of Paul's other 
 epistles, and the beginning of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews. In the thirteen epistles 
 from Romans to Philemon, the first word 
 invariably is the apostle's own name. 
 The introductory sentences in nine of the 
 Pauline epistles follow the name of Paul 
 with the strongest possible affirmation of 
 his apostleship. A comparison of these 
 opening verses is most instructive: 
 
 Paul, . . . called to be an apostle (Rom. 
 
 1.1). 
 
 Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus 
 Christ through the will of God (1 Cor. 1.1). 
 
 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through 
 the will of God (2 Cor. 1. 1). 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 29 
 
 Paul, an apostle, not from men, neither 
 through man, but through Jesus Christ 
 and God the Father (Gal. 1. 1). 
 
 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through 
 the will of God (Eph. 1. 1). 
 
 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through 
 the will of God (Col. 1. 1). 
 
 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus accord- 
 ing to the commandment of God our 
 Saviour and Christ Jesus our hope (1 Tim. 
 
 1. 1). 
 
 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through 
 the will of God (2 Tim. 1. 1). 
 
 Paul, ... an apostle of Jesus Christ 
 (Titus 1. 1). 
 
 God, having of old time, spoken unto 
 the fathers in the prophets by divers 
 portions and in divers manners, hath at 
 the end of these days spoken to us in 
 his Son (Heb. 1. 1). 
 
 Something more than the mere omission 
 of the author's name led studious men 
 long ago to question the Pauline author- 
 ship of the Epistle to the Hebrews. The 
 style throughout is very different from 
 the other acknowledged letters of the 
 apostle Paul. 
 
30 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 The question of style, however, in the 
 Hterary criticism of the Bible is liable to 
 overvaluation. A certain boy away from 
 home at college wrote regularly to his 
 mother. The mother received at least 
 two letters every week from her son. 
 Then one day there came to the mother 
 a large envelope which contained the copy 
 of a contest oration written by her boy. 
 The oration was not the least bit like his 
 letters in style; and the mother sat pon- 
 dering the rhetorical phrases, and the 
 balanced periods, and the unusual words — 
 and long words at that — and with a look 
 of deep wonder on her face, asked her 
 daughter, "Where do you suppose Willie 
 got all these big words?" And as with 
 labored effort the mother finally finished 
 the reading of her son's oration, she said, 
 questioningly, "Do you really suppose 
 Willie wrote all this?" The mother has 
 long been with her Lord in the land of 
 tearless joy, and I still aflSrm with all my 
 heart that I did write the oration myseK 
 — every word of it! 
 
 However, the entire cast of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews is in a style totally differ- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 31 
 
 ent from the manner of Paul's ordinary 
 writing in the thirteen epistles which bear 
 his name. 
 
 In the eastern church, with its educa- 
 tional center in Alexandria, there was the 
 common belief that the church was in- 
 debted to the apostle Paul for the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews. The absence of his 
 name, however, called for an explanation. 
 And Pantaenus, at the middle of the 
 second century, accounts for the absence 
 of the apostle's name on the ground of 
 modesty, considering that the Lord Jesus 
 had been sent as the apostle to the He- 
 brews. Clement of Alexandria, writing 
 near the close of the second century, sup- 
 poses that Paul omitted his name because 
 the Hebrews were prejudiced against him. 
 But Clement goes a step further, and 
 really questions the Pauline authorship of 
 the epistle from the point of view of its 
 style, suggesting that Paul might have 
 written the epistle in Hebrew, and that 
 Luke translated it into Greek. 
 
 Origen was perhaps the greatest scholar 
 in the early days of the eastern church. 
 This great scholar notes the peculiarly 
 
32 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Pauline cast of thought in Hebrews, but 
 the language of the book forces him to 
 the conclusion that it must have been 
 written by some one else. Nevertheless, 
 Origen justifies any church in receiving 
 Hebrews as from the apostle Paul, because 
 the thought of the epistle is so thor- 
 oughly and so conclusively Pauline. 
 
 A different view of the authorship of 
 the Hebrews was held in the leading cen- 
 ters of the western chiu'ch in Rome and 
 Carthage. The church of North Africa 
 was in a flourishing condition. Some of 
 the ablest apologists and theologians of 
 the whole Christian era were members of 
 that church. TertuUian especially ranks 
 high on the honor roll of the early church 
 fathers. While the testimony of the 
 western church is wholly against the 
 Pauline authorship, yet it is only upon 
 the statement of TertuUian that Hebrews 
 is ascribed to Barnabas. This capable 
 leader of the Christian forces in North 
 Africa speaks of Barnabas as "a man of 
 such authority that Paul ranks him with 
 himself." 
 
 After all, who wrote Hebrews? 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 33 
 
 It must appear as purest presumption 
 at so late a day to attempt to find out 
 something upon which the Christian schol- 
 ars of the second century were unable to 
 agree. Origen expressed the opinion that 
 God alone knew who wrote Hebrews. 
 And upon that statement of fact there 
 will be no difference of opinion what- 
 ever. 
 
 It is a matter of genuine interest, how- 
 ever, to note that the students of Hebrews 
 are quite generally agreed upon these six 
 conclusions : 
 
 1. The Epistle to the Hebrews is not 
 a Greek translation of a Hebrew original. 
 The superfineness of the literary finish 
 precludes the possibility of the epistle 
 being a mere translation. 
 
 2. The author of the epistle is a Jew. 
 This is determined not alone by the most 
 intimate familiarity with Jewish history 
 and literature, but by the entire back- 
 ground of the argument and structure of 
 the epistle. 
 
 3. The author, while a Jew, belonged to 
 that influential body of Jews who were 
 tinged with Greek modes of thought. 
 
34 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Thus the author was a Jew from the 
 Gentile world. 
 
 4. The author was not an apostle, for 
 he states clearly that the message of 
 salvation was confirmed unto him along 
 with others by the testimony of the men 
 who had themselves heard the Lord Jesus. 
 
 5. The author manifests great familiar- 
 ity with the ideas of Paul. There is so 
 much similarity between the ideas in 
 Hebrews and the ideas in some of PauFs 
 letters that Origen rightly characterizes 
 the Epistle to the Hebrews as the thoughts 
 of the apostle Paul. 
 
 6. The author is skilled in Jewish cere- 
 monial practices. No other book in the 
 entire New Testament makes so large a 
 use of the laws of sacrifice and of the 
 part of the priest in the service of the 
 temple. 
 
 Now, of all the men suggested as pos- 
 sible authors of Hebrews there is no one 
 who more completely fulfills these reason- 
 able expectations than does Barnabas, for 
 Barnabas was a Levite who lived outside 
 the land of Palestine. He was the closest 
 possible companion of the apostle Paul in 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 35 
 
 those controversial days when the PauUne 
 ideas were given their most forceful ex- 
 pression. And Barnabas heard the gospel 
 message from others. Besides all this, 
 Barnabas was never included in the circle 
 of the apostolate. He was not an eye- 
 witness of His majesty, as were Peter and 
 the rest. We may, therefore, reasonably 
 conclude that the assertion of Tertullian 
 is grounded upon very substantial evi- 
 dence, and that Joseph — who by the 
 apostles was surnamed Barnabas, a Le- 
 vite, a man of Cyprus by birth, a good 
 man, full of the Holy Ghost and of faith 
 — is the probable author of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews. 
 
 ^\Tiat, then, are the names of the men 
 who wrote the books of the New Testa- 
 ment? There are Matthew, and Mark, and 
 Luke, and John, and Paul, and Barnabas, 
 and Peter, and James, and Jude. 
 
 ^^^lere did these writers of the books 
 of the New Testament labor? We call 
 some of them apostles, and by that word 
 we frequently confuse the idea that in 
 reality they were simply missionaries, for 
 a further analysis of the record of their 
 
36 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 fruitful lives shows most conclusively that 
 these writers were all missionaries. Then 
 every book in the New Testament was 
 written by a missionary. 
 
 Now, it may appear as begging the 
 question to make such a sweeping 
 claim after so lately proving the prob- 
 ability that the missionary Barnabas is 
 the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. 
 But suppose for the moment that Barnabas 
 did not write Hebrews. Suppose Hebrews 
 to have been written by any one of the 
 several worthy names which have been 
 championed by able scholars as rightful 
 claimants to the authorship of Hebrews. 
 What then? Simply this: of all the out- 
 standing suggested authors of the Epistle 
 to the Hebrews every one of them was 
 a missionary. 
 
 And so the record still stands: every 
 book in the New Testament was written 
 by a missionary. If it had not been for 
 the missionary enterprise, the world would 
 never have had the Bible at all. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 37 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 WHERE THEY ALREADY HAD BEEN 
 
 Twelve of the epistles of the apostle 
 Paul are addressed either to individuals 
 or to churches. One other epistle is 
 directed to a group of churches — the 
 churches in Galatia. In the order in 
 which the Pauline letters appear in the 
 New Testament, the first nine are ad- 
 dressed to seven Christian communities. 
 These Christian communities are located 
 in places of genuine historic interest. 
 
 1. In the early days of the Christian 
 era Rome sat upon her seven hills, the 
 political mistress of the world. Her popu- 
 lation ran close to an even million souls, 
 and included a rapidly growing Jewish 
 contingent. Rome was well called the 
 epitome of the world. Her citizens repre- 
 sented every known nationality, and every 
 religion, and every race. Rome was the 
 storehouse of all that was valuable or 
 curious in the empire, the center of polit- 
 ical and intellectual life. People from 
 
38 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 every part of the known world jostled one 
 another familiarly in her crowded streets. 
 
 No one now knows who first proclaimed 
 the gospel in the imperial city, and laid 
 the foundation for that spiritual kingdom 
 which still has its seat upon the banks of 
 the Tiber. However, there were so- 
 journers from Rome in Jerusalem upon the 
 day of Pentecost. It may be assumed 
 that some one from among these visitors 
 to the city of David might have been 
 the first to carry the good news of a 
 risen Lord to the Jewish community in 
 the city of Rome. The effect of the 
 proclamation of the gospel message was 
 the same in Rome as elsewhere in that 
 ancient world. Riots were frequent. These 
 riots became so serious that finally the 
 Christian leaders were banished from 
 Rome by an imperial decree. 
 
 2. Corinth, at the time of Paul's first 
 visit, was the capital city of the Roman 
 province of Achaia, and the headquarters 
 of the proconsul. Corinth was a city of 
 great importance, situated on a narrow 
 isthmus — "the bridge of the untiring seas" 
 — with an eastern and a western port. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 39 
 
 Thus Corinth was a maritime city. Sailors 
 from every port thronged the city's har- 
 bors, and walked the city's streets, and 
 partook of the city's life. A current 
 proverb for abandoned living carries with 
 it still the stigma of the ill of the place — 
 "to live as they do at Corinth." The 
 low moral tone of the city is reflected in 
 the later Christian community. Nowhere 
 else in epistolary literature is to be found 
 another such record of loose living as is 
 pictured in the epistles to the Corinthians. 
 The Corinthian church was founded in 
 turbid waters. Corinth as a community 
 was well characterized as possessing loos- 
 ened and disintegrating moral fibers. The 
 people were given over to lightness in 
 thought and in speech. And yet they to 
 whom the preaching of the cross at first 
 seemed utter foolishness found at last 
 the power of God unto salvation. 
 
 3. Galatia comprised the rich country 
 separated from the Black Sea by Bithynia, 
 while to the east of Galatia lay Pontus 
 and Cappadocia, and to the south and 
 west was Phrygia. Galatia was mostly 
 inhabited by the Celts. And ancient 
 
40 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 writers describe the Celtic race as pe- 
 culiarly impressionable, inquisitive, quick 
 of apprehension, and eager. They were 
 known by their contemporaries as a people 
 of fickle disposition. How clearly all these 
 racial characteristics are portrayed in 
 Paul's letter to the churches of Galatia! 
 
 4. Ephesus was the capital of the Roman 
 province of Asia, and one of the three 
 great cities of the eastern Mediterranean 
 lands. The city owed much of its pre- 
 eminence in the province to the temple 
 of Diana, the greatest and the most in- 
 fluential in the province of Asia. And 
 Ephesus was boastful of her title as 
 warden of the temple. This is attested 
 by the serious riot which the members of 
 the silversmiths' council were able to 
 arouse because the acceptance of the 
 gospel made heavy inroads into the pop- 
 ular demand for the images of the goddess. 
 
 5. Philippi is of special interest as the 
 first place to be evangelized on the conti- 
 nent of Europe. In response to the vision 
 call of the man from Macedonia, Paul 
 embarked upon this special tour of evan- 
 gelization. Two incidents emerge from 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 41 
 
 among the many happenings in Philippi. 
 The one relates to the conversion of Lydia, 
 whose heart the Lord opened as she gave 
 earnest heed to the word of eternal life 
 spoken by the missionary at the riverside, 
 "where prayer was wont to be made." 
 The other incident has to do with the 
 rescue of a little slave girl who was kept 
 in bondage for gain by her masters, be- 
 cause of some precocious power of divina- 
 tion which she appears to have possessed. 
 The first friend for Jesus in this new 
 mission at Philippi was a woman of 
 affairs, and, doubtless, a woman of wealth 
 and influence as well. And the last 
 friend was the little slave girl; for imme- 
 diately following her remarkable trans- 
 formation, when her masters saw that the 
 hope of their gain was gone, straightway 
 they laid hold on Paul and Silas and 
 dragged them into the market place before 
 the rulers. And the rulers beat them 
 with rods and cast them into prison. 
 But at midnight Paul and Silas prayed, 
 and sang hymns unto God. And sud- 
 denly there was a great earthquake, and 
 all were released. And the jailor brought 
 
42 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Paul and Silas out of the prison and took 
 them into his own house, and the magis- 
 trates besought them, and asked them 
 to go away from the city. And when Paul 
 and Silas had seen the Christian brethren, 
 they comforted them, and departed. And 
 yet so gracious were the days spent in 
 Philippi, and so beautiful were the lives 
 of the Philippian believers, that Paul 
 thanked God upon every remembrance of 
 them ! Philippi can never be forgotten, and 
 the epistle Paul wrote to the Philippians 
 is rightly considered the most radiantly 
 buoyantly joyous of all Paul's letters. 
 
