Acts 17:10-15 And the brothers immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night to Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews.… Do you love to turn the pages of old books? None can be found that are older than the earliest books of our Bible. Do you find special delights in history? Here are records than which none are more ancient, more trustworthy, or more important. Are you fond of biography? Here are the lives of Moses, the lawgiver and leader of the Hebrew race; of David the shepherd boy, poet and king; and of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God. Is poetry, to you, a feast of beauty, an intoxicant of the emotions? Here are sublimest songs and sweetest consolations; the oldest of all poems, the epic that recites the fidelity of Job in unprecedented trials; the seraphic psalms of David; and the lofty imagery and panoramic prophecies of the unsurpassed Isaiah. Yet idle people tell us the Old Testament is dry! Is the ocean dry? Is the sunlight black? Is ambrosia bitter to the taste? Then is the Bible an unattractive book. Shallow sceptics may scoff at it; but the profoundest scholars know its worth. For many years John Quincy Adams, by reading one hour each morning, read the whole Bible once a year. He said that in whatever light he viewed it, whether with reference to revelation, to history, or to morality, it was to him "an invaluable and inexhaustible mine of knowledge and virtue." Daniel Webster said that from the time when, at his mother's feet or on his father's knee, he first learned to lisp verses from the sacred writings, they had been his daily study and vigilant contemplation — and that if there was anything in his style or thoughts to be commended, the credit was due to his kind parents, who instilled into his minds an early love of the Scriptures. Sir William Jones declared it to be his opinion that "the Bible contains more true sensibility, more exquisite beauty, more pure morality, more important history, and finer strains of poetry and eloquence than can be collected from all other books, in whatever language they may be written." Rousseau confessed that "the majesty" of the Scriptures astonished him, and that the holiness of the Evangelists spoke to his heart. Paul said, "The Scriptures are able to make men wise unto salvation." In proof of the professions of no other book or collection of books can testimony so abundant, so clear, and so weighty be adduced. (T. De Witt Talmage, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. |
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