قراءة كتاب The Bible and Life

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The Bible and Life

The Bible and Life

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دار النشر: Project Gutenberg
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class="x-ebookmaker-pageno" title="[Pg 32]"/>In the New Testament this same law of life rules. Jesus comes before the Gospels. Without the Life there could not have been the record of the Life. In any worthy Bible life must always come first. This phase will be treated later. Now it must be emphasized that the entire New Testament sprang from a Life that was lived among men. The Word must become flesh before it could become literary record. Grace and truth walked the earth ere they were traced on pages. Here again the Bible comes from life in order that it may return to life again.

The statement concerning the New Testament will admit of more detail. The Gospels grew immediately out of the disciples’ life with the Lord. The Acts grew out of the life of the disciples in their daily contact with that ancient world. The Epistles all came from some urgency of life. While there were minor reasons for writing each of them there was still a main purpose that dictated the writing in every case. The Epistles to the Thessalonians seek to produce a right attitude toward the doctrine of the Lord’s return. The Epistle to the Romans is a discussion of the doctrine of justification by faith and the relations of that doctrine to Judaism. That to the Galatians is both a personal defense of Paul’s questioned apostleship and a declaration of freedom from bondage to the law. The Philippians grew out of an experience of human kindness, being an expression of gratitude for help in trouble and sympathy in sorrow. The Ephesians is a composite of moods—the victories of grace, the hope of the heavenlies, the expectation of ascension with the glorified Christ, the nature and aim of the true church. Colossians expresses the universal Lordship of Christ and tears down every theory that denies the reality of the incarnation and the utter preeminence of Jesus.

Even those Epistles that are personal in their character deal with universal life. Philemon reappeared in the contests concerning slavery both in England and America and scattered the arguments of Christian democracy. The bondage of men could not well live with the tender brotherhood that breathes in the letter which Onesimus carried back with him to his former master. Titus and Timothy are the pastoral advices sent by the aged apostle to his younger sons in the faith, while one of the Epistles is the hopeful farewell to earth and a glad trust toward the Eternal City. Revelation may be filled with strange imagery and may be shaken by the tremors of a perilous age; but men who know real life will say that the Beast and the Lamb are not merely wild figures of speech. The writer of the Apocalypse knew the world, and he knew the churches in its various cities.

Thus it seems literally true that all the New Testament was penned for the aid of life. When life went wrong, warning came. When life went aright, encouragement came. When life was mistaken, correction came. Whether the need was for doctrine, for reproof, or for instruction in righteousness, God met the need by the message that he gave to his servants. The Book is not a series of infallible abstractions; it is rather a vital Guide Book won from the experience of life’s ways. The Bible is not a ready-made product dropped down from heaven; it is rather a Library made by men in many ages in partnership with the God who lives with men in all ages. In the best and truest fashion it makes record of the life of God in the souls of responsive men. Because it came from life it inevitably seeks life. It was born of God among men. Therefore, it lives among men with God.

We may carry the relation of life to the Bible quite beyond this point. The Bible not only grew from life, but it came back to life for its testing. Even as there have been theories of the making of the Book that ignored the element of human living, so have there been theories of the canon of Scripture that ignored the element of human testing. Years ago a renowned teacher said to his pupils, “Never go deliberately to work to make a book. The only volumes worth while are those that grow out of your deepest life.” The advice was good. In a way it suggests the manner of the Bible’s making. There is no evidence whatsoever that any writer of its pages ever thought that his work would become part of a Bible. No man ever said, “I will now write a book of the Holy Scripture.” Nor did any group of men assign departments to each other, saying, “We will prepare a divine Book.” The Bible came in no such mechanical way. Written because of life’s needs, as seen in the light of God, it was tested and collected by life’s needs, as seen in that same light. It was once strikingly said that the words of Jesus were vascular; if you cut them they would bleed. One shrinks from the metaphor. Yet it presents a truth about the whole Bible. A Book written by life and selected by life has naturally a message for life.

How did the books of the Bible secure their place in the canon? The romancer offers his tradition here again. We find a very fantastic legend coming down from medieval times to this effect: In the church at Nicæa one day a great mass of religious writing lay in an indiscriminate heap beneath the altar. A miracle gave an answer to the question as to what books should secure permanent places in the Holy Book. The First Ecumenical Conference was in session. The year was 325 A. D. While man wondered and questioned, God settled the issue. Suddenly the genuine books were lifted from the mass of volumes and, without visible power, lay on the sacred table. The writings miraculously declared uncanonical remained beneath the altar. This theory of selection corresponds to the theory of dictation. We have in both cases an active God and a passive man. While it would be unfair to say that this medieval legend has any modern following, it is true that certain theories of the selection of the canon resemble it in that they discount the human factor. Even as God and men worked together in the writing of the books, so God and men worked together in the binding of the books into their volume of fellowship. Life that confessed God and tried to do his will chose the books and decreed that they should dwell in unity.

As there has been a tendency to overstate the miracle feature in the selection of the canon, so has there been a tendency to overstate the part played by the authoritative councils of the church. The assumption has been that arbitrariness was the chief feature of the whole process. Certain men met in conference, debated the merits of the several books, and finally settled by vote what particular writings should have their place in the Bible of the church. Now while something of this kind did occur, it is far from the truth to affirm that the councils lacked a representative capacity. The vote may have been recorded by theologians, but the vote had previously been determined by the Christian democracy. Abraham Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. His predecessors were the people. In a dignified sense Lincoln was their clerk, expressing their will after many years of agitation. The wisdom of the Great Commoner was shown not only by the personal conviction that he put into the document, but also by his keen appreciation of the will of the multitude. Though the parchment of liberty was proclaimed by one man, it is a fact that it was dictated by many men. Something parallel to this occurred in the selection of the material of the Bible. Councils played their part; their part, however, was the part of agents.

This was true of the Old Testament. Many persons may still have the vision of Jewish officials with long robes and sober faces deciding the ancient canon. Indeed, there was for long a tradition that Ezra founded

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