STACK y ,/- fad&S&r- THE 074 [BLE-READER'S COMPANION | Understandest thou what thou readest ? " z ACTS viii. 30. BY THE REV. . B. GIRDLESTONE, M.A. Hon. Canon of Christ Church. LONDON: MORGAN AND SCOTT LTD. 12, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS, E.C. PRICE TWOPENCE NET. Some Biblical Works by the same Author : HOW TO STUDY THE ENGLISH BIBLE. THE BUILDING-UP OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. SYNONYMS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. FOUNDATIONS OF THE BIBLE. OUR ENGLISH BIBLE: HOW WE GOT IT. THE MISSION OF CHRIST. ETC., ETC. J c THE BIBLE-READER'S COMPANION. I. THE CHURCHES FOUNDED ON CHRIST. '"TpHE old Roman road from Jerusalem to Gaza was probably in good order when the Ethio- pian official was driving along it in his chariot, but was very rough indeed when the present writer picked his way along it on horseback in 1860. The Ethiopian had made a journey of upwards of 2,000 miles to Jerusalem, and was now on his way home, and was engaged in reaching what we should now call " a portion " namely, the Book of Isaiah, translated into Greek and written in a bold hand. He read out loud, for that was the way in those days, and had got as far as the 53rd chapter, and was in much perplexity as to its meaning. Suddenly a question broke on his ear, " Do you take in what you read out ? " (Acts viii. 30.) He looked up and 2116213 felt drawn to the man who had put it, and at once became a learner. Philip quickly explained that the prophetic picture drawn hundreds of years before had been only lately fulfilled in the Crucifixion of Jesus, and that He (Jesus) was the promised King and Saviour. Led by the Spirit, he accepted the good news and went on gladly to tell his own people that Jesus was the Christ. Thus was formed the Ethiopian or Abyssinian Church, which has con- tinued to this day, having been founded on Christ crucified. Other Churches were brought into being in a similar way, by such heaven-sent messengers as Paul ; and some of them came into existence before the Books of the New Testament were written, though those which we call the Old Testament were far older. At any rate, the Gospel of Salvation through Christ was the Rock on which the Lord built His Church. II. THE CHURCH VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE. This word " Church " answers to the Greek word ecclesia, and is used in four senses jn Scripture. 5 It may stand for the Building, for the Congregation which meets in it, for the Community to be found in a particular town or district, or for the Aggregate of all such communities which originally sprang from the Apostolic Body in Jerusalem, and which may be called the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. The word, i.e., the Hebrew word answering to it, stands in the Old Testament for a particular nation a body of men, women and children, who constituted the Congregation of Israel and it even included some outsiders (Joshua viii. 35). They were a visible community with a well-defined origin and history, and with high privileges and serious responsibilities. They were regarded as God's children and were called to be holy; but "with many of them God was not well pleased they were not worth the name of children" (Isaiah i. 3; Hosea i. 9). There was thus in man's sight an outward and visible Israel, and within it a spiritual Israel known only to God, which consisted of about 7,000 members in Elijah's days (i Kings xix. 18). As St. Paul says, " He was not a Jew, who was one outwardly ; neither was that circumcision, which was outward in the flesh : but he was a Jew, which was one inwardly ; and circumcision was of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter " (Romans ii. 28, 29). The same distinction between the visible and invisible is to be found in the Christian ecclesia. Some have a name to live, and are called regenerate or born anew in baptism, and are regarded as elect and inheritors of certain privileges, but are really dead (Revelation iii. i). Only the heart-searcher knows who are really His (2 Timothy i. 19), but we are all called upon to judge ourselves. The distinction between profession and reality was constantly taught by our Lord. " Ye are clean," He says, " but not all " (John xiii. 10). The Apostles reiterate it. How can they sin and neglect their neighbour's welfare if really born again ? (i John ii. 4, 9 ; iii. 9 ; iv. 20). If they are dead to sin, they surely must mortify their members (Colossians iii. 3, 5). St. Paul definitely compares the case to that of Israel when they came out of Egypt. They had been delivered, had disobeyed, had perished (i Corinthians x.). Thus, within Israel there was an election or selection (Romans xi. 7) ; so, if the Chris- 7 tian did not walk worthy of the baptismal