 6. Colossae was situated on the river 
 Lycus, in southwestern Phrygia, but within 
 the Roman proconsular province of Asia. 
 It was not far away from Laodicea and 
 Hierapolis. Colossse was not evangelized 
 directly by the apostle Paul. The church 
 in Colossse may have been formed by 
 converts who were won by the preaching 
 of Paul in Ephesus. Late in the days of 
 his first imprisonment at Rome we find 
 Paul planning a journey into the provinces 
 of Asia Minor, and at that time he hoped 
 to visit this church in Colossse. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 43 
 
 7. Thessalonica was the scene of the 
 missionary labors of the apostle Paul 
 following his enforced departure from 
 Philippi. Here Paul found employment 
 and felt at home with the tradespeople 
 of the town. His testimony in the syna- 
 gogue upon the Sabbath day awoke a 
 favorable response among many people; 
 and yet, once again, the Jews, being 
 moved with jealousy, took unto them cer- 
 tain vile fellows of the rabble, and gather- 
 ing a crowd set the city in an uproar. 
 And the brethren sent away Paul and 
 Silas by night. And the church at Thes- 
 salonica has this signal honor — that it 
 was the first among all the churches to 
 have a letter from the apostle to the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 There is still another epistle which is 
 addressed to a church — the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews. While this epistle does not 
 indicate the particular community to 
 which it was written, yet its destination 
 may be inferred from its contents. The 
 epistle is written primarily for a Chris- 
 tian church, a great body of whose mem- 
 bers are intimately familiar with the 
 
44 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 temple worship of the Jews, and its 
 writing is inspired by some overshadowing 
 catastrophe which is near at hand. 
 
 It is more than likely that the letter 
 was addressed to some one of the great 
 Syrian cities. Antioch in Syria probably 
 contained the Hebrew Christians who 
 were the center of the author's solicitous 
 care. How natural that Barnabas should 
 have a special regard for the members 
 of his own race in the chosen city where 
 he labored so zealously for the Lord. 
 Antioch was one of the first centers to 
 be evangelized. The church's member- 
 ship was cosmopolitan in character. Men 
 of Cyprus and of Cyrene were numbered 
 in its fellowship. These believers included 
 the Grecian Jews in their missionary 
 ministrations. And the Christian com- 
 munity of Antioch was largely composed 
 of people who were animated with Jewish 
 sympathies, full of interest in the temple 
 worship, and glorying in the name of 
 Hebrew. These people spoke the Greek 
 tongue, were familiar with the Greek ver- 
 sion of the Old Testament, and were well 
 versed in the sacrificial law. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 45 
 
 Then it was in Antioch that Peter, 
 after certain came from James, with- 
 drew his fellowship from the Gentiles. 
 The Jewish element in the Antioch church 
 must have been very strong indeed. 
 And, in the light of a terrible scourge 
 which is about to overtake them, how 
 altogether appropriate that their former 
 leader should remember them in their 
 threatening affliction, and should seek to 
 prevent a worse sorrow. For to one who 
 knew and loved Jesus Christ as Barnabas 
 did, there is no doubting that, once 
 others saw in the Saviour what he expe- 
 rienced, they would never forsake their 
 Lord and Master, who is greater than all 
 angels, the High Priest forever, the author 
 and the finisher of faith. 
 
 Now, list the names of all the cities 
 whose churches had epistles written unto 
 them, and the list includes the cities of 
 Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossse, 
 Thessalonica, Antioch in Syria, and the 
 cities of Galatia. But where is Rome? 
 Where is Corinth? \Miere is Ephesus? 
 WTiere is Philippi? Wliere is Colossae? 
 WTiere is Thessalonica? Where is Antioch? 
 
46 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Where are the cities of Galatia? Which 
 one of these cities Hes within the borders 
 of the homeland of Palestine? It is sig' 
 nificant that of the eight places named, 
 four are in Europe and four are in Asia 
 Minor. Where, then, are the epistles 
 which were written especially for the 
 churches in Judaea, or in Samaria, or in 
 Galilee? It is a striking fact that every 
 epistle in the New Testament which was 
 written to a church was written to a mis- 
 sionary church. If it had not been for 
 the missionary enterprise, the world would 
 never have had the Bible at all. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 47 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FIRST BOOK ABOUT THE 
 LAST THINGS 
 
 The book of Revelation occupies a 
 unique place among the books of the 
 New Testament. It begins with the 
 word "Apocalypse," and that one word 
 immediately sets the book apart into a 
 class of literature not otherwise found in 
 the accepted list of canonical books which 
 have been vested with apostolic authority. 
 
 The last book in the Bible finds the 
 occasion for its writing in the height of 
 the fierce persecutions which had their 
 rise in the reign of Nero. John has been 
 banished to the isle of Patmos, because 
 of the word of God and the testimony of 
 Jesus. He is in the Spirit on the Lord's 
 Day, and he hears behind him a great 
 voice, as of a trumpet, saying, "What 
 thou seest, write." And John "saw seven 
 golden candlesticks; and in the midst of 
 the candlesticks one like unto a son of 
 man, clothed with a garment down to the 
 
48 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 foot, and girt about at the breasts with 
 a golden girdle. And his head and his 
 hair were white as white wool, white as 
 snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; 
 and his feet like unto burnished brass, 
 as if it had been refined in a furnace; and 
 his voice as the voice of many waters. 
 And he had in his right hand seven stars: 
 and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp 
 two-edged sword; and his countenance was 
 as the sun shineth in his strength." And 
 he said, "I am the first and the last, and 
 the Living one; and I was dead, and be- 
 hold, I am alive forevermore. . . . Write 
 therefore the things which thou sawest, 
 and the things which are, and the things 
 which shall come to pass hereafter." And 
 he was to send what he wrote to the seven 
 churches that were in Asia. 
 
 And the opening chapters of the Rev- 
 elation are taken up with the letters to 
 the seven churches. But in what seven 
 cities do we find the churches to which 
 these letters are sent.^ 
 
 1. Ephesus is the first named among 
 the cities, perhaps because the city itself 
 was the metropolis of the province and 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 49 
 
 the seat of power. Or it may be that 
 the city was the first in order from the 
 place of the writing of the Revelation. 
 Then, too, Ephesus was the present resi- 
 dence of the apostle John. 
 
 2. Smyrna was a Grecian city in the 
 w^estern part of Asia Minor, the most 
 brilliant and splendid of the cities of the 
 province of Asia in the days of the Roman 
 empire. It alone of all the seven cities 
 abides intact to this day. Its church has 
 had an honorable history. It contributed 
 to the noble band of martyrs. The aged 
 Poly carp, disciple of John the beloved, 
 and eighty-six years a Christian, was 
 burned to death in Smyrna in 155. 
 
 3. Pergamum was an illustrious city of 
 Mysia, the capital of the province, al- 
 though built in from the sea and away 
 from the main routes of travel and of 
 trade. The city was renowned as the 
 residence of kings. It was widely known 
 in the ancient world for its large library 
 of 200,000 volumes; and the city excelled 
 in the manufacture of parchment. 
 
 4. Thyatira was a flourishing commercial 
 and manufacturing city in Lydia. Numer- 
 
50 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 ous trade guilds were organized among 
 the people. The guild of dyers is men- 
 tioned in several inscriptions. And the 
 peculiar temptations to the Christians in 
 Thyatira grew out of their connection with 
 these ancient unions, since idolatrous 
 practices were closely observed in the 
 guild meetings. 
 
 5. Sardis was an ancient city of Lydia, 
 and in the first century of the Christian 
 era retained still the name of a former 
 grandeur. It had at one time been the 
 home of kings likewise, but at the present 
 time it is a mere village in which a few 
 shepherds dwell. 
 
 6. Philadelphia was located in the east- 
 ern part of Lydia at the very head of the 
 coast valley which extends inland from 
 the gulf of Smyrna. Beyond the city 
 eastward on the high plateau of Asia 
 Minor extended a field for great useful- 
 ness, and there was set the "open door.'* 
 After the varying vicissitudes of all the 
 centuries there still are to be found in 
 the city which occupies the site of ancient 
 Philadelphia bodies of Christians who are 
 obedient to the word of the Lord. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 51 
 
 7. Laodicea was a Phrygian city, lying 
 between Hierapolis and Colossse, in the 
 valley of the Lycus and on the main trade 
 route. It was rich enough to rebuild 
 after a destructive earthquake without 
 accepting outside aid. It was the center 
 of large banking and commercial transac- 
 tions. It was also famous for the glossy 
 black wool of its sheep, and for the manu- 
 factured garments which were made from 
 it. The very site of the city is now utterly 
 destroyed, and the building materials, 
 taken from the ruins, have been used 
 elsewhere. 
 
 These are the cities in which the 
 churches of Revelation are to be found: 
 Ephesus, and Smyrna, and Pergamum, 
 and Thyatira, and Sardis, and Philadel- 
 phia, and Laodicea. But these seven 
 cities are all in Asia Minor, and not one 
 of them is located in the land of Palestine. 
 To each of these seven cities the gospel 
 message of a Saviour's redeeming love had 
 been carried by the hands of mission- 
 aries. 
 
 Then it is clear that the churches to 
 which the one book of prophecy and 
 
52 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 revelation in the New Testament was 
 written were all missionary churches. If 
 if had not been for the missionary enter- 
 prise, the world would never have had 
 the Bible at all. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 53 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SO GENERAL THEY BECOME 
 PARTICULAR 
 
 1. The Epistle of James was written 
 to that part of the twelve tribes which 
 were known as the Dispersion. This 
 term was applied technically to the Jews 
 who were scattered abroad throughout the 
 Roman world. Nearly every commercial 
 center contained its Jewish community. 
 People of like interests and a foreign 
 tongue always group themselves together 
 in a strange city. Because, however, of 
 their unusually strong racial and religious 
 ties, the Jewish section in these foreign 
 cities became a veritable solidarity. They 
 maintained their own places of worship 
 and instruction. The synagogues of the 
 dispersed Jews were places of command- 
 ing power. 
 
 In the missionary effort of the early 
 church the almost universal appeal was 
 made, first of all, to the Sabbath congre- 
 gations which assembled in the Jewish 
 
54 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 sections of these foreign cities. And from 
 among these bodies of devout worshipers 
 came the first earnest workers who formed 
 the beginnings of the communities of 
 Christian behevers. To such general 
 groups of Jewish Christians the Epistle 
 of James was written. 
 
 2. The First Epistle of Peter is ad- 
 dressed to the elect who are sojourners 
 of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, 
 Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Peter 
 was the first one among the twelve who 
 was called to give the gospel openly to 
 a Gentile. Yet even after the special 
 call of God in the vision upon the house- 
 top, and in the particular proclamation 
 of the gospel message to Cornelius, the 
 Italian, with all that its acceptance im- 
 plied, Peter became a missionary mostly 
 to Jews. But the Gentiles and the Jews 
 were members together of the same Chris- 
 tian body. And a letter which was written 
 primarily for the Jewish Christians would 
 also be received by the other Christians 
 in the community. 
 
 The reference to Pontus, Galatia, Cap- 
 padocia, Bithynia, and Asia enlarges our 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 55 
 
 conception of the missionary labors of the 
 apostle Peter. These provinces in Asia 
 Minor were the scenes of the labors of a 
 number of the apostles. Portions of these 
 provinces were first visited by Paul. 
 And it is quite probable that Peter, con- 
 ceiving his ministry to be supplemental 
 to that of Paul, visited many of the same 
 centers. The distinction between their 
 callings — Paul as missionary to the Gen- 
 tiles and Peter as missionary to the Jews 
 of the Dispersion — might have been clear 
 enough to the apostles in Jerusalem, but 
 it must have been very confusing to the 
 converts upon the foreign field. Nor 
 was this the last time that differences of 
 opinion among the Christian leaders and 
 distinctions in ecclesiastical administra- 
 tion at the home base have embarrassed 
 the ready acceptance of the gospel of re- 
 deeming grace and prevented the faster 
 coming of the kingdom of God. 
 
 3. The Second Epistle of Peter is ad- 
 dressed to "them that have obtained a 
 like precious faith with us." This second 
 letter is written to the same group of 
 people as the first epistle, only now the 
 
56 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 message is not directed primarily to the 
 Jews of the Dispersion. The address of 
 the epistle is greatly broadened. It in- 
 cludes every one who has obtained "a like 
 precious faith with us" in our God and 
 Saviour Jesus Christ. The idea is very 
 similar to those views which were ex- 
 pressed by Peter at the baptism of Cor- 
 nelius and later before the great Council 
 in Jerusalem. AVhile Peter spoke to 
 Cornelius, together with his kinsmen and 
 his near friends, the Holy Spirit fell on 
 all them that heard the Word, and they 
 spoke with tongues, magnifying God. 
 Then Peter answered the inevitable ques- 
 tions which arose in the minds of Peter's 
 Jewish Christian companions, by asking, 
 **Can any man forbid the water, that 
 these should not be baptized, who have 
 received the Holy Spirit as well as we?" 
 And later while Peter was recounting the 
 evangelization of the home of Cornelius 
 the Italian to the brethren in Judsea, 
 Peter bears testimony to the fact that 
 God gave unto them "the like gift as he 
 did also unto us." Then again, in the 
 presence of the Great Council, many years 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 57 
 
 afterward, Peter refers to this incident 
 and reaffirms his statement that God gave 
 them the Holy Spirit even "as he did unto 
 us." And hi this company with himself 
 Peter includes those of his own race who had 
 previously received the like gift of God. 
 
 The use of the plural pronoun in the 
 greeting of the Second Epistle of Peter 
 (a like precious faith with "us") is most 
 illuminating. There can be no doubt 
 that Peter has in mind the whole great 
 group of his own race to whom the words 
 of redeeming love first came. Then in 
 sending this letter to those who "have 
 obtained a like precious faith with us," 
 Peter evidently addresses this Second 
 Epistle particularly to the non-Jewish 
 element in the communities to which his 
 first letter had been sent. 
 
 The two epistles of Peter were wTitten 
 to the same general Christian communities 
 in the provinces of Asia INIinor. The first 
 epistle was wTitten primarily for the Jew- 
 ish element in the Body of Christ. The 
 second epistle was written primarily for 
 the Gentile element among the growing 
 body of behevers in Christ. This order 
 
58 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 is Pauline — to the Jew first, and also to 
 the Greek. And, further, it is inspiring 
 to believe that the man who first was 
 chosen to become the apostle to the Gen- 
 tiles, closes his missionary career with an 
 epistle to the Gentiles — to them that 
 "have obtained a like precious faith with 
 us": that is, with Peter and his many 
 Jewish friends. 
 
 4. The First Epistle of John was written 
 late in the apostle's life. It was doubtless 
 addressed to the Christians who were liv- 
 ing in the territory of the province of 
 Asia contiguous to the city of Ephesus. 
 It reflects a period near the close of the 
 first century, and was evidently sent as 
 a warning to Christians to be on their 
 guard against certain false teachers who 
 had lately appeared in the body of Chris- 
 tian professors. Then, too, a Gentile 
 community was full of idolatry. Ephesus 
 was the center of a degrading idolatrous 
 worship. In such a situation even mature 
 Christians would be in urgent need of 
 words of warning, lest they also might 
 yield to the beguiling allurements of a 
 popular idolatry. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 59 
 
 5. Jude is one of the four brethren 
 of our Lord who in the days of his flesh 
 did not believe in him, but, immediately 
 following the resurrection, are found in 
 the company of the Christian believers. 
 The epistle which bears the name of 
 Jude was written to a group of believers 
 among whom the doctrine of God's grace 
 had been proclaimed. This evidently was 
 a Gentile community which had been 
 visited freely by the apostles. 
 
