Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    June 28, 1900

    “How to Understand the Bible” The Present Truth 16, 26, p. 406.

    ATJ

    THE Bible is not difficult to understand when it is taken as it says.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.1

    Whoever will allow the Bible to mean what it says, will never have any difficulty in knowing what it means.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.2

    And whoever will allow that the Author of the Bible is capable of knowing what He wants to say, and that He has clearness of mind enough to say what He wants to say just as He wants to say it, will have no difficulty in taking the Bible as it says, and consequently will have no difficulty in understanding it.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.3

    The Bible comes to us as the Word of God. In itself it claims to be the Word of God. It is the Word of God.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.4

    And whosoever will receive it as the Word of God, will find it to be that. Then to allow that the Author of the Bible had sense enough to know exactly what He wanted to say, and ability to say it just as He wanted to say it, is only to allow, that God has sense enough to know what He wanted to say, and had sufficient clearness of mind to say it as He wanted to. In other words, it is only to allow that God in giving His Word knew what He meant, and meant what He said.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.5

    When the Bible is taken this way and treated thus, no one will have any difficulty whatever in understanding it. And for any man not to take it this way, and not to treat it thus; that is, for any man to say that the Bible does not mean what it says, and that it is left for the man himself to say what it means—this is only to claim that he knows better than God just how it ought to have been said, and just what should have been meant. In other words, he puts himself in the plans of God.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.6

    But when the Bible is taken just as it says, and is allowed to mean exactly what it says because the Author of it knew well enough what He wanted to say to be able to say just what He meant, it is all plain enough. Even a child can understand it then, for it is written, “Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall in no case enter therein.” Now the Word of God is the word of the kingdom. Through that Word we enter into the kingdom. And as whosoever, does not receive that kingdom as a little child, cannot have it, it is perfectly plain that it is intended by the Word that a lithe child shall understand the Word, and that a little child can understand it. Even grown people must receive it as little children,” and must become as little children in order to receive it.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.7

    Any system, therefore, any writing, any way that is taken, by anybody, that has a tendency to mystify the sayings of the Bible, to turn them into hard problems or to make them difficult to understand, can never be the right way. And anything offered as an exposition of any doctrine that presents a problem difficult to be understood, cannot be the truth. Therefore again, it is written, “I fear lest as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.”PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.8

    The Word of Christ is simple. His Word is plain. It is as simple as A, B, C. And anything that tends to make it anything else than plain and simple, cannot be the right way. The simplicity that is in Christ is the perfection of simplicity. When He was on earth He taught all classes of people at once. The common people heard Him gladly because He spoke with such simplicity of language, and such directness of meaning that they could understand Him. And it was only the subtlety of the serpent in the Scribes and Pharisees that pretended not to be able to understand Him.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.9

    It was so in the very beginning. When God placed in the Garden the first human pair, He said to them plainly, Of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou attest thereof thou shalt surely die.” Yet there came the serpent with his subtlety and proposed that the Lord did not mean what He said, that it was necessary that it should be explained, and that he was one who was qualified to explain it and convey to them the true meaning. He therefore said, “Ye shall not surely die; for God cloth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.”PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.10

    Thus Satan proposed that God had not said exactly what He meant, and had kept back the real meaning, and had left His saying dark and problematical That is the first explanation that was ever offered; the first comment that was ever made upon the Word of God. And everything since, that has ever tended to make problematical the Word of God, to make it mean otherwise than exactly as it says, is following the same lead. It is of the subtlety that beguiles from the simplicity that is in Christ.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.11

    It has been well written of Moses that “He gave God credit for wisdom to know what He meant, and firmness of purpose to mean what He said; and therefore Moses acted as seeing the Invisible.” And it was “By faith that Moses endured as seeing the Invisible.” It is therefore faith to give God credit for wisdom to know what He means, and firmness of purpose to mean what He says. And “without faith it is impossible to please Him.PTUK June 28, 1900, page 406.12

    A. T. JONES.

    (To be Continued.)

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents