Basic HTML Version
Mental Culture Gained by Bible Study, May 28
By knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant
riches.
Proverbs 24:4
.
For the mind and the soul, as well as for the body, it is God’s law that strength
is acquired by effort. It is exercise that develops. In harmony with this law, God
has provided in His Word the means for mental and spiritual development.
The Bible contains all the principles that men need to understand in order
to be fitted either for this life or the life to come. And these principles may be
understood by all. No one with a spirit to appreciate its teaching can read a single
passage from the Bible without gaining from it some helpful thought. But the most
valuable teaching of the Bible is not to be gained by occasional or disconnected
study. Its great system of truth is not so presented as to be discerned by the hasty or
careless reader.... The truths that go to make up the great whole must be searched
out and gathered up, “here are little, and there are little” (
Isaiah 28:10
).
When thus searched and brought together, they will be found to be perfectly
fitted to one another. Each Gospel is a supplement to the others, every prophecy
and explanation of another, every truth a development of some other truth. The
types of the Jewish economy are made plain by the gospel. Every principle in the
Word of God has it place, every fact its bearing. And the complete structure, in
design and execution, bears testimony to its Author. Such a structure no mind but
that of the Infinite could conceive or fashion.
In searching out the various parts and studying their relationship, the highest
faculties of the human mind are called into intense activity. No one can engage in
such study without developing mental power.
And not alone in searching out truth and bringing it together does the mental
value of Bible study consist. It consists also in the effort required to grasp the
themes presented. The mind occupied with commonplace matters only, becomes
dwarfed and enfeebled. If never tasked to comprehend grand and far-reaching
truths, it after a time loses the power of growth. As a safeguard against this
degeneracy, and a stimulus to development, nothing else can equal the study of
God’s Word.
As a means of intellectual training, the Bible is more effective than any other
book, or all other books combined.... No other study can impart such mental
power as does the effort to grasp the stupendous truths of revelation. The mind
thus brought in contact with the thoughts of the Infinite cannot but expand and
strengthen.—
Education, 123, 124
.
[163]
159