Scripture

December 30, 2017 by kevinstilley

The Bible – select quotes

The distribution of Bibles, if the simplest, in not the least efficacious of the means of extending the blessings of the Gospel to the remotest corners of the earth; for the Comforter is in the sacred volume: and among the receivers of that million of copies distributed by the Society, who shall number the multitudes awakened thereby, with good will to man in their hearts, and with the song of the Lamb upon their lips? The hope of a Christian is inseparable from his faith. Whoever believes in the divine inspiration of the holy Scriptures, must hope that the religion of Jesus shall prevail throughout the earth. Never since the foundation of the world have the prospects of mankind been more encouraging to that hope than they appear to be at the present time. And may the associated distribution of the Bible proceed and prosper, till the Lord shall have made “bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.
~ John Quincy Adams

For me the Word of God is a happening, not a thing. Therefore the Bible must become the Word of God, and it does this through the work of the Spirit.
~ Karl Barth

Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself, but because it contradicts them.
~ E. Paul Harvey

The Bible is the cornerstone of American liberty. A student’s perusal of this sacred volume will make them a better citizen.
~ Thomas Jefferson. According to Daniel Webster, Jefferson said this to him in regard to why the Bible was foundational in the educational plan he helped program for the school system in Washington D.C. Daniel Webster to Professor Peace, June 15, 1852 in The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster, edited by Edward Everett, (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co. 1903).

The Bible will keep you from sin, or sin will keep you from the Bible.
~ Dwight L. Moody

I know not a better rule of reading the Scripture, than to read it through from beginning to end and when we have finished it once, to begin it again.
~ John Newton, in The Works of the Rev. John Newton (London: Nathan Whiting, 1824), page 466.

The Bible is the Constitution of Christian civilization.
~ Gordon Palmer, in By Freedom’s Holy Light (NY: Devin-Adair Co., 1964), page 4

I could not believe that anyone who had read this book would be so foolish as to proclaim that the Bible in every literal word was the divinely inspired, inerrant word of God. Have these people simply not read the text? Are they hopelessly uninformed? Is there a different Bible? Are they blinded by a combination of ego needs and naivete?
~ Bishop John Shelby Spong

A Book which will lift men up to God must have come down from God.
~ R.A. Torrey, quoted by A.W. Pink in “The Miraculous Power of the Bible Shows Forth That Its Inspirer Is The Almighty”

If every book but the Bible were destroyed not a single spiritual truth would be lost.
~ R.A. Torrey, quoted by A.W. Pink in “The Completeness of the Bible Demonstrates Its Divine Perfection”

Nothing less than a whole Bible can make a whole Christian.
~ A.W. Tozer

The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts.
~ A. W. Tozer

It is impossible rightly to govern the world without God and the Bible.
~ George Washington

If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we or our prosperity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.
~ Daniel Webster

God himself has condescended to teach me the way. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God. Let me be a man of one book.
~ John Wesley

We search the world for truth: we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful
From graven stone and written scroll:
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our Mothers read.
~ John Greenleaf Whittier

The Bible is the one supreme source of revelation of the meaning of life.
~ Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States

When you have read the Bible you will know that it is the Word of God, because you will have found it the key to your own heart, your own happiness, and your own duty.
~ Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
~ The Bible, Hebrews 4:12
__________

Lectio Divina

What’s in a name, that which we call a rose (Lectio Divina)
By any other name (Magic, Humanism, Neo-Orthoxy) would smell as sweet.

Increasingly Lectio Divina is being adopted and practiced by many in the Christian faith for whom I have great admiration. However, I believe that when practicing this ancient form of mysticism they are spiritually misled and/or misleading.

It is magic – In the process by which a practitioner of Lectio Divina conjures up the sacred state/crisis experience in which they converse with God, the neophyte is instructed to select a phrase or single word to focus on. They are instructed to clear their mind of anything they think they might know, and simply let God use that one word or phrase to convey His message which is discovered by the practitioner as he enters into a divine union with God. The practitioner is to completely disengage the word or phrase from its context for this stage of the process. Let me ask you what the difference would be between opening your Bible and focusing on the word “overwhelmed” from Psalm 124:4 and opening my dictionary and opening it to the O words and focusing upon the word “overwhelmed”? “Well,” one might say, “the answer is obvious, the Bible is God’s Word and the dictionary is just a book of words.” To that I would respond by saying that when you remove the word “overwhelmed” from the biblical text it also becomes just a word. And, if you think that it has some magical conjuring properties in this detached state just because you found it in God’s sacred book then you are no longer treating it as God’s Word, you are treating it as a magical talisman.

