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Bible Marking.
p. 180
Bible marking may be good, or it may be very, very bad. The following extract sheds
light upon the evils and dangers of overdoing the so-called "railway connections" and
other markings in the text or margin, that stultify rather than encourage true study:--
"Human conceptions, however helpful, should not find a permanent place, even in
your own individual copy of the Word of God. The particular line of truth they
emphasized may have been the teaching of that particular hour of study. But, every time
you turn to a passage, you may expect fresh light and a newly revealed line of thought. If
your eye is at once arrested by notes and comments, or even by the underlining of special
words, your minds slips into the groove of a past meditation; thus the liberty of fresh
light, and the free course of fresh revelation, are checked and impeded. Do not crowd
into the sacred sanctuary of the Word, ideas which may most helpfully be garnered in the
classroom of your notebook" (The Following of the Star by FLORENCE L. BARCLAY).
Bible reading for the Beginner.
pp. 197 - 200
On several occasions a young believer has approached us with the problem of
"How to read the Bible". Upon being told that one usually "Begins at the beginning" he
has explained that his difficulty was connected with the bulk or amount that had to be
read. Long genealogies, difficult names and places, a mass of matter that made no
immediate appeal, were real obstacles. We also realized that the character of the times in
which we live makes it difficult to concentrate for any period. The young believer is
surrounded by rush and hurry. Short cuts to almost every branch of knowledge is thrust
before his face, and therefore his problem must be dealt with sympathetically.
All Scripture is not only inspired, but profitable, but the reader must feel his need,
otherwise he will degenerate into a machine, and reading the Word under compulsion is
horrible to contemplate. So much reading per day may be wise and profitable, but rules
and readings can be a snare. What profit have some received from reading the Bible
through six or seven times, except to be able to make that feat their boast? Guarding
therefore the liberty of each believer, and making no rules to bind him, we offered him, at
his own request, the following scheme, believing that when this is followed the interest
will be so quickened that nothing short of the whole Bible will satisfy the awakened
understanding. We pass it on for what it is worth to any who may have to meet the same
difficult.