 Jude describes himself as brother of 
 James. This, then, was a community in 
 which James was well known. Antioch 
 is the likeliest of all places of the many 
 suggested as the probable destination of 
 the epistle. It was in Antioch that cer- 
 tain parties, purporting to come from 
 James, wrought confusion in the church 
 by starting a movement back to Judaism. 
 It was to the church in Jerusalem, pre- 
 sided over by James, that the church in 
 Antioch sent Barnabas and Paul to pro- 
 test the actions of these self-imposed 
 troublers of the Christian's peace. It was 
 James who signed the decree of the Council 
 which Barnabas and Paul brought back to 
 
60 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Antioch. To an Antiochan group of 
 believers Jude could most easily identify 
 himself and have his message fully authen- 
 ticated by merely calling himself the 
 brother of James. 
 
 So far, then, as these general epistles 
 are concerned, these conclusions are be- 
 coming evident: 
 
 James was written to the dispersed 
 Jews gathered in the churches of the 
 Roman world. 
 
 First Peter was written to the sojourners 
 of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, 
 Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. 
 
 Second Peter was written to the whole 
 body of believers, particularly the Gen- 
 tiles, in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, 
 Asia, and Bithynia. 
 
 First John was written to the Christians 
 who were living in the territory closely 
 surrounding the city of Ephesus. 
 
 Jude was most likely written to the 
 believers in Antioch. 
 
 Now, the word "Dispersion" always 
 carries one immediately outside the land 
 of Palestine. To find the Jews of the 
 Dispersion search must be made in the 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 61 
 
 metropolitan centers of the Roman world. 
 And James wrote to the Jews of the 
 Dispersion. 
 
 Then where is Pontus? And where is 
 Galatia? And where is Cappadocia.^ And 
 where is Asia? And where is Bithynia? 
 And where is Ephesus? And where is 
 Antioch? These names all sound strangely 
 familiar, but yet they are not designa- 
 tions of geographical divisions nor the 
 names of cities in Palestine. Pontus 
 and Galatia, Cappadocia and Asia, Bi- 
 thjmia and Ephesus, and Antioch — all are 
 located in the provinces of Asia Minor, 
 and Asia Minor was almost as foreign 
 to Palestine as Asia to-day is foreign to 
 America. 
 
 This, then, is the inevitable conclusion: 
 Every epistle in the New Testament 
 which was written to a general group of 
 believers or to a general group of churches 
 was written to a missionary group. If 
 it had not been for the missionary enter- 
 prise, the world would never have had 
 the Bible at all. 
 
es NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 CHAPTER Vn 
 
 ILLUSTRATING THE ANCIENT 
 
 ART OF PERSONAL LETTER- 
 
 WTIITING 
 
 Six of the twenty-seven books in the 
 New Testament are personal letters. Of 
 these six books three are called pastoral 
 epistles, because the instructions which 
 they contain relate mostly to church 
 organization and to church administra- 
 tion. Of these six personal letters, two 
 were written by the apostle John and 
 four were written by the apostle Paul. 
 The six letters are addressed to five indi- 
 viduals: Timothy, Titus, Philemon, Cyria, 
 and Gains. The six personal letters pre- 
 served out of the correspondence of the 
 apostles are First and Second Timothy, 
 Second and Third John, Titus, and 
 Philemon. 
 
 1. Second John was written to a Chris- 
 tian woman by the name of Cyria. The 
 home of Cyria was a center of Christian 
 hospitality, and because of the freedom 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 63 
 
 of access which Christian teachers had 
 to her home on account of her hospitable 
 kindness, her household was all the more 
 imperiled from itinerant teachers who de- 
 nied the cardinal tenets of the Christian 
 faith. And John writes this commendatory 
 epistle, with its entreating words of warn- 
 ing, in order that the home of a dear 
 friend may be fully protected in the ways 
 of Christian truth. How fitting it is that 
 the one letter in the New Testament 
 which is written expressly to a woman 
 should come from the pen of the one 
 among the twelve disciples to whom the 
 Lord Jesus intrusted the care of his 
 sorrowing and widowed mother. 
 
 In the mere fact of this letter to Cyria 
 we have further evidence of the enlarging 
 place which was occupied by women in 
 the apostolic church. Many of their 
 residences were used so freely as places 
 of Christian assembly that their very 
 homes became known as church houses. 
 It was into a home like that that Priscilla 
 and Aquila received Apollos and taught 
 him the way of the Lord more perfectly. 
 
 The refining influence of Cyria upon 
 
64 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 her own children may be gathered from 
 the testimony which John gives to some 
 of the members of her family whom he 
 has met in Ephesus. For these children, 
 now away from home and living in a big 
 and wicked city, to be found "walking 
 in the truth" is a remarkable tribute to 
 the careful Christian nurture which they 
 had received at the hands of their de- 
 voted mother. This one-page letter from 
 the apostle John presents a beautiful 
 picture of a charming home circle of 
 earnest Christians, among whom the early 
 missionaries of the Christ found frequent 
 entertainment and engaging hospitahty. 
 
 2. Third John is inscribed to Gains. 
 He appears to be entirely outside the 
 lists of dignitaries and oflScials in the 
 apostolic church. It is more than likely 
 that Gains belonged to the humbler fol- 
 lowers of our Lord; and yet, perhaps, 
 with even less to give than many others, 
 he bestowed bountiful hospitality upon 
 these working friends of Jesus. How like 
 the goodness of God, whose only begotten 
 Son came to be bom of a lowly virgin, 
 and to be cradled in a manger, and to 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 65 
 
 have the sacrificial offering of the poor 
 made in his behalf upon his presentation 
 in the temple — how like the goodness of 
 God to have the last written message 
 from the apostolic group to be a letter 
 to one of his poor, Gains by name; humble 
 and poor, and yet very rich in faith and 
 love. 
 
 3. Philemon is the one letter among 
 all Paul's epistles in the New Testament 
 which is addressed to an individual upon 
 a purely personal matter. Paul was a 
 prisoner in the city of the Caesars, living 
 for the space of two years in his own 
 hired house, and receiving all who came 
 unto him. And one day among those who 
 came was Onesimus, a slave from the home 
 of Philemon, Paul's friend, in faraway 
 Colossse. 
 
 Onesimus was a Phrygian slave. The 
 historians give the Phrygian slaves excep- 
 tionally bad names. However, Onesimus 
 may have been an exception to the bad 
 run of the common lot of slaves; at least 
 his name appears to imply as much. But 
 one day, perhaps, he failed. And then 
 he ran away to cover up his failure. And 
 
66 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 the best place in all the world to hide in 
 is a big city, and ofiF he runs to Rome. 
 Nearly everybody went to Rome. 
 
 Onesimus is in Rome, hiding from God. 
 
 Paul is in Rome, finding folks for God. 
 
 Onesimus comes to Paul from the 
 glamour of the city's appeal. And Onesi- 
 mus comes to Paul, but Onesimus finds 
 God. 
 
 Then Paul writes a letter to Philemon. 
 But the letter is mostly about Onesimus. 
 The runaway slave with the grace of God 
 in his heart has become so good and so 
 faithful and so helpful a servant always 
 that Paul would like to have his company 
 forever. But Paul sends Onesimus back 
 to his former master. And so Onesimus 
 returns to Philemon, but he is a Christian 
 now, and Philemon and Onesimus work 
 so closely together in the service of the 
 Lord that they were honored with martyr- 
 dom at the same time. For Philemon and 
 Appia, his wife, and Archippus his son, 
 and Onesimus — his brother now and slave 
 no longer — were all stoned to death in 
 the reign of Nero. 
 
 4. First Timothy was written after 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 67 
 
 Paul's first imprisonment in Rome and 
 while Paul was making a tour of the 
 churches in the eastern Mediterranean 
 lands. In the interim between the two 
 imprisonments in Rome, Paul is confirm- 
 ing the churches in the lands bordering 
 about the Mgean Sea. The Christian 
 communities had grown in numbers and 
 there is need now for some additional 
 administrators. Then, too, in his absence 
 of some five years, these more settled 
 circles of believers had already begun to 
 busy themselves about the less important 
 matters of the Christian faith; and a few 
 among them were propagating views which 
 were entirely contrary to the truths of 
 the gospel. Hence there is imperative 
 need that reliable men be placed in leader- 
 ship in all the fast-forming church centers. 
 Timothy was such a leader in Corinth, 
 and later in Ephesus. 
 
 5. The Epistle to Titus was written 
 also in the time between the two im- 
 prisonments at Rome. Titus had been 
 intrusted with the supervision of the 
 work in Crete. Paul speaks of the care 
 he had for all of the churches. Shortly 
 
68 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 after the first missionary journey, Paul 
 purposes to visit again all the cities in 
 which the Gospel missions had been 
 started. K "the care of all the churches" 
 was a motive sufficient to engage Paul 
 in a second missionary journey, we may 
 be sure that again, and yet again, he 
 returned in his thoughts and in his travels 
 to the familiar scenes of the more easily 
 accessible places which he had evangelized. 
 Paul gives a bit of advice to Titus in 
 regard to the culture of the converts 
 which ought to be universally observed. 
 "And let our people also learn to main- 
 tain good works for necessary uses, that 
 they be not unfruitful." Paul himself was 
 the master of a trade. He knew how 
 to work with his own hands. Once and 
 again he worked early and late at his 
 trade in order that he might not be a 
 burdensome charge to anyone. The young 
 Jews were all taught useful trades. And 
 Paul instructs Titus to so supervise the 
 practical training of the Gentile Chris- 
 tian converts that they too may become 
 valuable working members of the social 
 order. In view of this one command alone 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 69 
 
 there is sufficient apostolic warrant for 
 the development of trade and vocational 
 schools in mission lands. 
 
 6. Second Timothy is the last letter we 
 iiave from the hand of the great apostle 
 to the Gentiles. The scene shifts with 
 dramatic suddenness. In the other pas- 
 toral epistles, Paul is toiu-ing the fields of 
 his most fruitful missionary labors. He 
 is journeying from point to point, estab- 
 lishing the churches in the fear of the 
 Lord. He is planning future campaigns. 
 He is calling a winter conference for 
 Nicopolis. But instead of the winter con- 
 ference with Christian workers and friends 
 in Nicopolis, Paul will winter in Rome. 
 
 Paul was apparently rudely snatched 
 from his labors of love and returned to 
 Rome. The days between the two Roman 
 imprisonments were days of intense con- 
 cern and incessant activity. The field 
 was large, and Paul was eager to cover 
 the territory as quickly as possible. It 
 is quite probable that the arrest to his 
 labors occurred in the city of Troas, for 
 the fact that his baggage of books and 
 parchments and clothing were left at Troas, 
 
70 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 would seem to indicate that the relentless 
 persecutors had at last accomplished their 
 evil designs; and, perhaps before Paul 
 could assemble his personal belongings, he 
 was bound in chains, treated as a male- 
 factor, and dispatched to Rome. 
 
 The ship which bore Paul as a prisoner 
 would doubtless sail by way of Ephesus, 
 Miletus, and Corinth. At Ephesus Paul 
 received some special care from Onesi- 
 phorus, who perhaps followed Paul to 
 Rome in order that he might further 
 minister to the prisoner of the Lord. For 
 that touch of true human sympathy we 
 all shall want to thank Onesiphorus some 
 day in heaven. And then, too, at Ephesus, 
 Timothy must have seen the dearest- 
 loved man in all his world closely confined 
 in chains, and it was that sight which so 
 moved Timothy to tears that the aged 
 apostle in prison recalls his poignant 
 sorrow day and night. 
 
 Paul once went bound to Jerusalem; 
 then he was bound by the constraint 
 of Christ. 
 
 Paul now goes bound to Rome; but now 
 he is fast holden by the chains of Caesar. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 71 
 
 There is the sharpest possible contrast 
 between the first and the second imprison- 
 ments of Paul in Rome. In the first 
 imprisonment Paul lived in his own hired 
 house, receiving all who came unto him; 
 while in the second imprisonment in order 
 to find Paul at all, the kind-hearted 
 Onesiphorus had to seek for him most 
 diligently. Formerly Paul was easily 
 accessible to all, but now he is so badly 
 treated that even the place of his confine- 
 ment is poorly remembered. 
 
 And Paul is almost alone now. Only 
 Luke is w^ith him. And in the hour of 
 his utter loneliness he turns to Timothy. 
 And it is to Timothy that Paul writes 
 his last thoughts. 
 
 At Paul's first defense no one took his 
 part, but all forsook him. Yet the Lord 
 stood by him, and Paul was delivered out 
 of the mouth of the lion. 
 
 And now he has a brief respite. For 
 a time at least he is spared. And he 
 hears again the call to the work. He wants 
 his books and his parchments, particularly 
 his parchments. For although in prison, 
 yet Paul must write. And well for us all 
 
72 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 that he did write in prison, for the prison 
 literature of the apostle Paul has very 
 greatly enriched the world. 
 
 Now Paul writes to Timothy. His 
 first thought is for the work. He is 
 bound — yes, he is bound! — but the word 
 of God is not bound. And in that he can 
 rejoice with all his heart. 
 
 Yet the end is near. A great sorrow 
 surges through the soul of Paul. He is 
 in a dungeon — a dungeon dank and damp. 
 And the winter is not far off, and his 
 cloak is at Troas, half way across the em- 
 pire. Poor Paul! Bring the cloak with 
 you when you come, Timothy; and haste, 
 O haste, Timothy, to reach Rome before 
 winter ! 
 
 In the hour of his trial in Gethsemane 
 the Master turned to the inner circle 
 of the twelve, Peter and James and 
 John. 
 
 In the hour of his trial in the dungeon 
 at Rome Paul turns to Timothy, his be- 
 loved child in the gospel. 
 
 And Timothy did not fail the one to 
 whom he owed the fact that he was a 
 Christian at all. Timothy hurried to 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 73 
 
 Rome witli all speed, and upon his arrival 
 in Rome he so identified himself with the 
 apostle in chains that he too was im- 
 prisoned. 
 
 But Paul was a Jew, circumcised the 
 eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the 
 tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the 
 Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee 
 — a separatist. And yet in the end of 
 the days we find him turning for solace 
 and help to one who was brought up 
 outside the pale of Jewry. By the miracle 
 of God's great grace, Paul had so far 
 accepted his missionary call to the Gen- 
 tiles that at the last he chose a convert 
 from the Gentile world to be his constant 
 companion. 
 
 And so there are these five to whom 
 the apostles Paul and John wrote letters: 
 Timothy and Titus and Philemon and 
 Cyria and Gains. Yet no one of these 
 five bears a Hebrew name, and no one 
 of the five was a resident in the home 
 land of Palestine. Three of the five 
 names are Greek names: Timothy and 
 Philemon and Cyria. Two of the five 
 names are Latin names: Titus and Gains. 
 
74 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 But who are Timothy and Titus and 
 Philemon and Cyria and Gaius? They 
 are all Gentile Christians. 
 