It is humanism – Thousands of years ago Protagoras declared “Homo mensura”, that is “man is the measure”. Today, Christians are reading the Bible and asking not “What hath God said?” but “What does it mean to me.” The Lectio Divina displaces God and promotes a self-centered humanism that makes man the measure rather than God’s revelation.

The Lectio Divina is neo neo-orthodoxy (existentialism) – it replaces the authority of Scripture (what it means) with the authority of experience. Believers responded to classical nineteenth century liberalism’s attack on the Scriptures by realigning into movements with various “authority” claims. (1) Fundamentalists reasserted the Scripture as authoritative for all things related to faith and practice; (2) Pentecostalism and its variants resorted to claims that the Holy Spirit is the authority for faith and practice; and (3) the Neo-orthodox who at least partially bought into nineteenth century liberalism’s criticism of the Bible but wanted to retain much of the Christian tradition gravitated into a camp in which the “experience of God” became the authority for faith and practice. The Lectio Divina uses the Bible only as the starting point, catalyst, religious talisman to get one to the “experience of God” and then this experience becomes the source of authority (“what does it mean to me”).

It is bad hermeneutics – Origen got the church off to a bad start in looking for hidden, figurative, allegorical messages in the Scripture. Now, we have Christians practicing the Lectio Divina who are using decontextualized clips of words from the Bible, memories from their past, and other “texts” to find the hidden, figurative, and allegorical messages that are available through a crisis experience with God. It was bad hermeneutics with Origen and it is bad hermeneutics today.

It denies in practice, if not in theological commitment, the verbal inspiration of Scripture. Those who hold to the verbal-plenary inspiration of Scripture believe that God inspired the very words of the text and thus the specific meaning of individual words is important. When those practicing the Lectio Divina remove a word from its context and then conjure up any of many different meanings (see how groups practice the Lectio Divina) then they are denying the importance of the meaning assigned by God. As my old linguistics professor, Kenneth Pike from Wycliffe, used to say “You will know a word by the company it keeps.”

The Lectio Divina is contrary to Scripture. There is much about the practice of Lectio Divina which is perfectly consistent with the teaching of sacred Scripture. But, there is also significant areas in which this spiritual practice diverges from the instruction of Scripture. The Scriptures do not tell us to clear our mind, they tell us to replace bad thoughts with good thoughts. The Psalmist does not create new truths when he meditates on God’s Word in Psalm 119, but he is wiser than all his teachers because his eyes were opened to the wonderful things found in the Law of God, not wonderful things found in his own imagination. We are not told to chant a single word from the Bible, but to study the Bible (2 Timothy 2:15)

February 25, 2012 by kevinstilley

Studying the Bible — R.C. Sproul Explains Why & How

Why Study The Bible – R.C. Sproul

R.C. Sproul answers the question, “Why Study the Bible”. Many own a Bible – it is a perennial bestseller — but few are those who actually study it.

Private Interpretation – R.C. Sproul

The Science of Interpretation — R.C. Sproul

Literal Interpretation — R.C. Sproul

Literary Forms (part 1) — R.C. Sproul

Literary Forms (part 2) — R.C. Sproul

Reading the Bible Existentially — R.C. Sproul

The Historical Narrative — R.C. Sproul

The Explicit & The Implicit — R.C. Sproul

Parallelisms – R.C. Sproul

Scripture & Culture — R.C. Sproul

Principle vs. Custom — R.C. Sproul

Related Books:

May 16, 2009 by kevinstilley

Bible (Authority)

“The authority of the Scriptures does not rest “on the authority of the Church. The Church may
bear witness to what she received from the apostles as law, but this is not giving authority to
that law but humbly recognizing the authority which rightly belongs to it whether the Church recognizes it or not. The puzzle which some people fall into here is something like mistaking the relative ‘authority’ of the guide-post and the road; the guide-post may point us to the right road but it does not give its rightness to the road. It has not ‘determined’ the road—it is the road that has ‘determined’ the guide-post; and unless the road goes of itself to its destination the guide-post has no power to determine its direction. So the Church does not ‘determine’ the Scriptures, but the Scriptures the Church.”
~ B. B. Warfield, Selected Shorter Writings, Vol. 2, page 538

__________

Index to Great Quotes

October 26, 2008 by kevinstilley

Joshua – Join The Journey

I am privileged to participate in the production of a daily Bible reading program called Join the Journey. This year we have been journeying through the Old Testament historical books. It has been a great experience.

I encourage you to check out the webpage and perhaps sign up to receive the daily emails.

In the past I have posted a video from the project in which I introduced the book of Exodus. In the video below you will hear my friend JoAnn Hummel introduce the book of Joshua.

