Acts 8:30-39 And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understand you what you read?… 1. Notice the preliminary fact that the Scriptures challenge investigation. "Let us reason together," says Isaiah. The Bible is a definite and positive force. You can no more eliminate it from the world's life than you can take oxygen from its atmosphere, or Columbus and Constantine from history. The life and words of Jesus invite, demand intelligent study. 2. These Scriptures are a growth. The Word of God is not "dropped ready-made from heaven." 3. Our understanding of the Word is a growth. We must get more and more the true perspective. I. WHAT RULES OF INTERPRETATION ARE WE TO ADOPT? 1. At the outset we assume the fact that the Word is not a sealed volume, but a plain book, in the study of which reason, common sense is needed. Rationalism enthrones reason above the Bible, we need not go to the other extreme and ignore it. We find necessary facts in the Scriptures. Things, indeed, there are which are hard to be understood, but we need not magnify difficulties into doubts. To recognise difficulties is not sinful, but doubt, at least, is not holy. We are to remember that God is not limited to our comprehension of Him. We cannot rule out all difficulties. Faith has its place as well as reason. 2. The Scriptures, in the next place, appeal to our moral nature, the conscience, affections, to hope and fear. Christ says, "I will tell you whom ye shall fear." The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Love, too, lifts the veil from many a mystery. This is true in even human friendship, but in a grander sense love is an interpreter of God. We quarrel with the facts of His character and government until we learn to love Him. Then all grows plain. The Word of God meets the soul's yearning for pardon. The conscience of Felix was appealed to, and he trembled. Christians need to make their consciences more discriminating and sensitive. 3. Again, we are to interpret the Word of God in its unity and rest upon it as God's truth, not content with fragmentary facts. Our spiritual universe is more than one story high. We cannot leave our belief in a future existence. Deep and reverent scholarship shown in the study of Divine truth has always been honoured of God. We ought to be content only in a large outlook. II. PERILS IN METHODS OF INTERPRETATION. 1. Some come to the Scriptures for a purpose and bend it to a theory. 2. Others come to the Scriptures with a captious spirit to pick out faults and errors. 3. Some cultivate a merely intellectual, speculative knowledge, and know nothing of the gospel as the power of God unto salvation. 4. Others are literalists. They make a great deal about the horses in Revelation and their colour. 5. Others, still, go to the opposite extreme, and spiritualise everything. 6. The Bible advances as a positive revelation, definite and fixed, while science every year abandons one theory after another. (M. Burnham, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And Philip ran thither to him, and heard him read the prophet Esaias, and said, Understandest thou what thou readest? |
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