 How, then, came these five to be 
 Christians in the first place? They all 
 were converted to Christ through the 
 labors of the missionaries. 
 
 It is now manifest that every letter in 
 the New Testament which was written 
 to an individual was written to the con- 
 vert of a missionary. If it had not been 
 for the missionary enterprise, the world 
 would never have had the Bible at all. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 75 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE FIRST VOLUIVIE OF AN 
 INTERRUPTED SERIES 
 
 The single-volume history of the early 
 church was never intended by the author 
 to be known as The Acts of the Apostles. 
 The author of the Acts had a far greater 
 plan in mind than the writing of this 
 volume alone. In the opening verse of 
 the Acts, the author refers to his Gospel; 
 and he calls it "the first treatise." In 
 all Bible translations this word "first" 
 is translated "former." And yet as Luke 
 used this word it never means "former." 
 If Luke had intended to use the word 
 which means "former," the sane judgment 
 of scholarly men must agree that he knew 
 better than to use the word which means 
 "first." Then why did Luke speak of his 
 Gospel as the "first" treatise .^^ For the very 
 obvious reason that he evidently planned 
 a series of books which should amply por- 
 tray the history of the early days of the 
 founding of the Christian Church. 
 
76 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Why Luke never wrote the additional 
 volumes in his proposed series of books 
 no one now knows. Our Lord and Master 
 went into the fuller presence of the Father 
 with many unuttered thoughts in his 
 mind. For at the end of his earthly jour- 
 ney in the company of the twelve, Jesus 
 said, *T have yet many things to say unto 
 you, but ye cannot bear them now." 
 The unspoken message of the Master was 
 thus lost to the world. And in a much 
 smaller measure, but even yet a bit like 
 that, it may be, the unwritten history 
 of the doings of the apostles which Luke 
 planned, was likewise carried in the bosom 
 of the disciple "whose praise was in all 
 the churches" into the heavenly land. 
 
 And so the Acts is the sole surviving 
 historical record of the Spirit-filled days 
 of the apostoHc labors. Luke is a great 
 historian, and is personally familiar with 
 the events in the progress of the book. 
 Li the introduction to his Gospel Luke 
 appeals to authorities, for he had care- 
 fully examined those who were eyewit- 
 nesses to the ministry of Jesus. But in 
 the Acts Luke is himself an eyewitness. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 77 
 
 He is present at more than one third of 
 all of the incidents which he records, and 
 he travels in closest companionship with 
 the leading figure in the extension of 
 the Kingdom. Luke is so true to every 
 detail that the greatest student of the 
 travels of the apostle Paul regards the 
 accuracy of the Acts as of so high a char- 
 acter as to constitute the book a guide 
 to travelers in those distant lands. 
 
 It is evident from the opening verses 
 of the Acts that Luke conceived the his- 
 tory of the Christian Church to be the 
 continuous work of Jesus, through the 
 agency of the Holy Spirit, in the lives 
 of the followers of Jesus who were to be 
 his witnesses. And the Acts tells simply 
 how the good tidings of great joy which 
 were for all people were first published 
 in Jerusalem, in Judaea, in Samaria, in 
 Galilee, and finally unto the uttermost 
 part of the earth — Rome. 
 
 The first eleven verses of the Acts 
 contains the Master's commission to the 
 apostles. These compelling words of the 
 Master are all the more urgent because 
 they are the very last words which the 
 
78 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 apostolic group heard from the lips of 
 their risen Lord. 
 
 Acts 1. 12 — 8. 3 is the presentation of 
 the founding of the church in Jerusalem. 
 The apostles are fully obedient to the 
 command of their Lord. They are endued 
 with power from on high, and immediately 
 they preach repentance and remission of 
 sins, beginning at Jerusalem. And on 
 the day of Pentecost, people from every 
 nation under heaven hear in Jerusalem 
 the gospel of the Son of God in the very 
 languages in which they were born. And 
 Jerusalem is thoroughly evangelized. A 
 large company of the priests even are 
 obedient to the word. The apostles so 
 testify to the fact of the resurrection 
 that the Pharisees are silenced. Now 
 occur the first stirrings of the persecutors, 
 and one of the results of the first perse- 
 cution is a multiplying of the word by 
 the scattering of the workers. 
 
 Acts 8. 4—11. 18 tells of the labors of 
 Philip and Peter in Judaea and Samaria; 
 and in the evangelization of these native 
 lands an Ethiopian hears the gospel from 
 the lips of Philip, while an European 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 79 
 
 receives the message of redeeming love 
 from Peter. Hidden away in these few 
 verses also is the story of the conversion 
 of Saul of Tarsus. And so the circle is 
 widening. And "the church throughout 
 all Judaea and Galilee and Samaria had 
 peace" after the conversion of Saul; "and, 
 walking in the fear of the Lord and [in the 
 comfort of the Holy Spirit, was multiplied." 
 
 Acts 11. 19 — 13. 3 recounts the most 
 remarkable development in the work of 
 the early church. It is the proclamation 
 of the gospel to Gentiles. This occurred 
 in Antioch in S;^Tia. And later in Antioch 
 the Holy Spirit called two of their best- 
 known leaders, Barnabas and Saul, and 
 sent them upon the first real journey in 
 the foreign missionary enterprise. 
 
 Acts 13. 4 — 15. 35 comprises the first 
 missionary journey of Barnabas and Saul, 
 and carries them in company with young 
 Mark into the provinces of Asia Minor; 
 and the successes which attend their 
 labors require a church council in Jeru- 
 salem to determine authoritatively the 
 attitude of the apostolic church to the 
 work of foreign missions. 
 
80 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Acts 15. 36 — 18. 22 covers Paul's second 
 missionary journey, and carries the labors 
 of the apostle over into Macedonia. It 
 was in Troas, during this second mission- 
 ary journey, that the apostle Paul was 
 joined by the historian Luke. With the 
 exception of a brief period, Luke is the 
 constant companion of Paul until the 
 latter reaches Rome. 
 
 Acts 18. 23—21. 16 covers Paul's thu-d 
 missionary journey, his three years' resi- 
 dence in Ephesus, and his ministry in 
 Macedonia and Greece, and finally car- 
 ries the narrative to Troas again. 
 
 Acts 21. 17 — 28. 16 covers the period 
 of Paul's stay in Jerusalem and Csesarea, 
 with his appearance before the Roman 
 rulers, and the memorable voyage toward 
 the imperial city. 
 
 Acts 28. 17-31 pictures the period of 
 Paul's two years' residence in Rome, dur- 
 ing which time he was mostly a prisoner 
 in his own hired house. 
 
 In such rapid strides Luke covers the 
 thirty years between the ascension of our 
 Lord and the arrival of the apostle to the 
 Gentiles in the city of Rome. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 81 
 
 The Acts is a masterful presentation of 
 the successive and ever enlarging scope 
 of the labors of the apostles. First of 
 all, the gospel is so carried into all Jeru- 
 salem that the city of David is finally 
 filled with their doctrine; and then the 
 good news is spread abroad throughout 
 all Judtea and Galilee and Samaria. And 
 then only one of the many lines of Chris- 
 tian effort is followed, the one line which 
 like a trail of light leads at last into the 
 eternal city on the banks of the Tiber. 
 The many recorded events in the Acts 
 are merely the recitals of the missionary 
 labors of the apostles. So the Acts is in 
 reality a history of the beginnings of the 
 missionary enterprise. There is no mere 
 chronicling of unusual events, but through- 
 out the entire book of the Acts there is 
 such a studied arrangement of materials 
 as to indicate the author's deliberative 
 purpose. From first to last the Acts is 
 a missionary book. 
 
 "Do you teach missions in your Sunday 
 school class?" a thoroughly representative 
 and skilled teacher was asked on a certain 
 Sunday. 
 
82 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 **No, indeed!" the teacher replied, with 
 rising indignation; *T teach the Bible!" 
 
 And on that particular Sunday this 
 teacher was teaching a lesson from the 
 book of the Acts to a class of boys fifteen 
 years of age! And the lesson for that 
 Sunday was a portion of one of Paul's 
 missionary journeys! Teaching the Acts, 
 and yet not teaching missions! Tracing 
 the journeys of the missionary Paul upon 
 the map of the world, as he carried the 
 gospel from nation to nation, and from 
 continent to continent, and yet not teach- 
 ing missions! 
 
 Since the Acts is altogether a history of 
 the beginnings of the missionary enter- 
 prise, if there had never been a mission- 
 ary enterprise, why, of course, there would 
 never have been any Acts of the Apostles. 
 Besides all that, the only authoritative 
 historian in the early church — Luke, the 
 beloved physician — was himself the con- 
 vert of a foreign missionary. If it had 
 not been for the missionary enterprise, 
 the world would never have had the Bible 
 at all. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 83 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHY THEY WERE CALLED 
 NAMES 
 
 Antioch in Syria lay on the north bank 
 of the river Orontes, fifteen miles distant 
 from the Mediterranean Sea. Of the 
 great cities of the Roman empire, Rome 
 and Alexandria alone excelled Antioch in 
 prestige and in power. Antioch was the 
 capital of the Roman province of SjTia. 
 It had not always been the capital of 
 the country, for whenever the rulers from 
 the desert country to the east held sway 
 over the Syrians the capital was Damas- 
 cus. And Antioch owed her place of 
 political preeminence to the fact that the 
 seat of government lay now to the west 
 and centered upon the banks of the Tiber. 
 
 It was in Antioch, rich and powerful, 
 that the gospel was preached to the Gen- 
 tiles by the men from Cyprus and Cyrene. 
 It was to Antioch that Barnabas came, 
 with the approval of the apostles in 
 Jerusalem. It was in Antioch that Barna- 
 
84 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 has and Saul worked for one year, and 
 then carried the offerings of the church 
 in Antioch to the rehef of the famine 
 sufferers in Judaea. 
 
 And it was in this same city of Antioch 
 that the disciples were first called Chris- 
 tians. 
 
 The word for "Christian" is "Chris- 
 tiano." Among the fruits of archeological 
 research in the Levant has been the 
 discovery of an ancient inscription which 
 bears the w^ord, "Chrestiano." And the 
 only difference between the two words is 
 in the third letter, where the one word 
 has the letter "i" and the other word 
 has the letter "e." 
 
 The word "Christiano" is derived 
 from the word "Christos," and means 
 "anointed." This is the word for Christ. 
 
 The word "Chrestiano" is derived from 
 the word "Chrestos," and means "useful," 
 "pleasant," and possessing those qualities 
 which are bound up with the idea of 
 manageable and good. 
 
 In one of the Roman historians, the ex- 
 pulsion of the Jews from Rome was ex- 
 plained to be due to the continual dis- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 85 
 
 turbances in the Jewish quarter which 
 were occasioned by one Chrestos. And 
 there can be hardly any doubt but that 
 this is merely the popular confusion of 
 the two words **Christos" and "Chrestos." 
 
 There is a wealth of interpretative mean- 
 ing all bound up with the suggestion that 
 the followers of the Christ may, at one 
 time in the city of Antioch, have been 
 called "Chrestians" — the people of the 
 good and useful lives. There may be, in 
 this word, still the recollection of the 
 charity which that first missionary church 
 sent to relieve the suffering in a land laid 
 low by famine. It is a most notable pic- 
 ture — the picture of the people who were 
 so useful as to be called famiharly by that 
 word of gracious generosity. 
 
 The word which has lived, however, is 
 the word "Christian," first apphed to the 
 disciples of Jesus in the city of Antioch. 
 And it can hardly have been given to the 
 members of the church in the spirit of 
 derision, for Antioch is one of the relatively 
 few communities of that ancient world in 
 which the church suffered httle or no 
 persecution at the first. The word "Chris- 
 
86 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 tian" evidently was bestowed upon the 
 believers in Antioch because of the singu- 
 lar devotion which characterized them in 
 the performance of their tasks. The 
 cordial way in which they accepted all 
 who came, the preaching of the gospel 
 to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews, 
 their abounding charity, their love one 
 for another — all this so reminded the 
 populace of the Christ the church leaders 
 preached about that the common folks 
 distinguished the members of the church 
 from the rest of the people by calling the 
 disciples Christians. 
 
 And we later followers of the Christ 
 bear many names, and yet the one name 
 we all most gladly bear is the name 
 "Christian"; and the very name "Chris- 
 tian" comes to us as a precious legacy 
 from the first foreign missionary church. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 87 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 NATIVE SONS USING EXCLUSIVELY 
 A FOREIGN TONGUE 
 
 All the books of the New Testament 
 are written in Greek. And yet the native 
 language of all the authors, except one, 
 was Hebrew or Aramaic. Hebrew was the 
 language of Palestine in the early days 
 of the Christian centuries. How, then, 
 can we account for the fact that all the 
 books in the New Testament were written 
 in Greek? 
 
 While Paul was born in Cilicia, he yet 
 spoke Hebrew as though it had been his 
 only mother tongue. And, indeed, He- 
 brew must have been his mother tongue, 
 for in a home as Jewish as Paul's home, 
 the language of the fireside was the lan- 
 guage of the loved land of Palestine. 
 
 In the time of Christ Greek had become 
 the language of the market, but Hebrew 
 still was the language of religion. And a 
 people with as strong a racial conscious- 
 ness as the Jew would too much resent the 
 dominance of Rome to yield wholly to 
 
88 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 the use of the language of the for- 
 eigner. 
 
 While nearly everybody used some 
 Greek in trade and travel, yet compara- 
 tively few were taught thoroughly the 
 finer uses of the language. The people 
 from distant lands who happened to be in 
 Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost per- 
 haps knew some Greek, but if a message 
 full of spiritual power and majesty is to 
 reach their hearts, that message must be 
 delivered in the language in which each 
 was born. 
 
 The Galilseans among the twelve apos- 
 tles had exceptional opportunities to mas- 
 ter Greek, for the great trade routes 
 between the west and the east circled 
 about the Sea of Galilee. The apostles 
 were chosen largely from the common 
 walks of life, and they were men whose 
 relations in the commercial world would 
 necessitate their use of Greek, since the 
 Grecian tongue was the great medium in 
 which to buy and sell. 
 
 The Greek of the New Testament is 
 very different from classical Greek. The 
 Hebrew men who wrote in Greek wrote 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 89 
 
 not in the language of the school men, 
 but, rather, in the language of the common 
 people, for the Greek they knew was the 
 Greek which was spoken commonly on 
 the streets, in the marts of trade, along 
 the highways, in the caravansaries, and at 
 the customs. 
 
 For Galilee was Galilee of the Gentiles. 
 The people of the nations poured in cease- 
 less streams along the main routes of 
 travel which lay across Galilee. Caper- 
 naum, where Levi sat at the seat of toll, 
 was an important gateway, and Nazareth 
 was a familiar camping ground for the 
 passing caravans. 
 
 The cumulative influence of the Greek 
 language upon the people in Galilee may 
 be seen in the names of two brothers. 
 One was called Symeon when he was 
 named before the priest in the synagogue, 
 but in the business world he became 
 Simon. When a later son was born he 
 was given the Greek name of Andrew. 
 
