DIRECT Bible Study THOROUGH REVERENT CONSTRUCTIVE Bible Study INDEPENDENT Bible Study SINCERE Bible Teachers Training School STANDS FOR I. IT STANDS for the conviction that the greatest need of the church is a knowledge of the Scriptures and that the desired unity of Christendom is to come, not merely on the lines of sentiment or practical life, but in a deeper agreement as to the verities of faith which will follow a real study of the Bible itself. II. IT STANDS for giving to the Bible as thorough study as one is willing to devote to any other book, and by the most approved methods. While it is true that the attitude of the soul is of more importance than methods, a soul in the right attitude should employ the best methods. III. IT STANDS for definite and constant dependence upon the Spirit of God as the true interpreter of the Word which He has given. IV. IT STANDS for positive, constructive Bible Study. Attention is concentrated upon the Bible itself in its great and manifestly fundamental teachings, while the duty of each individual to think freely and follow his own convictions of truth is jealously guarded. V. IT STANDS for taking a fresh view of the facts without restriction or limitations of theory or system of doctrine, at the same time seeking to avoid the superficial notion that nothing may be learned from those who have gone before. The true student while not bound by the past always respects it, and learns what he can from it. "Two opposite errors, says Spurgeon, "beset the student of the Scripture: the tendency to take everything at second hand from others, and the refusal to take anything from others.'' VI. IT STANDS for putting nothing into the Scriptures; for drawing everything from them and suffering nothing to remain hidden which is really in them. (Adapted from Bengel.) It would not bring an interpretation to the Bible, but would seek an interpretation from the Bible. It would give prominence to the judicial spirit, while aiming to be critical in the true sense, viz.: "to sce the object as in itself it really is." 4825 22-3 VII. IT STANDS for as great composure in the face of a difficulty as in the presence of an explanation. To wait for a wider synthesis of facts is often the part of true wisdom. In the meantime, with those great fundamentals which are clearly taught and commonly believed the mind may be profitably concerned. VIII. IT STANDS for stimulating and helping to as holy a life as it is possible for a pardoned sinner to live. The cultivation of the spiritual life is not inconsistent with the highest standard of scholarship. Right living is an essential factor in understanding and maintaining faith in the Word of God. Everything we gain from the Bible is valuable only as it makes us in heart and life more Christlike. There must be something lacking in that Bible study which leaves one in a life of sin or does not produce healthy spiritual growth. IX. IT STANDS for an adequate proportion of pedagogical instruction. There are many whose greatest need is not to know more, but to know how to teach what they do know. But even these greatly need to know more and may best be instructed how to teach what they already know by advancing in knowledge under the direction of those whose constant aim is to develop teachers of the Bible. PATIENT ASSIMILATIVE PRACTICAL X. IT STANDS for mastery of the material exactly as it is found in the Bible in the light of the organizing idea of each book and the self-declared purpose of the entire Bible. Study by wholes is much needed in these times in which whatsoever is of boundless dimensions in Holy Scripture has passed beyond our range of vision while our spectacled eyes are on iotas" (Isaac Taylor). XI. IT STANDS for awakening enthusiasm in Bible study and putting the student in possession of right perspective and of methods by which through life the Bible may be studied with increasing interest and profit. XII. IT STANDS for giving constant prominence to the great abiding spiritual forces, such as the reality and efficacy of prayer, the saving work of the risen and living Christ, and the illuminating influence and energizing power of the Spirit and the Word of God. COMPREHENSIVE CUMULATIVE CULMINATIVE The existence of the Bible as a book for the people is the greatest benefit which the human race has ever experienced. Every attempt to belittle it is a crime against humanity. -IMMANUEL KANT. VOL. I JANUARY, 1913 No. 1 ANNOUNCEMENT THE BIBLE MAGAZINE, as the successor of The Bible Record, wishes all of its readers a Happy New Year. Its aim will be to fulfil the expectations created by the mention of its name. Its watchword is: The Bible, the Magna Charta for All the Nations. The greatest and perpetual need is to teach the Bible to the people, and thus acquaint them with the only Gospel of God for the redemption of mankind. The peril of the church lies in the existing widespread ignorance of the Bible more than in all other causes combined. Civil liberty, like religious liberty, can have no other basis than the Gospel of Christ as revealed in the Bible, and as heralded by living teachers and preachers of that Gospel itself. As fundamental to everything else, there must be required of all who aspire to leadership in any field of Christian activity a thorough grounding in the message, the method, and the spirit of the Holy Scriptures. This magazine will be frankly Biblical and Christian. It will seek to propagate apostolic, historic Christianity. It believes that the day of Bible making is in the past; that while men may be inspired to-day, they are not inspired to write additions to the Bible. The inspiration most demanded for the present is that which leads to understanding and doing what the existing Bible contains. We believe with the late Professor Gustav Warneck, of Halle, in his open letter to the Edinburgh Missionary Conference, that, "The effort to reach non-Christian peoples, and to bring them into the heart of the Gospel, must never lead us to alter the content of the Gospel as proclaimed by the apostles. The vital impulses which lie at the root of 5 Christian missionary effort equally with the forces by which the non-Christian world can alone be regenerated are contained in the Gospel of Christ as the apostles proclaimed it, and which they knew by experience to be the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth. "In problems which face the Christian church to-day, we have not to do merely with methods, but with the existence of the church itself. The honor of our missionary work lies essentially not in method, but in the substance of this Gospel, in the men who proclaim it with the full assurance of faith, and in the Christians who have been regenerated by it to a new life of righteousness. Herein are the potent sources of our power." This magazine aims to be international in its scope and mission. It believes that the problems of Christian workers in all parts of the world are essentially the same, and that the chief need of leaders everywhere is themselves to feed upon the bread of life. What we bring to the world is of more importance than what we do for it. We shall seek through the co-operation of an international Board of Editors to demonstrate the fact that Christians in all parts of the world are essentially one. We believe that the most important contribution to Christian unity, which all desire, is to induce Christians of various types to study the Bible together. In this study of the Bible together by the method of the Higher Pedagogy which we shall advocate, we shall encourage the shifting of emphasis from moot questions, that many antagonisms arising from sectarian, critical, and other differences may disappear; we shall cultivate the atmosphere in which men loathe to differ, while at the same time in no manner countenancing compromise in respect to conviction. We pursue the policy of the open mind, but with it we seek to cultivate the judicial spirit. The Christian world must soon recognize a new alignment which will be determined, not by sectarian borders. |