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Christian Chronicles, December 2001 - Volume 5, Issue 74

| The Editor's Pen | Perspectives: Handle With Care! | Mid-East Update |
| Fruit of the Vine | The Word Was Made Flesh | He Reads Your Soul | A Panoramic View of the Bible | Written to be Understood | And the Word Grew & Multiplied | Of His Word, God Says,... |

The Editor's Pen

We talk of many things in these pages, but we don’t often enough speak about the Bible itself. It truly is one of God’s greatest miracles, and yet, is little recognized as such.

Mid-East Update

For a considerable period of time, the United States pressed Israel to exercise such restraint in her retaliation against the terror attacks launched on her cities and her people that Israel’s responses did little to discourage those attacks. On December 1-2, 2001, Hamas butchered twenty-six Israeli citizens in three separate suicide bomb attacks. Even following the terror attacks on the United States on September 11, the attitude of that nation was that Israel would only make matters worse by truly bloody reprisals. This, while the U.S. has been engaged in full-scale warfare against the Taliban government in Afghanistan.

Finally, because the price has not been inordinately high, the Palestinian militants were encouraged to wreak the slaughter in Jerusalem and Haifa that the world witnessed over the first weekend in December. The U.S. at last agreed that Israel is a sovereign nation, and must be allowed to retaliate fully against those who would destroy her. The gloves came off and Israel began an assault on the West Bank and Gaza that should give the militants pause before they renew their attacks on Israel.

Even at that, however, Israel has not gone after Palestinian civilians, but is attacking equipment and facilities. As of the writing of this article, only three Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliation. This self-imposed restraint has already been effective in changing the opinions of much of the world concerning which party is the aggressor in the Middle East. Arafat is being seen now as either ineffective as a leader or a sponsor of terrorism who must be stopped. This more rational view of things comes at a high price, however.

Fruit of the Vine

So then faith comes by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God.

(Rom 10:17)

How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of grace, who bring glad tidings of good things! People do not get saved by picking up the Bible and reading it. Faith comes by hearing. God uses His children as the instruments of salvation in others. Salvation comes by hearing. However, if the word that is spoken is not the Word of God, the testimony will be fruitless. The way to fruitful witness is found only in a sound knowledge of the Scriptures. When we witness to a lost person, we must be willing and able to quote the Scriptures if we expect to bear fruit. We cannot talk “about” the Bible; we must use Scripture. We are not the active agents in a person’s salvation, but the Word of God is living and powerful. God is the active Agent, in His Word.

Perspectives: Handle With Care!

Some people use their Bibles as repositories for all manner of things. Many women keep dead flowers in them. Do you suppose it is because they know that those precious flowers will not be disturbed in that Book, and that they will be safe there from damage? Let them find books of philosophy and therein keep their flowers. But let every Bible be so heavily used that nothing is safe in it except its reader’s heart and mind.

Some people like the soft feel of a genuine leather binding, and will use their Bibles as coasters for their Sunday afternoon beers, or sit an ashtray upon them because the textured surface keeps it from slipping and sliding around. Others display them proudly on their coffee tables, so that their friends and neighbors will know that they are reverent, but then they will scream at their children for touching them.

Many Bibles are so overstuffed with papers and cards and old church bulletins and notes and the occasional pencil, with pictures of the grandkids and newspaper clippings, funeral and wedding announcements, that you just know those people couldn’t possibly be actually sitting down and reading those books for very long at a time.

More often than not, Bibles are found at the bottoms of stacks of other books. Far too often does the preacher hear, “Well, I know it’s around here somewhere…” Every Christian ought to know, not where his Bible is, but where his Bibles are.

Bibles do make good plant stands, especially when you need just that extra two or three inches of height to show off a particularly stunning potted plant.

Ah, but occasionally, just every now and then, you walk into a fellow’s home and you see a well-cared for Bible, yet so worn from heavy use that the color of the cover has faded where a hand has held it for so long; where raw leather shows at the corners, yet whose pages are neither torn nor wrinkled.