 And yet some of the writers in the 
 New Testament use very beautiful Greek. 
 How does it come that men who so largely 
 gathered their Greek from seemingly inci- 
 
90 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 dental sources were able later to command 
 such a wonderful mastery in literary style? 
 It should be remembered that the more 
 highly cultured people traveled freely, and 
 in the simple plans for hospitality in that 
 land, they would easily be accessible to 
 the people about the lake who were en- 
 gaged in commercial pursuits. 
 
 Then, too, much of the wonder of the 
 way the men wrote in the New Testament 
 is due largely to the ideas which they 
 had to express. The thoughts of God 
 so illumined their minds that modes of 
 elegant expression became a literary ne- 
 cessity. To-day we have the marvel of 
 a gypsy boy, who never went to school, 
 but who because of constant meditation 
 upon the Word of God has won a com- 
 mand of English superior to most students 
 of literary form. 
 
 However, there is one author among 
 the many in the New Testament whose 
 authorship is questioned because he ap- 
 pears to write too well! How did James 
 in particular acquire such usages of Greek 
 as to enable him to write so commendable 
 a piece of literature as his epistle? Come 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 91 
 
 and see. And we go apart into the home 
 of a workingman in Nazareth, for James 
 is the oldest son of a certain carpenter, 
 Joseph by name, and the mother of 
 James is Mary. Read again the Mag- 
 nificat, and remember that it is the 
 mother of James who so marvelously 
 pours out her soul in praise to God. 
 Mary is a woman of great gifts and a 
 woman of rare literary skill. And growing 
 up in a home like that, James too would 
 receive splendid literary training. Then 
 think of the Lord Jesus, and his use of 
 words and phrases — so simple, so profound, 
 so beautiful that the common people hear 
 him gladly. And the Virgin Mary is the 
 mother of Jesus. James had exceptional 
 advantages to acquire exquisite literary 
 finish with Mary as his mother. 
 
 Nevertheless, Greek was always the 
 foreign tongue to the people in Palestine. 
 It was not the language of the rabbis 
 in particular. It was not the language 
 of the priests. Hebrew or Aramaic was 
 the vernacular spoken in Judaea, in Sa- 
 maria, and in Galilee. Still each province 
 had a distinctive dialect. The difference 
 
92 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 in these various dialects was distinctive 
 enough in the case of Peter, for one to 
 discover that he was a Galilsean by the 
 way he spoke. The difference between the 
 Aramaic as it was spoken in Judsea and 
 the Aramaic as it was spoken in Galilee 
 was so marked that the people at the 
 crucifixion misunderstood the Master when 
 he used the language of his childhood in 
 his agonizing cry upon the cross. 
 
 Why, then, did the authors of the New 
 Testament use Greek instead of Aramaic? 
 They used Greek because Greek was the 
 universal language — the missionary lan- 
 guage. Greek was the language which 
 was spoken by the people in all the dif- 
 ferent lands to which their books would 
 go and among whom their letters would 
 be read. 
 
 However, there is the record of one 
 book at least which was written in Aramaic. 
 Matthew wrote a Gospel in Aramaic — a 
 book which has been lost altogether. If 
 the New Testament had all been written 
 in Aramaic, it might likewise have been 
 lost. 
 
 The language of the New Testament 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 93 
 
 is the language which the apostles used 
 in their missionary labors. The books 
 which they may have written in any 
 other language are not now known among 
 men. The missionary enterprise deter- 
 mined the language in which the truly 
 Christian Scriptures should be written. 
 
94 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 MAP-MAKING WHICH WAS 
 UNINTENTIONAL 
 
 The most conspicuous markings upon 
 most maps of the early Christian world 
 are the missionary journeys of the apostle 
 Paul. And even where these journeys 
 are not indicated by dotted lines, yet 
 the names of the places and the boun- 
 daries of the nations are largely deter- 
 mined by the history which recounts his 
 missionary labors. The map of the apos- 
 toKc church is a missionary map. How- 
 ever, if we had the missionary labors of 
 all the apostles and could indicate upon 
 a map of that ancient world their extended 
 travels, the results would reveal the fact 
 that Paul was only one among many 
 apostles. 
 
 Moreover, the Acts of the Apostles does 
 not cover the later years of Paul's life. 
 Still, we have enough facts from his 
 abundant missionary labors to make the 
 map of his day look particularly Pauline. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 95 
 
 And yet, if we did not have the Acts of 
 the Apostles to guide us, how utterly 
 futile would be all attempts to construct 
 a map of the journeys of Paul! It is more 
 than likely that the most intensely active 
 period in Paul's life was the period between 
 the two Roman imprisonments; and yet no 
 one has been able to trace those important 
 missionary journeys upon the map of the 
 Roman world. Now, if we had only Paul's 
 letters and the few references in other litera- 
 ture, and were without the Acts of the 
 Apostles to direct us, we would be all 
 at sea in arriving at anything like a com- 
 plete picture of the missionary labors of 
 Paul. 
 
 That, however, is the exact situation in 
 regard to the other apostles. We follow 
 Peter and John for a little while only in 
 the Acts; and then we lose sight of them 
 altogether. For the further labors of 
 these devoted apostles we are thrown 
 entirely upon other sources. There are 
 frequent references to the labors of the 
 apostles in many lands, but there is not 
 now any possibility of constructing con- 
 nected journeys such as we are fortunate 
 
96 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 in possessing for the great apostle to the 
 Gentiles. 
 
 Consider the case of Matthew as an 
 illustration of our great loss in not possess- 
 ing a complete story of the first founding 
 of the Christian Church in ever so many 
 of those ancient lands. There sift through 
 the literature of those early days frequent 
 references to the missionary labors of this 
 pubhcan among the apostles. These nu- 
 merous references associate the name of 
 Matthew with many mission fields. These 
 fields are so numerous that one late 
 writer says that Matthew is supposed to 
 have gone to every known and to some 
 unknown lands! And from that he is 
 inclined to argue that possibly Matthew 
 did not go to any land. Perhaps a sim- 
 ilar observation might have been made 
 as to the extended travels of the apostle 
 Paul, if it did not happen that we have 
 the Acts in which are presented PauFs 
 progressive journeys and labors in an 
 orderly form. Since the name of Matthew 
 is seen in connection with such a large 
 number of different fields, it appears to 
 be the most reasonable conclusion that 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 97 
 
 Matthew doubtless was a widely traveled 
 missionary. And is not that exactly what 
 one might be led to expect from a man 
 who lived for long years upon the main 
 routes of overland travel, and who must 
 have formed friendships with travelers 
 from many lands? 
 
 If the further knowledge of the mis- 
 sionary labors of only one out of the 
 many apostles makes the map of the 
 early Christian world appear like a suc- 
 cessive series of missionary journeys, what 
 a missionary map we would possess were 
 we able to trace with equal accuracy all 
 the missionary journeys of the other 
 apostles ! 
 
98 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 CHAPTER Xn 
 
 WHEN CHARITY BEGAN AT HOME 
 
 The first five chapters of the Acts is 
 filled with the thrilling story of the great 
 progress of the gospel in Jerusalem. With 
 increasing joy the apostles are teaching 
 and bringing good tidings of Jesus as the 
 Christ. It is a scene of compelling loveli- 
 ness. True there have been scourgings 
 and many petty persecutions, but what 
 of that! For through it all the number 
 of the disciples is multiplying, and the 
 interest is deepening on every hand. 
 
 Then suddenly the storm breaks! It 
 is not the outburst of a fierce persecution 
 on the part of the public authorities. 
 It is nothing from the outside at all. 
 It is, rather, the explosion of a growing 
 discontent on the inside. And the record 
 reads: "There arose a murmuring of the 
 Hellenists against the Hebrews, because 
 their widows were neglected in the daily 
 ministration." Earlier still stand the 
 words, "And all that believed were to- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 99 
 
 gether, and had all things common," "for 
 neither was there among them any that 
 lacked, for as many as were possessors of 
 lands or houses sold them, and . . . dis- 
 tribution was made unto each, according 
 as any one had need." 
 
 But now it is the Hellenists who are 
 opposed to the Hebrews — the Hellenists 
 murmuring because their widows are ne- 
 glected in the daily ministration. Hellen- 
 ists against Hebrews — and the apostles 
 are all Hebrews! 
 
 The wonderful way in which the apostles 
 meet this first great crisis in the early 
 church shows the value of their practical 
 training in the commercial world before 
 they became apostles, and is ample justifi- 
 cation forever of their selection to the 
 apostolate. They call together all the 
 multitude of the disciples, and place the 
 selection of the seven deacons for the 
 better caring of the charity of the church 
 into the hands of the entire body of 
 believers. And Luke says that this sug- 
 gestion of the apostles pleased the whole 
 multitude. The disciples met the mur- 
 muring of the Hellenists by choosing 
 
100 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 seven men; and judging by the names of 
 the seven so chosen they chose all 
 Hellenists! 
 
 This first serious problem in the early 
 church was a missionary problem. All 
 the embarrassments of differences in train- 
 ing and of racial antipathies may be seen 
 in this swift alignment of the foreign 
 born against the native Jew in the old 
 homeland. And so soon as there was 
 the slightest occasion which might war- 
 rant it, immediately there are the parties 
 — Hellenist against Hebrew. 
 
 The wise decision of the apostles in- 
 augurated a new day in church adminis- 
 tration. This was their first lesson in 
 becoming all things to all men that they 
 might by any means save some. And 
 the whole multitude became as Hellenist 
 to the Hellenists, and saw the issue so 
 clearly from the viewpoint of the Grecian 
 Jews that the crowd of believers appear 
 to have selected seven Hellenists to care 
 for the matter in hand. 
 
 And that question was settled for all 
 time, because in granting representation to 
 the neglected group the disciples removed 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 101 
 
 forever any suspicion of partiality in ad- 
 ministration. They set a precedent it 
 would be well for all mankind to follow 
 clear through to the end of the days. 
 
 Both parties to that first dispute have 
 long since been gathered to their fathers, 
 and yet the principle upon which they 
 registered their decision is applicable to 
 all mission fields to-day. For it is notable 
 that the first question of administration 
 to arise in the apostolic church was a 
 question which grew out of the missionary 
 labors of the early church. 
 
102 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 ONE CONFERENCE THAT REGIS- 
 TERED A DECISION 
 
 If a Gentile should desire to become 
 a Christian, must the Gentile first become 
 a Jew? 
 
 To appreciate this historical situation 
 in the apostolic church at anything like 
 its true value it must be remembered that 
 there was a wonderful advantage in be- 
 ing a Jew, for to the Jew had been in- 
 trusted "the oracles of God." What a 
 magnificent racial heritage is bound up 
 in so simple a saying, "the oracles of 
 God"! That was a treasure of value 
 beyond the measure of the mind of man. 
 God had spoken to their Jewish fore- 
 fathers through the prophets and in the 
 services of the sanctuary, so that truly 
 to be a Jew was to be the possessor of 
 a goodly inheritance. 
 
 And in the light of the greater distinc- 
 tion which belonged primarily to the Jew, 
 we need not wonder that the controversy 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 103 
 
 over the equal admittance of Gentiles to 
 Christian fellowship should occasion a con- 
 troversy of such stupendous proportions. 
 
 Barnabas and Paul returned to Antioch 
 upon the completion of their first mis- 
 sionary journey. In recounting the truly 
 remarkable things which had been done, 
 they told how God had opened the door 
 of faith unto the Gentiles. And as these 
 pioneer missionaries of the Christ "tarried 
 no little time with the disciples in Antioch, 
 certain men came down from Judsea, and 
 taught the brethren, saying. Except ye 
 be circumcised after the custom of Moses, 
 ye cannot be saved." 
 
 Hitherto most of the opposition to the 
 first missionaries had been from outside 
 the Christian community. But hereafter 
 the intensest opposition to the missionary 
 enterprise is to come almost wholly from 
 inside the group of believers. 
 
 In Antioch the gospel was first pro- 
 claimed to Gentiles, and again in Antioch 
 the call of God came for the beginning 
 of the missionary enterprise which should 
 carry the gospel to all Gentiles. These 
 significant events were soon known in 
 
104 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Judaea, and later when the first mission- 
 aries returned to tell the splendid success 
 which had attended their labors, the 
 report of the acceptance of the gospel 
 by the Gentiles aroused the apprehension 
 of the Judaizing party in the homeland, 
 and certain men from among them came 
 to Antioch to oppose and hinder this 
 missionary tendency in the apostolic 
 church. 
 
 The question of the right of the Gen- 
 tiles to the fullness of redemption by faith 
 in Christ Jesus alone is carried to the 
 apostles and elders in Jerusalem. And 
 this controversy concerned Christianity it- 
 self. For that conference of the apostles 
 and the elders, with the company of 
 behevers in Jerusalem, largely determined 
 by their decision whether Christianity 
 should be a universal or a provincial 
 religion. 
 
 And the missionaries Barnabas and Paul 
 return again to Antioch, having won a 
 notable victory in the conference at 
 Jerusalem. The law of circumcision is not 
 to be held as binding upon a Gentile. 
 A Gentile may become a Christian with- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 105 
 
 out first becoming a Jew. Christianity is 
 to be a universal religion. 
 
 Yet our rejoicing is premature. It is 
 true that the apostles and the elders 
 decided that the law of Moses was not to 
 hold in the preaching of the gospel to the 
 Gentiles. But, for all that, the conflict 
 over the Judaizing tendency raged so 
 fiercely in every mission field, and the 
 pressure of the "back to Moses movement" 
 was sufficiently strong even in Hberal 
 Antio<::h to carrv^ Peter entirely with it, 
 and to lead Barnabas into a compromising 
 position. 
 
 But how did it ever come about that 
 this question in regard to circumcision 
 for the Gentiles was ever raised in the 
 first place .^ The entire controversy grew 
 out of the acti\aty of the two men whom 
 the church at Antioch sent as mission- 
 aries to the needy world. Neither Bar- 
 nabas nor Paul hoped to save the world 
 by winning the Gentile and losing the 
 Jew. Their ministr^^ was always to the 
 Jew first, and then to the Gentile. It 
 was only in the end of the days, and after 
 the fiercest struggles, and under the in- 
 
106 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 tensest opposition, that Paul finally turned 
 away from his hope of winning the Jew 
 and devoted himself completely to his 
 mission to the Gentile. 
 
 Why, then, did this bitter, age-long, 
 never-tiring controversy arise in the early 
 church? 
 
 This question grew naturally out of the 
 wide extension of the gospel invitation 
 to include the needy in all lands. It was 
 inevitable that this controversy should 
 arise out of the missionary labors of 
 Barnabas and Paul. And in the discus- 
 sion at that early conference of the leaders 
 in Jerusalem we have the first declaration 
 of the apostles in matters of missionary 
 procedure. 
 