July 27, 2008 by kevinstilley

Andrew Murray On Daily Fellowship With God

1. The first and chief need of our Christian life is, Fellowship with God. The Divine life within us comes from God, and is entirely dependent upon Him. As I need every moment afresh the air to breathe, as the s sun every moment afresh sends down its light, so it is only in direct living communication with God that my soul can be strong. The manna of one day was corrupt when the next day came. I must every day have fresh grace from heaven, and I obtain it only in direct waiting upon God Himself. Begin each day by tarrying before God, and letting Him touch you. Take time to meet God.

2. To this end, let your first act in your devotion be a setting yourself still before God. In prayer, or worship, everything depends upon God taking the chief place. I must bow quietly before Him in humble faith and adoration, speaking thus within my heart: “God is. God is near. God is love, longing to communicate Himself to me. God the Almighty One, Who worketh all in all, is even now waiting to work in me, and make Himself known.” Take time, till you know God is very near.

3. When you have given God His place of honor, glory, and power, take your place of deepest lowliness, and seek to be filled with the Spirit of humility. As a creature it is your blessedness to be nothing, that God may be all in you. As a sinner you are not worthy to look up to God; bow in self abasement. As a saint, let God’s love overwhelm you, and bow you still lower down. Sink down before Him in humility, meekness, patience, and surrender to His goodness and mercy. He will exalt you. Oh! take time, to get very low before God.

4. Then accept and value your place in Christ Jesus. God delights in nothing but His beloved Son, and can be satisfied with nothing else in those who draw nigh to Him. Enter deep into God’s holy presence in the boldness which the blood gives, and in the assurance that in Christ you are most well-pleasing. In Christ you are within the veil. You have access into the very heart and love of the Father. This is the great object of fellowship with God, that I may have more of God in my life, and that God may see Christ formed in me. Be silent before God and let Him bless you.

5. This Christ is a living Person. He loves you with a personal love, and He looks every day for the personal response of your love. Look into His face with trust, till His love really shines into your heart. Make His heart glad by telling Him that you do love Him. He offers Himself to you as a personal Saviour and Keeper from the power of sin. Do not ask, can I be kept from sinning, if I keep close to Him? but ask, can I be kept from sinning, if He always keeps close to me? and you see at once how safe it is to trust Him.

6. We have not only Christ’s life in us as a power, and His presence with us as a person, but we have His likeness to be wrought into us. He is to be formed in us, so that His form or figure, His likeness, can be seen in us. Bow before God until you get some sense of the greatness and blessedness of the work to be carried on by God in you this day. Say to God, “Father, here am I for Thee to give as much in me of Christ’s likeness as I can receive.” And wait to hear Him say, “My child, I give thee as much of Christ as thy heart is open to receive.” The God who revealed Jesus in the flesh and perfected Him, will reveal Him in thee and perfect thee in Him. The Father loves the Son, and delights to work out His image and likeness in thee. Count upon it that this blessed work will be done in thee as thou waitest on thy God, and holdest fellowship with Him.

7. The likeness to Christ consists chiefly in two things–the likeness of His death and resurrection, (Rom. 6:5). The death of Christ was the consummation of His humility and obedience, the entire giving up of His life to God. In Him we are dead to sin. As we sink down in humility and dependence and entire surrender to God, the power of His death works in us, and we are made conformable to His death. And so we know Him in the power of His resurrection, in the victory over sin, and all the joy and power of the risen life. Therefore every morning, “present yourselves unto God as those that are alive from the dead.” He will maintain the life He gave, and bestow the grace to live as risen ones.

8. All this can only be in the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you. Count upon Him to glorify Christ in you. Count upon Christ to increase in you the inflowing of His Spirit. As you wait before God to realize His presence, remember that the Spirit is in you to reveal the things of God. Seek in God’s presence to have the anointing of the Spirit of Christ so truly that your whole life may every moment be spiritual.

9. As you meditate on this wondrous salvation and seek full fellowship with the great and holy God, and wait on Him to reveal Christ in you, you will feel how needful the giving up of all is to receive Him. Seek grace to know what it means to live as wholly for God as Christ did. Only the Holy Spirit Himself can teach you what an entire yielding of the whole life to God can mean. Wait on God to show you in this what you do not know. Let every approach to God, and every request for fellowship with Him be accompanied by a new, very definite, and entire surrender to Him to work in you.

10. “By faith” must here, as through all Scripture, and all the spiritual life, be the keynote. As you tarry before God, let it be in a deep quiet faith in Him, the Invisible One, who is so near, so holy, so mighty, so loving. In a deep, restful faith too, that all the blessings and powers of the heavenly life are around you, and in you. Just yield yourself in the faith of a perfect trust to the Ever Blessed Holy Trinity to work out all God’s purpose in you. Begin each day thus in fellowship with God, and God will be all in all to you.