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who has eyes to see these things, the Old Testament becomes strikingly Christian; and the inferior context, when recognized to be context, becomes a significant setting, instead of a doubtproducing element in the Divine Word.

IV. Guidance Needed in Using the Old Testament.

But there is this difficulty, that the Old Testament is not simple and self-interpreting. It demands for Christian interpretation a training which is out of reach of the majority of Christians. For the average Christian to read through the Old Testament, or to hear it read through from the lectern, is not only to a degree unprofitable, but is apt to set him to wondering "Why the Old Testament?" Much of it will be entirely unintelligible, precious as it none the less is to the Church, as part of her God-given furnishing for the work of teaching Christian truth. What I am driving at is that, for personal Christian profit, the reading of the Old Testament by the bulk of believers should be guided reading, and should be concentrated on the passages in which the Christian meaning is sufficiently obvious not to be missed. Only trained minds can deal helpfully with the Old Testament as a whole, and only such can successfully grapple with its problems.

The obsession that because the Bible is the Word of God it must be easy to understand, and that every Christian ought to read it all through periodically, is one of the strangest delusions of history, and one that is fruitful of error. The New Testament tells us that "the ignorant . . . wrest . . . the Scriptures unto their own destruction" (2 St. Pet. iii. 16). The only Bible reading that serves God's purpose in giving us the Scriptures is the kind that edifies the reader or listener, and helps him to gain more intelligent and profitable hold on Christian doctrine and practice. Of this kind of Bible reading we cannot have too much. Alas, it is displaced by methods which leave the reader unedified, suggest to him difficulties which he is not trained to meet, and in the end cause him to abandon Bible reading altogether.

V. The Lectionary.

It is thus displaced in the various lectionaries, or Tables of Lessons required to be read in the Church's services, which have been put forth from time to time in the Anglican Communion. And I cannot except from this criticism the lectionary which is now on trial in the American Church. One and all they are determined in arrangement by the obsession above defined, and by the aim of teaching as much as possible of the Bible at large, rather than by that of affording a devotionally edifying adjunct to public worship. The attempt to import a semi-academic element into our public services is a mistake. The sermon, indeed, may sometimes have a certain academic flavor without evil results, but the regular services, including the appointed readings from Scripture, are devotional and should be kept so throughout.

The fact that the lessons have to be read without comment shows that, if they are to have immediate practical value for edification, they must be selected in such wise that their Christian reference and meaning shall always be readily intelligible to the average unscholarly listeners who mainly hear them. In particular, each lesson should be fairly complete in itself, and not dependent for intelligibility upon being combined with an elaborate series of readings, which, contrary to common experience, presupposes uninterrupted attendance by the listeners.

The aim of teaching the Bible at large from the lectern should be wholly abandoned, as both impracticable and contrary to liturgical principles; and this involves a far more radical revision of the lectionary, especially of its Old Testament portions, than has yet been attempted. That some sort of sequence of lessons is needed, goes without saying. But this sequence should be liturgical rather than academic, and should be determined by the normal course of Christian devotion.

The most obvious way out of our present ineptitudes is to link up the lessons-for week-days as well as for Sundays

with the current Eucharistic Epistles and Gospels. They could then be made to fill out and illustrate the Christian teaching therein briefly set forth, and thus to minister immediately to general Christian edification. The significant value of the Church's recurring seasons would be enhanced; and, in particular, the Christian teaching of the Old Testament would be more clearly brought to the surface for the benefit of the unlearned.

VI. Home Reading.

By home reading I mean reading for spiritual edification, as distinguished from academic study. For the same reasons that have dictated my suggestions as to the lectionary, this should also be selective, rather than a continuous reading of the whole Bible. This is true of both Testaments, but especially of the Old Testament. Why can we not have a small Bible compiled by someone from a sound Churchly standpoint, I mean-in which, in particular, those portions of the Old Testament wherein ordinary folk can perceive edifying Christian meaning, will be brought together in sections suitable for devotional reading? I seem to hear the exclamatory comment, "An expurgated Word of God"! But it would no more answer to such description than does the series of selections of Epistles and Gospels printed together in the Prayer Book. Moreover, while such a special compilation would not displace the full Bible in genuine Bible study, it would help to save what can be saved of Bible reading for those who are not Bible students, yet need its Christian lessons.

VII. Teaching the Bible.

Of course we should have Bible classes for those who are sufficiently possessed of the Christian standpoint, and whose educational training fits them to grapple with the academic difficulties of Bible study. My plea has not been against the fostering of true Bible-study in the Church, but against the

blunders of treating every Christian believer as possessed of an academic mind, and of diverting the lectionary from its proper liturgical purpose.

In Bible-teaching properly so-called two important matters, now widely mishandled, require careful attention.

(a) The first concerns the proper place of Bible courses in a Church School curriculum. It is apt to be taken for granted that Bible study comes first logically in definitive religious education, and this assumption seems to grow out of the Protestant idea that we get our religion, our faith and Christian precepts, from the Bible. It is the other way around. It is the Church that is appointed to teach Christian truth and practice, and the Bible is given to build us up in the teaching which we have thus received. Our children should be taught their religion first, and they should learn at least its primary elements definitely and securely, even though on very simple lines.

Truly Christian Bible study requires previous possession of the Christian standpoint. No doubt the Bible should be used incidentally all along-those parts of it, that is, which clearly reflect what the children are being taught of Christian truth and precept, which means chiefly the Gospels. But the specific study of the Bible at large, in particular of the Old Testament, is too difficult for children-and for many older folk as well. And no one should be taken into a Bible class until well instructed in Christian teaching and sufficiently developed in thinking capacity.

We should remember that Bible learning is not the primary thing. It is an adjunct of the primary thing, which is to assimilate the Christian faith and religion and to live the Christian life. If we learn and apply Christian truth, we can get on, even if our Bible equipment is very slender indeed; and we have the Church to teach us such truth. God's written Word is, of course, an indispensable part of the Church's equipment, and preachers of the Word must carefully study the Bible; but the use, and especially the trained use, of Scripture which is

necessary for private individuals depends both in extent and method upon circumstances.

(b) The second matter is the method of Bible teaching. I mean popular Bible-class teaching. If what I have said as to the Christian purpose of Bible study is fundamentally sound, and I have no doubts whatever on the subject, such study should be carefully linked up at the outset with the Christian standpoint. And this method has the advantage of supplying pupils from the start with the clue to the divine meaning of the Scriptures as a whole. They are given to us as registering in literary form the successive stages of the education of God's Church in the faith which she has been divinely appointed to teach.

And this determines the order in which the Scriptures will best be studied. The Gospels and apostolic writings will be considered first, as most clearly revealing the Christian substance of Scripture; for the New Testament, being latest in production, brings to the surface what the Old Testament foreshadows and obscurely intimates. It therefore supplies us with the proper introduction to Old Testament study, which belongs to the most mature stage of Bible-class work. To take up the Old Testament first is to encounter difficulties which the method I am advocating will remove, or at least materially reduce.

I have compared the Old Testament to a great hand with its index finger pointing to Christ. If the comparison is valid, the proper method of teaching the Old Testament is to make clear its constructive outlines as the God-given record of the preparation of Israel for Christ. Certain lines or fibres of type and prophecy run through the Old Testament, which are mutually intertwined and together constitute a continuous connecting thread of progressive divine teaching concerning Christ and His Kingdom. To enable pupils to detect this thread and its constituent fibers is the first task of Old Testament teaching. It is the preliminary of any more analytical or critical work, and of the consideration of Old Testament problems, which should come last of all.

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