 In an analysis of the controversies 
 which were serious enough to find a 
 place in the annals of the lives and the 
 labors of the apostles we discover that all 
 questions of extended discussion in the 
 early church were matters which related 
 alone to the missionary enterprise. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 107 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 STRANGE TRAVELERS VENTUR- 
 ING ON NEW TRAILS 
 
 In the opening days of the public minis- 
 try of our Lord some obscure men became 
 disciples. These men were gathered in 
 what appears to be a purely incidental 
 way in the beginning. A mighty move- 
 ment for social justice, as well as for 
 religion, was led by John the Baptist, 
 and a few of these first-chosen disciples 
 had been in the company of John. 
 
 Then one day the Son of man came; 
 and as Jesus passed by, John bore such 
 gracious testimony to him that two of 
 his disciples left John and followed Jesus. 
 One of these two found his own brother 
 and brought him to Jesus. And the day 
 after, Jesus spoke to another; and upon 
 his becoming a disciple, he told a friend 
 of his; and this friend likewise became a 
 disciple. 
 
 Thus the circle widened, and soon 
 crowds of people were following the Christ. 
 
108 
 
 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 And out of all the vast throng of people, 
 the Master chose twelve disciples in par- 
 ticular that they might be with him. 
 And Jesus called the twelve so chosen 
 apostles. There are four complete lists 
 of the names of the twelve given in the 
 New Testament: 
 
 Matt. 10. 2-4 
 
 Marks. 10-19 
 
 LuKB 6. 14-16 
 
 Acts 1. 13 
 
 Peteb 
 
 Peter 
 
 Peter 
 
 Peteb 
 
 Andrew 
 
 James 
 
 Andrew 
 
 John 
 
 James 
 
 John 
 
 James 
 
 James 
 
 John 
 
 Andrew 
 
 John 
 
 Andrew 
 
 Philip 
 
 Philip 
 
 Philip 
 
 Philip 
 
 Bartholomew 
 
 Bartholomew 
 
 Bartholomew 
 
 Thomas 
 
 Thomas 
 
 Matthew 
 
 Matthew 
 
 Bartholomew 
 
 Matthew 
 
 Thomas 
 
 Thomas 
 
 Matthew 
 
 James son of 
 
 James son of 
 
 James son of 
 
 James son of 
 
 Alph^us 
 
 Alph^tjs 
 
 ALPH.EU3 
 
 Alph^us 
 
 Thadd<eu8 
 
 THADDiEUS 
 
 Simon the 
 
 Simon the 
 
 Simon the 
 
 Simon the 
 
 Zealot 
 
 Zealot 
 
 Canan^an 
 
 Canan^an 
 
 Judas son of 
 
 Judas son o» 
 
 Judas Iscariot 
 
 Judas Iscariot 
 
 James 
 
 Jambs. 
 
 WHO ALSO BE- 
 
 WHO ALSO BE- 
 
 Judas Iscariot 
 
 
 TRAYED HIM. 
 
 TRAYED HIM. 
 
 WHO became 
 
 A TRAITOR. 
 
 
 A comparison of these four lists of the 
 twelve apostles leads to the discovery of 
 the apparent omission of one name from 
 the group and the seeming addition of 
 another name. 
 
 In John's Gospel Nathanael appears as 
 one of the twelve. It is probable that 
 Nathanael is the other name for Bar- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 109 
 
 tholomew. In the conversation with Peter, 
 Jesus addresses him as Simon, son of 
 Jonah; and this might be written Simon 
 Barjonah. Likewise the name of Na- 
 than ael might well be Nathanael Bartal- 
 mai. It is quite probable that these two 
 words, Nathanael Bartholomew, together 
 form the full name for that disciple in 
 whom Jesus said there was no guile. 
 
 The name of Judas son of James has 
 all the appearance of being an additional 
 name. But now Bible students generally 
 regard Thaddseus and Judas son of James 
 as the names of one person. 
 
 Eleven of the twelve were Galilseans, 
 while only one of the entire group was a 
 Judaean. 
 
 To these men Jesus gave the command 
 to go into all the world. To what extent 
 did they obey this command of their Lord.^ 
 
 It is an all too frequent lament that 
 there are so few workers in the church. 
 But it was far otherwise in the apostoHc 
 church. In those early days there appear 
 to have been too few writers of permanent 
 records. They did not lack for workers 
 in the early Christian Church. Their 
 
110 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 need, as we realize it to-day, was the 
 dire necessity for writers of history. 
 "Would that there had been enough Lukes 
 for each of the twelve apostles to have 
 had his own historian! 
 
 The apostles were first given the task 
 of the evangelization of Jerusalem and 
 the rest of the land of Palestine. They 
 gave themselves to this engrossing bit of 
 labor with such holy abandon that they 
 largely accomplished this most difficult 
 task in a few brief years. 
 
 There were peculiar claims which the 
 very land of Palestine would make upon 
 their lives. It was home, and the love 
 of the native homeland was deeply rooted 
 in a Jew. Who can stand unmoved be- 
 side the canals in Babylon and look upon 
 the Hebrew exiles as they weep at the 
 remembrance of their native land? And 
 who that has heard in imagination the 
 wail of the singers can ever forget the 
 utter despair in the pathos of their words, 
 
 "If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, 
 
 Let my right hand forget her skill. 
 
 Let my tongue cleave to the roof of 
 my mouth." 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 111 
 
 If the land of Israel meant so much 
 to the Jew in the days of the captivity, 
 notwithstanding all the horrors of the 
 dark days of oppression and misrule, 
 what must have been the wealth of mean- 
 ing in the land of Palestine to the twelve 
 apostles through the w^onderful associa- 
 tions which grew out of their fellowship 
 with the Master! The occupations of the 
 people, the birds of the air, the flowers 
 of the field, the roadside, the sky, the 
 lake, the city, the poor, the sick, the 
 homes, the leaven, the fishing, the sowing, 
 the reaping — every moment of every day 
 would be vested with some exceedingly 
 precious memorj^ and suggestive of the 
 words and of the work of the Master. 
 Their intimate associations with the Mas- 
 ter deepened a thousandfold every loving 
 desire for the land of their birth. 
 
 How far, then, did these twelve Jews 
 whom Jesus called to be apostles — how far 
 did they obey the command of Christ 
 to go into all the world and to make 
 disciples of all the nations? 
 
 The Master bade these lovers of their 
 native land to begin from Jerusalem. 
 
112 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 That was a service of such genuine joy 
 as to make them glad even when they 
 were afflicted with sore persecutions. 
 
 The Master bade these men, whose love 
 for their homeland was greatly intensified 
 by the love of their Saviour, to evangelize 
 all Judsea and Samaria. That, too, was 
 an undertaking of supreme delight. 
 
 The Master bade these men to witness 
 for him unto the uttermost part of the 
 earth. Did they do it? 
 
 1. "The first Peter" is the way Matthew 
 begins his list of the twelve. And Peter's 
 name is always in the lead. His name 
 was Symeon, but in business life "Symeon" 
 became "Simon." The later use of the 
 name "Symeon" on rare occasions adds a 
 certain charm to studies which are appre- 
 ciative of the finer associations that are 
 bound up with early life. And one day 
 Simon met his Lord, and once again his 
 name is changed, and he is called Petros, 
 and it means "Rock." And "Peter" is 
 a new name. It is unlike anybody else's. 
 And so he will be remembered as Peter 
 for all time. 
 
 Peter was a ffreat traveler. He is seen 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 113 
 
 in the task of evangelizing the villages 
 among the Samaritans, and on other 
 journeys which take him to Joppa 
 and Caesarea. Peter was in Syria, Pon- 
 tus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Bithynia, Asia, 
 Babylonia, Greece, and Rome. In these 
 countries surely, and in many other lands 
 most probably, Peter bore witness to the 
 saving grace which had come to all men 
 through Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. "And Andrew." It reads like that 
 always. He is forever "and Andrew." 
 He never appears alone. He is always 
 in company with somebody else. In the 
 four Hsts of the apostles, the name of 
 Andrew is continually coupled with the 
 name of another. 
 
 Andrew is Knked with the missionary 
 enterprise which led in the spread of the 
 gospel to the north and northwest of the 
 homeland. He was a part of the move- 
 ment which enlarged the Christian bor- 
 ders in Syria, Galatia, Pontus, Scythia, 
 and the coast country of the Black Sea. 
 His further labors were in Thracia, Mace- 
 donia, and Achaia. 
 
 Andrew was so constant in his devo- 
 
114 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 tion to his Master, and so diligent in 
 prosecuting the work of the Lord, that 
 his persecutors invented a new instru- 
 ment of cruel torture with which to 
 wreak upon this missionary of the Christ 
 their unholy will. Then when you are 
 tempted to think of Andrew as only a 
 shadow of his older brother, take another 
 look at the Saint Andrew's cross; and 
 remember what sacrificing personal obedi- 
 ence to Jesus Christ lies behind that 
 emblem upon which "and Andrew" paid 
 the last full measure of devotion to his 
 Lord. 
 
 3. James is first known as the son 
 of Zebedee, and he is later known as the 
 brother of John. Blessed father of two 
 so great sons! The father had high hopes 
 for his sons. The attitude of the family 
 is reflected in the mother's eager longing 
 that the two so worthy sons might occupy 
 the chief seats in the coming kingdom of 
 God. And the two sons were called 
 "sons of thunder." They had initiative, 
 and they were both influential. 
 
 To James fell the choice of the apostles 
 to be recognized as the leader of the 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 115 
 
 church in Jerusalem. While Peter was 
 the spokesman in the early days of the 
 first ministry in Jerusalem, yet there is 
 warrant for believing that the head of 
 the Jerusalem church was always some one 
 other than the man who is named first 
 in the hsts of the apostles. James evi- 
 dently pressed the campaign in Jerusalem 
 with great vigor, for in some way he in- 
 curred the special displeasure of Herod 
 the king. He was beheaded for the sole 
 reason that he was the acknowledged head 
 of the church. 
 
 4. John is the disciple whom Jesus 
 loved. To John the Master gave the 
 charge to sustain his virgin mother. 
 John came very young into the circle of 
 the twelve. Yet Peter and John were 
 the inseparables. Peter and John were 
 side by side at the Last Supper, and they 
 ran together to the empty tomb on the 
 first Easter morning. Peter and John 
 walk together toward the temple at the 
 hour of prayer, and their association is 
 so constant that the apostles send them 
 on the errand for the supervision of the 
 newly opened mission fields of Samaria; 
 
116 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 and Peter and John together promote the 
 evangeHzation of the villages of the 
 Samaritans. 
 
 John traveled extensively in missionary 
 labors, and, after visiting Rome and many 
 other places, fixed his residence per- 
 manently in the city of Ephesus. 
 
 Two especially fine stories come drift- 
 ing down the centuries from the days of 
 John's residence in Ephesus. One story 
 is an echo of the heated debate John had 
 had with Cerinthus, the arch heretic in 
 John's estimation. And the story tells 
 how John walked one day into the public 
 baths, and there he saw Cerinthus — and 
 turning quickly upon his heels John walks 
 swiftly from the baths and down the 
 street. This is the same John we know 
 as one of the "sons of thunder." And 
 it is a delight to know that he is coming 
 along in years with his natural force 
 unabated. 
 
 The other story completes the picture. 
 John is too old now to walk alone, and 
 the young men carry him to the services 
 of grace, and John says a single word 
 that would make him to be known any- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 117 
 
 where; for he says, "Little children, love 
 one another." 
 
 So we take our leave of the apostle 
 of love. We saw him leaning on the 
 bosom of the Master, and now we find 
 him leaning upon the shoulders of the 
 young men in Ephesus, while underneath 
 him are the everlasting anns. 
 
 5. Philip was a fellow townsman of 
 Peter and Andrew. Aside from the naming 
 of the twelve, Philip appears only in the 
 Gospel of John. Philip shared with the 
 rest of the apostles in the evangelization 
 of the homeland of Palestine, and then 
 he too went into foreign fields. He is sup- 
 posed to have aided in the evangelization 
 of Lydia, Phrygia, Asia, Parthia, and Gala- 
 tia. His zeal for Christ carried him as far 
 as Athens, and later he returned to become 
 the leader of the church in Hierapolis. 
 
 6. Nathanael Bartholomew owes his 
 call to the friendship of Philip. The ties 
 of friendship are often closer than the 
 ties of kinship; and there is a Friend that 
 sticketh closer than a brother. And 
 Philip knew that kind of a Friend, and he 
 wanted Nathanael to know him too. 
 
118 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Along with the rest of the apostles 
 Nathanael participated in the abundant 
 missionary labors incident to the evan- 
 gelization of the homeland — the first stage 
 in the Master's program for the complete 
 evangelization of the whole world. Na- 
 thanael is supposed to have followed the 
 line most frequently traveled between 
 Jerusalem and Antioch in Syria, and to 
 have labored in Syria, and Armenia, and 
 Pontus, and Scythia, and the coast coun- 
 try of the Black Sea. In addition to the 
 provinces in Asia Minor, Nathanael is 
 thought to have made a missionary jour- 
 ney into India before his final location 
 as the settled apostle to Armenia. 
 
 7. Thomas is a famous illustration of 
 how a partial view of a man's life may 
 be an altogether false view of the man 
 as he really is. There are three scenes in 
 the friendship of Thomas for Jesus which 
 ought always to be taken together. Jesus 
 is some distance from Judaea with his 
 disciples when the news comes of the 
 serious illness of Lazarus. At that time 
 the organized opposition was so strong 
 that it might mean instant death for 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 119 
 
 Jesus and his friends to work in Judaea 
 at all. And the Master proposes a re- 
 turn to the very land in which his life 
 will be placed in immediate danger. The 
 disciples tried to dissuade Jesus from 
 risking his life by a return to the environs 
 of Jerusalem, but the Master will go. And 
 then Thomas, thoughtful but resolute, says, 
 "Let us also go, that we may die with him." 
 
 There was that same determined spirit 
 in the question which Thomas asked at 
 the Last Supper — the question in which 
 Thomas inquired for the way along which 
 the Master was about to go; for wherever 
 the way led, Thomas was prepared to 
 follow his Lord. 
 
 The desire on the part of Thomas for 
 the proof of the resurrection was exactly 
 similar to the demands which were made 
 by the other apostles. They too had all 
 been satisfied with evidence of the Lord's 
 rising from the tomb, and Thomas would 
 be satisfied likewise. The confession of 
 Thomas, "My Lord and my God," is one 
 of the grandest confessions ever framed 
 by human lips. 
 
 In the selection, or it may be in the 
 
120 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 assignment, of missionary fields, the work 
 for Thomas lay to the north and east- 
 ward, and he first works among the 
 Parthians in the country south of the 
 Caspian Sea. Then came the call to India. 
 But the way to India was all hedged 
 about — the barriers were insuperable. The 
 common ways of travel were closed. In 
 the midst of his distress Thomas has a 
 vision of his risen and reigning Lord; and 
 now, under the inspiration of that vision 
 of the Christ, Thomas sells himself as a 
 slave to a merchant of India in order that 
 he might reach the destination of his 
 mission field. 
 