If you should walk into someone’s home and see such a Bible, pick it up and open it. Carefully, please. In it you will find many notes, written in small letters so that there is room for more. You will find whole passages marked, rather than the single verses that we’ve all been taught to memorize in our youth. You will never walk in there and find anything else lying atop that Bible, except perhaps a pair of glasses (everyone’s eyes should be on the Word…).

Now, that fellow will not have the distracted look of an urbanite, but the peaceful gaze of a contented soul. There will be joy in his eyes that fairly sparkles with a vibrant electricity. The merest glance will tell you that here is a man at peace with himself and at peace with the world. Most of all, at peace with God.

Imagine, just a single glance at a worn-out Bible will establish a connection in your heart with that man faster than any other thing. A God-fearing mother is revered far above the strumpet mother, and for good cause.

Let those Bibles become the most highly-prized treasures in your home. Let them be treated with the caring attention that the Word of God deserves. Handle them with great care, but handle them.

The Word Was Made Flesh

And the Word was made flesh,
And dwelt among us,
(And we beheld His glory,
The glory as of the only Begotten
Of the Father,)
Full of grace and truth.

(Heb 1:14)

The words are almost too astounding to ponder. At the very least, they should make us wonder about the nature of this Son of God, who is both the Word of God and the Son of God; and how does a Word become flesh anyway? How blessed, those precious few whose eyes actually beheld the face of the Living God in the Flesh. These are the souls whose hands our God guided in the conversion of the living Word to paper and ink. How remarkable that He who walked the earth and spoke plainly unto men now speaks more plainly between the covers of a Book.

We ought not worship paper and leather. However, there is more in a Bible than paper and leather. Few individual words in the Bible are of great significance when standing alone, but, taken together, the whole becomes that Word of God who was made flesh. Between the covers of a Bible resides the Word of God. It is not like any other book and ought not be considered in that light. Every Bible should be given greater care than we give our national flag — much greater respect, and reverence.

Its Author is also its Star. The drama revolves around Jesus Christ, the Word of God, from the first book of the Bible to the last. If you would flick ashes into Jesus’ lap, then you may use the Bible as a coaster. Otherwise, there is wisdom in revering every Bible as the Word of God, not in idolatrous worship, but in a right comprehension of just what that Book is that we are privileged to use and understand. It is the Word of God.

He Reads Your Soul

A Panoramic View of the Bible

Editor’s Note: We have printed this article before, but find it such a useful tool for every Bible student that we feel it is proper to run it again. It is found in the prefatory remarks of the Scofield Study Bible (Oxford University Press, 1998, pg xii—xiv). Even if you have read it before, you should read it again.

The Bible, the most widely circulated of books, at once provokes and baffles study. Even the non-believer in its authority rightly feels that it is unintelligent to remain in almost total ignorance of the most famous and ancient of books. And yet, most, even of sincere believers, soon retire from any serious effort to master the content of the sacred writings. The reason is not far to seek. It is found in the fact that no particular portion of Scripture is to be intelligently comprehended apart from its place in the whole. For the Bible story and message is like a picture wrought out in mosaics; each book, chapter, verse, and even word forms a necessary part, and has its own appointed place. It is, therefore, indispensable to any interesting and fruitful study of the Bible that a general knowledge of it be gained.

First. The Bible is one Book. Seven great marks attest this unity. (1) From Genesis the Bible bears witness to one God. Wherever He speaks or acts He is consistent with Himself, and with the total revelation concerning Him. (2) The Bible forms one continuous story — The story of humanity in relation to God. (3) The Bible hazards the most unlikely predictions concerning the future, and, when the centuries have brought round the appointed time, records their fulfillment. (4) The Bible is a progressive unfolding of truth. Nothing is told all at once, and once for all. The law is, “first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn.” Without the possibility of collusion, often with centuries between, one writer of Scripture takes up an earlier revelation, adds to it, lays down the pen, and in due time another man moved by the Holy Spirit, and another, and another, add new details till the whole is complete. (5) From beginning to end the Bible testifies to one redemption. (6) From beginning to end the Bible has one great theme—the Person and work of the Christ. (7) And finally, these writers, some forty-four in number, writing through twenty centuries, have produced a perfect harmony of doctrine in progressive unfolding. This is, to every candid mind, the unanswerable proof of the Divine inspiration of the Bible.

