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The Bible From Heaven, January 5
But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of
the power may be of God, and not of us.
2 Corinthians 4:7
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God has been pleased to communicate His truth to the world by
human agencies, and He Himself, by His Holy Spirit, qualified men and
enabled them to do this work. He guided the mind in the selection of
what to speak and what to write. The treasure was intrusted to earthen
vessels, yet it is, none the less, from Heaven.... The obedient, believing
child of God beholds in it [the testimony of God] the glory of a divine
power, full of grace and truth.
The writers of the Bible had to express their ideas in human lan-
guage. It was written by human men. These men were inspired of the
Holy Spirit. Because of the imperfections of human understanding of
language, or the perversity of the human mind, ingenious in evading
truth, many read and understand the Bible to please themselves. It is not
that the difficulty is in the Bible
The Scriptures were given to men, not in a continuous chain of
unbroken utterances, but piece by piece through successive generations,
as God in His providence saw a fitting opportunity to impress man at
sundry times and divers places. Men wrote as they were moved upon
by the Holy Ghost....
There is not always perfect order or apparent unity in the Scrip-
tures.... The truths of the Bible are as pearls hidden. They must be
searched, dug out by painstaking effort. Those who take only a surface
view of the Scriptures will, with their superficial knowledge, which they
think is very deep, talk of the contradictions of the Bible, and question
the authority of the Scriptures. But those whose hearts are in harmony
with truth and duty will search the Scriptures with a heart prepared to
receive divine impressions. The illuminated soul sees a spiritual unity,
one grand golden thread running through the whole, but it requires
patience, thought, and prayer to trace out the precious golden thread.
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