 8. Matthew the publican — a new name 
 for a man with an old relation. Levi sat 
 at the seat of toll as Jesus passed by and 
 called him, and Levi arose from the 
 customs oflfice, and Matthew followed 
 Jesus. And Levi the taxgatherer is Mat- 
 thew to the Christians forever. 
 
 In his missionary labors Matthew is 
 represented as journeying to many lands. 
 All the provinces of Asia Minor are in- 
 cluded in his lists of missionary fields. 
 The territory lying between the Black Sea 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 121 
 
 and the coast of India is reckoned as 
 coming under the evangehzing influence 
 of this pubHcan among the disciples. 
 
 9. James the son of Alphseus is men- 
 tioned in the Hsts of the apostles. No- 
 where else in the New Testament is there 
 any reference to him, except, of course, 
 as he is naturally included in the re- 
 markable labors of the apostles through- 
 out the earlier chapters of the Acts. The 
 name of James, the son of Alphseus, 
 occupies a position of prominence in the 
 list of the twelve, since his name always 
 stands at the head of the third group of 
 fours into which the apostoHc group is 
 divided. His foreign missionary labors 
 are thought to extend to the south of 
 Judaea, reaching into Egypt, and extend- 
 ing finally into the north of Africa. 
 
 10. The confusion of the three names 
 for the one apostle is gradually becoming 
 clear. The more modern study of the 
 Greek text has eliminated the reading Leb- 
 bseus in Matthew, so there are now only the 
 two forms — Thaddseus and Judas, the son 
 of James. These two names are identified 
 as belonging to this particular disciple. 
 
122 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Thaddseus is thought to have gone first 
 of all to the eastern countries, and his 
 name is associated with the evangeliza- 
 tion of the lands of Parthia, Mesopo- 
 tamia, and Babylonia. He is generally 
 thought to have made Edessa a center for 
 evangelization, and to have penetrated as 
 far as India. He is also thought to have 
 been a missionary to Africa, for one of 
 the well-founded traditions in the early 
 church pictures him as having mastered 
 an African language in order that he 
 might preach the gospel on that continent. 
 
 11. Simon the Canansean presents a 
 study of enthusing interest. In several 
 of the lists of the twelve he is spoken of 
 as Simon the Zealot. The Cananaeans 
 were a popular body of progressives in 
 the early days of the Christian era. And 
 Simon joined the Cananaeans. He soon 
 found, however, something far better in 
 the call of the Christ. But Simon brought 
 over into his new allegiance the same 
 intense feeling which impelled him to 
 cast in his lot with the political enthusi- 
 asts. Simon left the crowd, but he never 
 lost out of his life the enthusiasm which 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 123 
 
 carried him into the progressive move- 
 ment. And so to the end of the days 
 he was always known as the Cananaean. 
 
 It might naturally be supposed that 
 one so earnest, so enthusiastic, so full of 
 zeal and power, would go to great lengths 
 in his missionary service. Simon the 
 Canansean's field of labor ran to the 
 east, and then north and south, stretch- 
 ing all the way from the Mediterranean 
 to the Euphrates, and beyond; and from 
 the shores of the Caspian Sea clear to 
 India. Following his work as an itinerant 
 missionary, Simon settled later in Egypt. 
 
 To what extent, then, did the twelve 
 seek to carry out the command of Christ 
 to go into all the world and make dis- 
 ciples of all the nations? 
 
 The briefest survey of the missionary 
 labors of these heroic souls is sufficient 
 to attest the full obedience which they 
 rendered to their Master's great command. 
 And out of the missionary labors of the 
 apostolic church grew the books of the 
 New Testament. If it had not been for 
 the missionary enterprise, the world would 
 never have had the Bible at all. 
 
124 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 FALLEN HERALDS WHO LIE IN 
 FOREIGN LANDS 
 
 The life story of eleven out of the 
 twelve apostles is full of fascination. So 
 mightily did they witness to Jesus Christ 
 that they soon filled all Jerusalem with 
 their doctrine. Then the circle widens. 
 Samaria is touched; and then the interest 
 grows, and all Judsea feels the thrill of a 
 purer life; and then Galilee; and then on 
 to Syria, and then south, and east, and 
 north, and finally west run the lines of 
 light, and on these broadening lines of 
 light we find an apostle carrying the 
 message of the world's Redeemer. 
 
 The apostles wrought so magnificently 
 that within a single generation the utter- 
 most part of their known world had heard 
 the glad tidings of the Son of God who 
 came to seek and to save the lost. 
 
 The number of the followers of Jesus 
 was very large. All the cities of the 
 Roman world had Christian communities 
 in them. There were Christians among 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 125 
 
 the slaves as well as saints among the 
 household of Caesar. All ranks of society 
 contributed to the membership to be 
 found in the early church. 
 
 Cities mostly are mentioned in the 
 missionary labors of the apostles. And 
 yet the villages were not overlooked. The 
 cities, however, formed the strategic cen- 
 ters from which as a base they could carry 
 on an active propaganda into the sur- 
 rounding country. 
 
 After all, we too frequently infer from 
 the repeated references to the cities in 
 the ministry of the early missionaries that 
 in the days of the apostles the Christian 
 communities were confined principally to 
 the cities. Jesus bade the apostles to be 
 his witnesses in all Judsea and Samaria; 
 and reasoning from the thorough manner 
 in which they evangelized the provinces 
 of Palestine, it is most certain to assume 
 that they followed the same effective 
 means elsewhere. 
 
 That the apostles promoted the entire 
 evangelization of the rural sections and 
 the villages is evidenced by a statement 
 from Pliny, who aflfirms in a letter which 
 
126 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 was written very late in the first Chris- 
 tian century that the whole province of 
 Bithynia was overrun with the believers 
 in Jesus. Pliny was set for the execution 
 of the Christians, and he reasons from 
 their great number that their slaughter 
 would be too general, even for a Roman. 
 
 WTiy should it be supposed that the 
 single province of Bithynia was more 
 thoroughly evangeHzed than other prov- 
 inces more easily accessible and upon 
 which the apostles bestowed more abun- 
 dant labor? 
 
 Consider the province of Asia. John 
 writes the Revelation to the seven churches 
 in this one province. There were bodies 
 of Christians in Ephesus, Smyrna, Per- 
 gamum,Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and 
 Laodicea. In addition to these groups, 
 Paul writes to the church in Colossae. 
 And then Philip had his residence in 
 Hierapolis. Besides, the three letters of 
 John are also written to groups in this 
 same province. We are justified in say- 
 ing that all Asia was evangelized as thor- 
 oughly as all Judaea. 
 
 That Bithynia and Asia were no excep- 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 127 
 
 tions among the provinces, singled out 
 particularly by apostles who were bidden 
 to disciple all of the nations and not some 
 of the nations, may be further inferred 
 from the fact that like the Revelation of 
 John, which was addressed to seven 
 churches in the province of Asia, the 
 Epistle of Paul to the Galatians is writ- 
 ten to the churches in the province of 
 Galatia. 
 
 We are fully prepared now for the 
 testimony of TertuUian, who said that the 
 Christian behevers had so grown in num- 
 bers that they formed a considerable pro- 
 portion even of the armies of the empire 
 of Rome. 
 
 Right royally then wrought these apos- 
 tohc heroes of the Christ. The Word 
 itself bears eloquent testimony to their 
 labors. They are said to have gone forth 
 and preached everywhere. Their full de- 
 votion to the supreme enterprise upon 
 which they embarked at the command of 
 Christ is all the better understood when 
 we note the number of the apostles who 
 lie buried in missionary graves. 
 
 How many do you suppose of the orig- 
 
128 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 inal group of our Lord's twelve apostles 
 lie buried in their native land? 
 
 When the dead in Christ shall rise 
 first, from what widely scattered lands of 
 the Old World shall the apostles come? 
 
 1. Peter was crucified head downward 
 in the Neroian persecution which also 
 claimed the apostle Paul. Both Paul and 
 Peter met death in Rome, and their dust 
 lies in the land of Italy. 
 
 2. Andrew was crucified in Achaia on 
 a cross which ever afterward has borne 
 his name. 
 
 3. James was the first among the twelve 
 to suffer martyrdom. He was beheaded 
 by Herod the king in Jerusalem in Judaea. 
 
 4. John had his sepulcher in the city 
 of Ephesus in Asia. 
 
 5. Philip met a violent death in Hier- 
 apolis in Asia. 
 
 6. Nathanael Bartholomew was crucified 
 in Armenia. 
 
 7. Thomas was martyred in India. 
 
 8. Matthew Hkewise met his death in 
 India. 
 
 9. James the son of Alphseus met death 
 in a foreign land. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 129 
 
 10. Thaddaeus went from Africa to be 
 forever with his Lord. 
 
 11. Simon the Canansean passed to his 
 reward from the land of Egypt. 
 
 12. Judas Iscariot was buried in the 
 land of Judaea. 
 
 Eleven of the twelve were Galilaeans. 
 
 The solitary apostle who was not a 
 Galilsean was the man from Judsea. 
 
 It is very interesting to note that only 
 one of the apostles was buried in his 
 native land. 
 
 The sepulchers of the apostles are all 
 the way from India to Italy, and from 
 Armenia to Egypt. The apostles lie in 
 missionary graves on the three continents 
 of Europe, Africa, and Asia. The earthly 
 resting places of these intrepid souls are 
 in Italy, Achaia, Asia, Armenia, India, 
 Egypt, and other foreign lands. 
 
 Judas Iscariot was a Judsean. And 
 Judas Iscariot alone of all the twelve 
 apostles lies buried in his native land. 
 
 Then every apostle except one gave his 
 life to the missionary enterprise. "Judas 
 Iscariot who also betrayed him" was the 
 only one among the twelve apostles who 
 
130 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 did not become a missionary. And so 
 the only one among the twelve apostles 
 who did not become a missionary became 
 a traitor. 
 
 You do not believe in missions, did 
 you say.^ Well, neither did Judas Is- 
 cariot. And it surely ought not to be a 
 matter of much pride for anyone to find 
 that his views of the missionary enter- 
 prise were first shared by the one man 
 among the twelve who betrayed his Master 
 with a traitor's kiss. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 131 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE ATTRIBUTE OF EVERLAST- 
 ING AS APPLIED TO BOOKS 
 
 The four Gospels form the most price- 
 less literary treasure in all the world. To 
 the end of the ages these four writings 
 of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John will 
 be unrivaled, for theirs is the life story 
 of the Altogether Lovely One, the Fairest 
 among ten thousand, the Bright and the 
 Morning Star. There were others who 
 wrote out the wonderful story of the life 
 of Jesus besides these four. But only 
 the Gospels according to Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John have outlived the long 
 centuries, and are destined still to out- 
 live all the centuries. 
 
 The author of the first named among 
 the Gospels is Matthew; and Matthew 
 was a publican. It is eminently fitting 
 that the Gospel which was written by a 
 publican should portray in captivating 
 grandeur the kingliness of Christ. As tax 
 collector for the Romans the man Matthew 
 had grown familiar with the earthly roy- 
 
132 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 alty of his day. He knew how empty 
 of all reality were those semblances of 
 power. And on the day that the real 
 King passed by and saw him sitting at 
 the seat of custom, Matthew recognized 
 the Lord of Glory, the King of kings, the 
 Desire of all nations, the Prince of Peace. 
 So Matthew's Gospel portrays the kingli- 
 ness of Christ in such fine fashion as to 
 most beautifully fulfill the expectations of 
 his race. And Matthew's Gospel is writ- 
 ten primarily to the Jews. Its truths are 
 universal, yet its materials are assembled 
 in a manner to carry conviction to the 
 members of that race among whom the 
 Master himself was bom, and whose 
 hopes he came to fulfill. 
 
 Matthew wrote a Gospel in Aramaic. 
 Hebrew was the language of Holy Writ, 
 and the official language of the synagogues. 
 However, during the days of the Baby- 
 lonian captivity, the Jews acquired Ara- 
 maic, and upon their return to the prom- 
 ised land Aramaic became the language 
 of the common people. The Jewish trans- 
 lations of the Old Testament writings and 
 other religious literature of the times of 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 133 
 
 the apostles were almost altogether written 
 in Aramaic. It is most interesting that 
 Matthew is known to have written a 
 Gospel in Aramaic, the language not only 
 of the Jews in Palestine but also the 
 language which was spoken by the Jews 
 in the other lands to which they had 
 gone. A Gospel, then, that should make 
 its strongest appeal to the people for 
 whom it was intended would most 
 naturally be written in the language 
 which they would most easily understand, 
 and the language which would be used 
 by them in their other religious writings. 
 It is very probable that Matthew hoped 
 to win to Jesus that large body of his 
 fellow countrymen scattered abroad whose 
 expectations of the coming kingly Messiah 
 would be fully realized in Jesus of Naz- 
 areth, the King of the Jews. 
 
 The first year of our Lord's earthly 
 ministry was spent in an attempt to win 
 the important religious leaders in Jeru- 
 salem. And that year is known as the 
 year of obscurity in our Lord's life. It 
 was a year of intense activity; but at its 
 close there were no justifying results. And 
 
134 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 Jesus turned to the fishermen and the 
 publicans, from which groups the dis- 
 ciples were so largely drawn. And just 
 so the Gospel of Matthew, written in 
 Aramaic expressly to reach the religious 
 leaders among his own people, fell so far 
 short of accomplishing what Matthew had 
 in mind that it has now been completely 
 lost to the knowledge of men. 
 
 Matthew also wrote his Gospel in 
 Greek. To that fact we probably owe the 
 preservation of this Gospel. But why did 
 Matthew write at all in Greek? There is 
 only one suflBcient answer. The ever- 
 widening campaign to carry the glad 
 tidings to all nations made it imperative 
 that his Gospel should also be written 
 in the one language which carried farthest 
 in that missionary day. 
 
 The author of the Gospel of Mark 
 enjoyed a unique privilege. In his Chris- 
 tian service he had intimate acquaintance 
 with three of the wonder men in the early 
 church: Peter, Barnabas, and Paul. John 
 Mark accompanied Barnabas and Saul on 
 the first missionary journey; and, in com- 
 pany with Barnabas, made a later visit 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 135 
 
 to the earlier mission fields. Following 
 these evangelizing journeys with his uncle, 
 Mark joined Peter in extensive tours to 
 many mission lands. Later still Mark 
 once again comes into fellowship and 
 service with the great apostle to the Gen- 
 tiles; for, in his pastoral epistles, Paul 
 refers to the value of John Mark to him 
 in the ministry. 
 
 Mark's Gospel was evidently intended 
 for Gentile readers. This is clearly seen 
 from the fact that Hebrew or Aramaic 
 names and expressions are explained. 
 Then the Old Testament is only once 
 quoted by the evangelist in his own 
 narrative, while the law is not even men- 
 tioned. In reducing money to the Roman 
 equivalent, in speaking of Pilate as though 
 the first readers would know who was 
 meant, and in the frequent use of Latin 
 words, it is concluded that the Gospel of 
 Mark was written in Rome. This pic- 
 turesque story of the life and labors of 
 the eternal Son of God was originally in- 
 tended for a Roman community of Gen- 
 tile believers. 
 
