Understanding the Scriptures

Understanding the Scriptures [with accents]

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Title: Understanding the Scriptures
Author: Francis McConnell
Release Date: December, 2005 [EBook #9492] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on October 5, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE MENDENHALL LECTURES, THIRD SERIES DELIVERED AT DEPAUW UNIVERSITY
UNDERSTANDING THE SCRIPTURES
BY
FRANCIS J. McCONNELL
Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church

CONTENTS
FORWARD I. PRELIMINARY II. THE BOOK OF LIFE III. THE BOOK OF HUMANITY IV. THE BOOK OF GOD V. THE BOOK OF CHRIST VI. THE BOOK OF THE CROSS

FOREWORD
The Mendenhall Lectures, founded by Rev. Marmaduke H. Mendenhall, D.D., of the North Indiana Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, are delivered annually in De Pauw University to the public without any charge for admission. The object of the donor was "to found a perpetual lectureship on the evidences of the Divine Origin of Christianity and the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures. The lecturers must be persons of high and wide repute, of broad and varied scholarship, who firmly adhere to the evangelical system of Christian faith. The selection of lecturers may be made from the world of Christian scholarship, without regard to denominational divisions. Each course of lectures is to be published in book form by an eminent publishing house and sold at cost to the faculty and students of the University."
Lectures previously published: 1913, The Bible and Life, Edwin Holt Hughes; 1914, The Literary Primacy of the Bible, George Peck Eckman.
GEORGE R. GROSE,
President De Pauw University.


CHAPTER I
PRELIMINARY
The problem as to the understanding of the Scriptures is with some no problem at all. All we have to do is to take the narratives at their face meaning. The Book is written in plain English, and all that is necessary for its comprehension is a knowledge of what the words mean. If we have any doubts, we can consult the dictionary. The plain man ought to have no difficulty in understanding the Bible.
Nobody can deny the clearness of the English of the Scriptures. Nevertheless, the plain man does have trouble. How far would the ordinary intelligence have to read from the first chapter of Genesis before finding itself in difficulties? There are accounts of events utterly unlike anything which we see happening in the life around us, events which seem to us to contradict the course of nature's procedure. There are points of view foreign to our way of looking at things. More than that, there seem to be actual contradictions between various portions of the books. And, above all, the way of life marked out in the Book seems to lead off toward mystery. To save our lives we have to lose them. All the precepts of common sense seem set at defiance by some passages of the Book. How can we explain the hold of such a book on the world's life?
When once the problem of the understanding of the Scriptures is raised, various solutions are offered, all of which contribute a measure of help, but most of which do not greatly get us ahead. For example, we are told that the Book is translated literature, and that if we could get back to the original narratives in the original languages, we would find our perplexities vanishing. There is no question that a knowledge of Greek and Hebrew does aid us in an understanding of the Scriptures, but this aid commonly extends only to the meaning of particular words. One who knows enough of Greek or Hebrew to enter sympathetically into the life of which those languages were the expression is prepared to sense the scriptural atmosphere better than one who has not such equipment. Very few Scripture readers, however, are thus qualified to understand Greek and Hebrew. Very few ministers of the gospel are so trained as to be able to pass upon shades of meaning