profession, he had believed in vain (i Corinthians xv. 2) . These serious inconsistencies constitute a chief ground of difference between two schools in our own Church one of which emphasises the privilege of the baptized, and the other judges of the actual life and practice. III. TEACHERS APPOINTED BY CHRIST. Early in His public ministry our Lord appointed Twelve Apostles, or Missionaries, chosen from the Disciples or Learners. Seventy others of these were also judged capable of being His heralds and had almost the same instructions as the Twelve (Luke x. 1-16) ; but the Apostles were the specially authorised Body (Matthew xix. 28 ; Luke xx. 25). Peter was their first mouthpiece, but they all stood together and suffered together. In this sense the community was founded on the (Twelve) Apostles and the (Seventy) Prophets, Jesus the Messiah being the chief Corner-stone (Ephesians ii. 20, 29 ; iii. 4). While they claimed delegated authority as witnesses, they did not lay claim to personal infallibility ; and at times even Peter was led away into his old timidity 8 and had to be taken to task by Paul (Galatians ii. n). And who was Paul ? He, too, was an Apostle, though "one born out of due time." He assumed exactly the same authority that the Twelve possessed, and laid down the rules of faith and life as strictly as they did in all the Churches which he founded. The Traditions * which he committed to them were what had been committed to him by the Lord Himself (i Corinthians xv. 3 ; Galatians i. 12) ; in fact, he seemed slow to depend on the Twelve for anything. The Christian Churches founded in those early days seem to have had two sources of Truth : (i.) the Tradition of the Twelve, which we now have in the Gospels, the first part of the Acts, and the Epistles of St. James, St. Peter, St. Jude, and St. John. If we only had these we should do well ; but we have also (ii.) the Pauline Tradition, contained in Paul's speeches and letters which, though intensely Jewish, breathe an inter- national spirit. Have we, then, two primitive denominations of Christian the Petrine and the * Tradition means something committed. 9 Pauline ? Did " they of the Circumcision " fail to fraternise with the Gentile element in the Church of Christ ? If so, it was either their fault or their misfortune, for they were all built on the one founda- tion ; and, in spite of their possibly having favourite modes of thought and expression, there would be no material difference between them, for their teachers had all learnt from the one Master, CHRIST. IV. CHRIST'S PRIMITIVE TEACHING. We are thus driven back to Christ Himself as the Teacher of all the Churches. The memorials of Him, which we call the Gospels, were read aloud in the primitive Churches during Divine Worship (Just. Mart., Ap. i. 67) ; so that every Christian had a chance of coming into personal touch with the life and doctrine of the Lord. They must soon have found out that His public teaching was largely based on the Law and the Prophets. These Hebrew Scriptures were His authority by which He tested and exposed the hollowness of the clerical leaders of His day, who listened, suspected, hated, and finally murdered Him their animosity becoming 10 His opportunity on the eve of His Crucifixion. He then gave His followers a new Commandment, a new Promise, and a new Ordinance. They were to love one another, as their Master had loved them : the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, was to bring Him home to their hearts as an abiding Presence, though absent in the body ; and they were to eat and drink Bread and Wine as memorials and symbols of His sacrificial death, and were thus to appropriate it and make it their own. The Resurrection followed the Crucifixion, and a few weeks later came the gift of the Comforter and the birth of the Christian com- munity, which exhibited Christ-like love from the very first day and doubtless kept the Feast of Appro- priation as well as the initial rite of Baptism from the beginning. V. ORAL TEACHING CONSERVED IN SCRIPTURE. The responsibility thrown on the Twelve and the Prophets who accompanied them, was tremendous. They were to be Christ's mouthpieces, but the Holy Ghost brought all things to their remembrance (John xiv. 26). What they taught by mouth they were II also commissioned to write, and the Sacred Records thus produced were to be trusted implicitly and read devotedly, being regarded with the same reverence as the older Scriptures. We have only to study the 600 quotations from the Old Testament to the New, to see their internal and external unity. Their combined teaching was the treasury from which the Churches drew the Truth, learning from the Apostles and Prophets as they did from Christ. Providentially we possess a, large body of early Christian writings stored with quotations from their sacred authorities, by which we know that we have the very Books which they had, and that there is hardly a verse in our New Testament which cannot be found in theirs. There is a Divine force in these Scriptures which has always rewarded the honest and humble seeker after Truth. It is a survival of the fittest : attempts to impose fraudulent gospels and letters on the unwary have proved a failure, just as there is a disappointing gulf in spirit and authority between the Old Testament and the Apocrypha.