Second. The Bible is a Book of books. Sixty-six books make up the one Book. Considered with reference to the unity of the one book the separate books may be regarded as chapters. But that is but one side of the truth, for each of the sixty-six books is complete in itself, and has its own theme and analysis. In the present edition of the Bible these are fully shown in the introductions and divisions. It is therefore of the utmost moment that the books be studied in light of their distinctive themes. Genesis, for instance, is the book of beginnings—the seed-plot of the whole Bible. Matthew is the book of the King, etc.

Third. The books of the Bible fall into groups. Speaking broadly there are five great divisions in the Scriptures, and these may be conveniently fixed in the memory by five key words, Christ being the one theme (Lk 24:25-27):

In other words, the Old Testament is the preparation for Christ; as to the New Testament, in the Gospels He is manifested to the world; in The Acts He is preached and His Gospel is propagated in the world; in the Epistles His Gospel is explained; and in The Revelation all the purposes of God in and through Christ are consummated. And these groups of books in turn fall into groups. This is especially true of the O.T., which is in four well-defined groups. Over these may be written, as memory aids:

Again care should be taken not to overlook, in these general groupings, the distinctive messages of the several books composing them.. Thus, while redemption is the general theme of the Pentateuch, telling as it does the story of the redemption of Israel out of bondage and into “a good land and large,” each of the five books has its own distinctive part in the whole. Genesis is the book of beginnings and explains the origin of Israel. Exodus tells the story of the deliverance of Israel; Leviticus of the worship of Israel as a delivered people; Numbers the wanderings and failures of the delivered people; and Deuteronomy warns and instructs that people in view of their approaching entrance upon their inheritance.

The Poetical books record the spiritual experiences of the redeemed people in the varied scenes and events through which the providence of God led them. The prophets were inspired preachers, and the prophetical books consist of sermons with brief connecting and explanatory passages. Two prophetical books, Ezekiel and Daniel, have a different character and are largely apocalyptic.

Fourth. The Bible tells the Human Story. Beginning, logically, with the creation of the earth and of man, the story of the race sprung from the first human pair continues through the first eleven chapters of Genesis. With the twelfth chapter begins the history of Abraham and of the nation of which Abraham was the ancestor. It is that nation, Israel, with which the Bible narrative is thereafter chiefly concerned from the eleventh chapter of Genesis to the second chapter of The Acts of the Apostles. The Gentiles are mentioned, but only in connection with Israel. But it is made increasingly clear that Israel so fills the scene only because entrusted with the accomplishment of great world-wide purposes (Dt. 7:7).

The appointed mission of Israel was, (1) to be a witness to the unity of God in the midst of universal idolatry (Dt. 6:4; Isa. 43:10); (2) to illustrate the greater blessedness of serving the one true God (Dt 33:26-29; 1 Chr 17: 20,21; Ps 102:15); (3) to receive and preserve the Divine revelation (Rom 3:1-2); and (4) to produce the Messiah, earth’s Savior and Lord (Rom 9:4-5). The prophets foretell a glorious future for Israel under the reign of Christ.

The Biblical story of Israel, past, present, and future, falls into seven distinct periods: (1) from the call of Abram (Gen 12:1) to the Exodus (Ex 1-20); (2) From the Exodus to the death of Joshua (Ex 21– Josh 24); (3) From the death of Joshua to the establishment of the Hebrew monarchy under Saul; (4) The period of the kings from Saul to the Captivities; (5) The period of the Captivities; (6) The restored commonwealth from the end of the Babylonian captivity of Judah, to the destruction of Jerusalem, A.D. 70; and (7) the present dispersion.

The Gospels record the appearance in human history and within the Hebrew nation of the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, and tell the wonderful story of His manifestation to Israel, His rejection by that people, His crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension.

The Acts of the Apostles records the descent of the Holy Spirit, and the beginning of a new thing in human history, the Church. The division of the race now becomes threefold—the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God. Just as Israel is in the foreground from the call of Abram to the resurrection of Christ, so now the Church fills the scene from the second chapter of the Acts to the fourth chapter of The Revelation. The remaining chapters of that book complete the story of humanity and the final triumph of Christ.