 The Gospel of Luke pictures in an 
 
136 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 unusual degree the Gospel of a gratuitous 
 and universal salvation. In the Gospel 
 of Luke love embraces all mankind. 
 Throughout the Gospel Christ's com- 
 passion for the poor is exhibited in a 
 remarkable degree. The Saviour himself 
 is born among the lowly; his parents offer 
 for him the sacrifice for the poor. In 
 later life he had not where to lay his head. 
 And the Gospel of Luke is the Gospel of 
 a wonderful salvation — a salvation that 
 can save unto the uttermost, and that 
 reaches even to the thief upon the cross. 
 Luke's Gospel portrays the Son of man 
 as the Saviour and the Friend of all. 
 This is the Gospel of the publican, and 
 of the outcast, and of the weeping Mag- 
 dalene, and of the crucified malefactors, 
 and of the good Samaritan, and of the 
 prodigal son. It is the inclusive Gospel 
 for all the world. 
 
 Luke's Gospel was written for Gen- 
 tiles. The author himself was a Gentile, 
 and the Gospel is addressed to a Gentile, 
 Theophilus by name. 
 
 John's Gospel was written outside the 
 homeland of Palestine. This is seen in 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 137 
 
 the author's unique way of referring to 
 the Jews. His frequent references to the 
 Jewish land and customs can be fully 
 understood alone in the viewpoint of the 
 Gospel having been written from a foreign 
 land. And John's Gospel was written 
 primarily for the converts of the foreign 
 missionaries. It was intended at the first 
 for Gentile readers, as may be inferred 
 from the many subtle suggestions and 
 explanations of manners and customs 
 throughout the book which make the 
 message all the clearer to non-Jewish 
 readers. 
 
 In scarcely no other way can the 
 world's great debt to the foreign mis- 
 sionary enterprise be so clearly realized 
 as in the single matter of the writing of 
 the very Gospels themselves. 
 
 The Gospel of Matthew was written for 
 the members of his own race, dispersed 
 among the nations. 
 
 The Gospel of Mark was written to 
 perpetuate the story of redeeming love 
 as it had been proclaimed by Peter in 
 his foreign missionary labors. 
 
 The Gospel of Luke was written to 
 
138 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 confirm the faith of a Gentile convert who 
 had been won by the missionaries in a 
 foreign land. 
 
 The Gospel of John was written to sus- 
 tain the Christian confidence of those who 
 had been lately won to faith in Jesus 
 through the work of missionaries. 
 
 Therefore, if it had not been for the 
 missionary enterprise, the Gospels as we 
 now know them would never have been 
 written at all. This is a self-evident truth. 
 
 Only a foreign missionary could write 
 an everlasting Gospel. If proof is sought 
 for this self-evident proposition, the proof 
 may be found in the fact that only foreign 
 missionaries did write everlasting Gospels. 
 
 A great many people attempted to 
 write Gospels. But no other than Mat- 
 thew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote Gos- 
 pels which the world would not allow to 
 die. Broken fragments of the other 
 Gospels are found now and again. These 
 mostly are unrelated sayings of Jesus. 
 And although several hundred such shat- 
 tered bits have been recovered so far, 
 yet not one of these broken bits adds 
 aught of value to the Gospel story. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 139 
 
 An everlasting Gospel could not be 
 written in the environment of Jerusalem. 
 For if the missionaries m the early church 
 had waited until they received the full 
 approval of the church in Jerusalem, the 
 gospel would never have been preached 
 to the Gentiles. So they who did not 
 love their Lord enough to obey his last 
 command, did not know him well enough 
 to write his love message for the world. 
 Wherefore, only foreign missionaries could 
 write an everlasting gospel, because only 
 foreign missionaries did. 
 
140 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE HIGHEST EXPRESSION OF 
 THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 
 
 "You will see by the morning paper 
 what the people in China think of the 
 foreign missionaries!" were the words 
 with which he greeted me that morning 
 in the Pullman. 
 
 I had not seen the morning paper, for 
 I like to read something better first in 
 the morning; and yet I knew that in all 
 probability there had been a disturbance 
 of some kind. Perhaps a bit of mob 
 violence had been visited upon some 
 mission station. And so I answered, 
 
 "Strange as it may seem, that is the 
 way the missionaries are usually treated 
 in all lands where they first go to preach 
 the gospel. It is the way they were 
 treated when they first landed on the 
 shores of the continent in which they 
 finally reached and evangelized our own 
 forefathers." 
 
 At the mention of our own forefathers 
 the traveler said, with quick eagerness: 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 141 
 
 "What is your authority for that, sir?** 
 
 "The story is told in a very old book," 
 I answered; "a very old book that is 
 not read very much any more." 
 
 "Where can I get a copy of that book?" 
 the man replied, with apparent interest. 
 
 "I am not quite sure," I said; "for it 
 is a very old book." 
 
 "Do you suppose I could get a copy 
 of it at the news stand?" the man inquired. 
 
 "I think not," I said; "for I never saw 
 a copy of that old book at any news 
 stand." 
 
 "Could I get a copy in a bookstore?" 
 the man persisted. 
 
 "I doubt it," I said; "for it is a rather 
 rare book, very old, and not read very 
 much any more." 
 
 "Have you ever read a copy of it?" 
 the man asked. 
 
 "Yes, I have." 
 
 "Would you mind telling me about it?" 
 he asked. 
 
 And as I told him the story of the 
 experiences which befell Paul at Philippi, 
 it was an interesting study to note the 
 transformation which was wrought in the 
 
142 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 man's face, as for the first time appar- 
 ently he associated the apostohc mission- 
 ary enterprise with the evangehzation of 
 the continent on which our own fore- 
 fathers hved. 
 
 As I finished the old, old story of Paul 
 in Philippi, the man asked: "Are you a 
 foreign missionary?" 
 
 "Yes," I said; "that is the deepest joy 
 in my life, next to the joy I have in my 
 Saviour." 
 
 "To what people did you go as a mis- 
 sionary?" he inquired, in what appeared 
 to me to be a real spirit of earnest inquiry. 
 
 "I went as a missionary to the Pam- 
 pangans," I replied. 
 
 "Did they ask you to come?" he asked, 
 in that same spirit of seeming earnestness. 
 
 "No," I said; "they did not ask me to 
 come." 
 
 "Then why did you go?" he demanded, 
 sharply, in utter contrast to the mild 
 manner he had assumed but a brief in- 
 stant before. 
 
 For the moment I was quite startled 
 at his sudden change of manner, and at 
 the self-confident mood which he now 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 143 
 
 manifested. However, in answer to his 
 startling question I told this incident 
 which happened in my college days. 
 
 "I was on my way to my room one 
 wintry night, when, as I passed in front 
 of the college president's home, my atten- 
 tion was attracted to a brilliant light in 
 the rear room of the Morgan home next 
 door. The reflecting flicker of flames upon 
 the window was such as might be occa- 
 sioned by the fire in an open stove. And 
 yet as I thought about it, if the bright 
 reflection were from the flames of an open 
 stove, there ought to be a part of the 
 room in a deep shadow, and here the 
 entire room appeared to be full of light. ] 
 
 "There was a high wind blowing, and 
 most of the buildings in the college town 
 were frame dwellings, with only the most 
 meager fire protection. Should a fire get 
 under way a stormy night like that, it 
 would mean the loss of most of the town. 
 And so I ran hurriedly across the lawn 
 of the president's home, and then over 
 the Morgan yard, and came directly under 
 the brilliantly lighted window of the room 
 above — and there I was standing right 
 
144 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 in front of the dining room window of 
 the Morgan home. It was supper time 
 in that home, and seated about the table, 
 enjoying their evening meal, were the 
 four members of the family — father, 
 mother, son, and daughter. But just as 
 I came to the dining room window flames 
 in the room above caught the lace curtain 
 and sprang instantly to the ceiling. And 
 there, in the dining room below, all un- 
 conscious of the fire raging in the room 
 above, sat the family engaged in the 
 beautiful custom of eating their evening 
 meal together. Some bit of good-humored 
 pleasantry had just gone the rounds of 
 the family circle and they broke into a 
 hearty laugh; and not wishing to disturb 
 them, nor caring to interfere with their 
 family customs, and because they did not 
 ask me to tell them that their house was 
 on fire — I walked on home to my room!" 
 
 "No, you didn't!" exclaimed my new- 
 found friend. 
 
 "Well, what did I do then?" I asked. 
 
 "You yelled Tire!' as loud as ever you 
 could!" he replied. 
 
 "Yes, I yelled Tire!' and even before 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 145 
 
 I could reach their front door, the Mor- 
 gans were all there, eager and ready 
 to help to put out the fire in some other 
 house, little imagining that their own 
 home was on fire. 
 
 "And yet they did not ask me to tell 
 them that their house was on fire! How- 
 ever, if I had known their house was on 
 fire, and had not told — and the fact that 
 I had known a house was on fire, and 
 had not told — had ever become known 
 about me, there is no community in 
 America where I afterward would have 
 been allowed to live in peace. 
 
 "No, the Pampangans did not ask me 
 to come, but I knew the peril of people 
 who are out of Christ; and I knew what 
 the love of Christ means to the life; and, 
 knowing that, I was bound to go and 
 tell them." 
 
 According to the apostles, the mission- 
 ary is the highest expression of the Chris- 
 tian life. 
 
 There is little wonder that the ancient 
 copyists of the writings of John should 
 have confused a word in his first epistle, 
 for the missionary idea is ever so hard 
 
146 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 to understand apparently, and the idea 
 itself is not always welcome, even to the 
 believers. John tells why he is writing 
 his epistle, and his words are very illu- 
 minating, "And these things we write that 
 our joy may be made full." And the 
 word "our" was so little understood that 
 the copyists frequently render it "your." 
 So far short of the higher knowledge of 
 the Christian life do we mostly come 
 that we have lost the fullness of meaning 
 in the finding of our joy in the other's 
 good. That fullness of joy is known in 
 exquisite delight to the missionary alone. 
 
 That the apostles regard the mission- 
 ary as the highest expression of the 
 Christian life is seen in their universal 
 practice. In actual experience each one of 
 them became a missionary himself. And 
 the only one among the twelve apostles 
 who did not become a missionary became 
 a traitor. 
 
 In naming the gifts which God had 
 bestowed upon men Paul always names 
 the calling to be a missionary first of 
 all. As though the fact of a man being 
 a missionary is the one privilege above 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 147 
 
 all others. "And He gave some to be 
 apostles; and some, prophets; and some, 
 to be evangelists; and some, pastors and 
 teachers." 
 
 Paul looked upon the missionary as the 
 highest expression of the Christian life. 
 We listen eagerly to the words Paul 
 speaks, and we hear him say, "I am debtor 
 to the Greek!" 
 
 "Yes, Paul; we understand how greatly 
 indebted you are to the Greek." 
 
 Surprised beyond measure at our inter- 
 ruption, the great missionary hastens to 
 say, "You greatly overestimate my debt 
 to the Greek; for the Greek is far more 
 in debt to me than I am in debt to 
 him." 
 
 And then, as though not noting our 
 interruption, the mighty missionary con- 
 tinues, "I am debtor to the barbarian!" 
 
 "Why, Paul!" we exclaim; "you in debt 
 to the barbarian! WTiat did a barbarian 
 ever do for you?" 
 
 "You do not understand," our great 
 missionary replies; "I am in debt to the 
 barbarian, not because of an;yi:hing the 
 barbarian ever has done for me, but I 
 
148 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 am in debt to the barbarian because of 
 what I can do for him!" 
 
 That is the highest expression of the 
 Christian life. 
 
 That is the Golden Rule in action. 
 
 O, Paul, I am so glad that you realized 
 that you were in debt to the barbarian! 
 I am so glad that you paid in full that 
 debt of yours to the barbarian! I am 
 so glad for all that you did for the bar- 
 barian, for in those days my ancestors 
 were all among the barbarians! 
 
 How far short we all come of the glory 
 of God as it is seen in the face of Jesus 
 Christ! Only the missionary who fol- 
 lowed his Master into the missionary 
 enterprise was able to say, "Follow me, 
 as I follow Christ!" 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 149 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE PROPOSITION AS IT 
 NOW STANDS 
 
 Here, then, is the obligation which 
 each succeeding generation is under to the 
 foreign missionary enterprise: If it had 
 not been for the foreign missionary enter- 
 prise, the world would never have had 
 the Bible at all. 
 
 1. Every book in the New Testament 
 was written by a foreign missionary. 
 
 2. Every epistle in the New Testament 
 that was written to a church was written 
 to a foreign missionary church. 
 
 3. Every letter in the New Testament 
 that was written to an individual was 
 written to the convert of a foreign mis- 
 sionary. 
 
 4. Every book in the New Testament 
 that was written to a community of be- 
 lievers was written to a general group of 
 foreign missionary churches. 
 
 5. The one book of prophecy in the 
 New Testament was written to the seven 
 foreign missionary churches in Asia. 
 
150 NEW THOUGHTS 
 
 6. The only authoritative history of the 
 early Christian Church is merely a for- 
 eign missionary journal. 
 
 7. The disciples were called Christians 
 first in a foreign missionary community. 
 
 8. The language of the books of the New 
 Testament is the missionary's language. 
 
 9. The map of the early Christian 
 world is the tracings of the missionary 
 journeys of the apostles. 
 
 10. The problems which arose in the 
 early church were largely questions of 
 missionary procedure. 
 
 11. Of the twelve apostles chosen by 
 Jesus, every apostle except one became a 
 missionary. 
 
 12. The only man among the twelve 
 apostles who did not become a missionary 
 became the traitor. 
 
 13. Only a foreign missionary could 
 write an everlasting Gospel. 
 
 14. According to the apostles, the mis- 
 sionary is the highest expression of the 
 Christian life. 
 
 Therefore, if it had not been for the 
 missionary enterprise, the world would 
 never have had the Bible at all. 
 
ON AN OLD BOOK 151 
 
 This study, however, is related only to 
 the New Testament. Would not the world 
 have had that portion of the Holy Scrip- 
 tures which we know as the Old Testa- 
 ment, even if there had never been a 
 New Testament? 
 
 The world has the Old Testament at 
 the present time, because of the New 
 Testament. For they who have always 
 been in possession of the Old Testament 
 alone have never given it to the world, 
 and never would. 
 
 The New Testament books are pre- 
 eminently the Christian Scriptures. And 
 for every "jot and tittle" of the Christian 
 Scriptures the world is in debt entirely 
 to the foreign missionary enterprise. 
 
':'^;''^'S'?S1 
 
 BS538.B88 
 
 New thoughts on an old book, 
 
 Princeton Theological Semmary-Speer Library