* * The Apocrypha is never cited as an authority in the New Testament. 12 Thus the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments were written for our learning, and are the birthright of every man, woman and child in the Christian community. VI. BIBLE-READING HARD AND EASY. Is it so very hard to understand the Scriptures which are thus pressed upon us by the early Church ? Undoubtedly it is hard, and we probably all make mistakes as to their teaching. They are ancient, Oriental in tone and illustration, diverse in contents, and not put together in strict chronological order. You say to a man, " Read the Bible " ; but this is a large order. The Bible is not a catechism, but a long series of documents some of which date from patriarchal times ; others breathe an Egyptian or Desert atmosphere ; whilst others have been written in Canaan, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, or Asia Minor. We seem to need at every turn a Bible Dictionary, a Concordance and some maps. The early Chris- tians had none of these things, but they got along. They detected a line of purpose springing from its first page and leading up to the end of the Old Testa- 13 ment. Then, after an implied gap of 400 years, we pass from the days of Abraham to the Saviour, and we feel at home ; for we would see Jesus, and we begin to find Him, especially if we read patiently, prayerfully, and practically. But we are still like visitors in a great city, and only gradually learn our way about and where everything is to be found. The knowledge of Christ got in this way is better than second-hand knowledge; but we must not despise the help of parent and teacher, the outline of Truth contained in creeds and articles, or the experiences embodied in Church history and biography. Yet, what a delight it is to turn back to the pure air of the four Gospels, to mix with the Disciples of those days, to watch the Lord at His work, to weigh the questions and answers, to stand by the Cross, and run to the open grave. True, that was a transition period, and the Acts and Epistles add largely to our knowledge, but the time covered by these writings was barely thirty years ; so that the whole New Testament is practically of one genera- tion a great contrast in this respect with the Old. These Scriptures, Old and New, are the teachers 14 of the Church, and all Church teaching must be tested by them. " To the Law and to the Testimony, if men speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them" (Isaiah viii. 20). VII. TEN SIMPLE RULES FOR BIBLE-READERS. i. Use your Bible as Christ used His, recognising its Divine authority and its adaptation to the varied circumstances of your life. ii. Observe the grouping of the Books of the Old Testament the Law (which includes the Patriarchal Records), the Prophets (which include the Historical Books), and the Psalms (which include the specially Poetical Books), all of which had their message con- cerning Christ (Luke xxiv. 44). iii. Note how frequently the later Books presuppose the older ; mark the quotations, comparing Prophecy with History, Gospel with Gospel, Acts with Letters. iv. Put yourself back into the age about which you are reading ; think of the speakers, their sub- jects, and the persons spoken to. v. Remember that your Bible is a translation partly from Hebrew and partly from Greek; and A 000130518 that where God speaks He uses human language and adapts Himself to human needs. vi. Ask the Eternal Spirit, by whose agency the writers wrote, to open your heart to receive and your understanding to take in God's Truth. vii. Note the conditions attached to some of the Promises, whilst others are unconditional. Observe that imperatives are appeals to your will which must be yielded to God. viii. See how God teaches by History, by Type, and by Parable. Seek to detect the spirit beneath the letter. ix. Recognise the grandeur of the Divine Scheme which runs through the Bible, and observe how many roads lead to Christ, and through Him to the Eternal Kingdom. x. Be patient. Every text you make your own is a step gained towards becoming mighty in the Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. London: Morgan & Scott Ltd., 12, Paternoster Bhlgs., E.G.