Fifth. The central theme of the Bible is Christ. It is this manifestation of Jesus Christ, His Person as “God manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim 3:16), His sacrificial death, and His resurrection, which constitute the Gospel. Unto this all preceding Scripture leads, from this all following Scripture proceeds. The Gospel is preached in The Acts and explained in the Epistles. Christ, Son of God, Son of Man, Son of Abraham, Son of David, thus binds the many books into one Book. Seed of the woman (Gen 3:15), He is the ultimate destroyer of Satan and his works; Seed of Abraham, He is the benefactor of the world; Seed of David, He is Israel’s King, “Desire of all Nations.” Exalted to the right hand of God, He is “Head over all to the Church, which is His body”; while to Israel and the nations the promise of His return forms the one and only rational expectation that humanity will yet fulfill itself. Meanwhile the Church looks momentarily for the fulfillment of His special promise, “I will come again, and receive you unto myself: (Jn 14:3). To Him the Holy Spirit throughout the Gospel age bears testimony. The last book of all, the Consummation book, is “The Revelation of Jesus Christ” (Rev 1:1).

Written to be Understood

It seems with some that language is no longer to have any meaning the moment a Bible is opened. Yet it is with the medium of language that a holy God has chosen to reveal His Word to sinful man. Ron Rhodes writes, “If the primary purpose of God's originating of language was to make it possible for Him to communicate with human beings, as well as to enable human beings to communicate with each another, then it must follow that He would generally use language and expect man to use it in its literal, normal, and plain sense. This view of language is a prerequisite to understanding not only God's spoken word but His written Word (Scripture) as well.”

William A. Simpson has written, “While it is never wise to generalize, this is consistently true: Those who interpret the Bible literally have broad agreement on every major Bible theme. Those who believe that, because the Bible is a spiritual Book, it must be allegorized, or that it means something other than what the plain words say, these find themselves in disagreement in many places, on many doctrines, and especially as concerns the field of predictive prophecy… It [a literal interpretation] reveals the glory of God, not of man, and from beginning to end it makes perfect sense.” Jesus is our best example of how the Scriptures are to be interpreted. It can be clearly seen from His own interpretation of the Old Testament (the creation account of Adam and Eve – Mt. 13:35; 25:34; Mk. 10:6, Noah's ark and the flood – Mt. 24:38-39; Lk. 17:26-27, Jonah and the great fish – Mt. 12:39-41, Sodom and Gomorrah – Mt. 10:15, and the account of Lot and his wife – Lk. 17:28-29) that His approach was literal. The Apostle Paul speaks of his own words, “For we are not writing any other things to you than what you read or understand” (2 Cor. 1:13). When symbolism is used in a particular verse or passage of Scripture, even then it is to be taken in the literal sense, for literally, it is symbolic!

And the Word Grew & Multiplied

And the word of the Lord
was being spread throughout all the region.

(Acts 13:49)

Preachers tell us to read our Bibles. Study those memory verses. Let’s all remember those major stories. The funny thing is, those major stories are the ones about Daniel in the lion’s den, Moses in the basket in the river, Moses parting the Red Sea or receiving the Ten Commandments. The birth of Jesus is a big seasonal favorite. Joshua at the walls of Jericho. Jesus turning the water into wine. Another favorite is Noah and the ark. The 23rd Psalm is a favorite for reading. It’s short, comforting, and familiar.You hardly ever hear people talking about the 51st Psalm.

There’s nothing wrong with having favorite Bible stories. But where does the story of the cross come in? You don’t hear that one very much. “Oh, that’s too bloody…” Thank God it is bloody! We would not otherwise know God. We need to think about that blood, and we need to talk about that blood. For that is the element in the Bible by which men are saved, and it is through saved men that the Word of God spreads and grows. His own blood being shed is what my sins and yours cost God. We celebrate Christmas, but we celebrate His birth and not His death. Without the death of Christ, His birth would have little advantage for us at all. Indeed, it would condemn us. It is because of His death that we celebrate His birth. Let us not forget that during this holiday season.

Of His Word, God Says,...

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