Today as never before in world history the Bible is in the spotlight. More Bibles are being printed, sold and distributed free of charge than ever before. The U.S. Army, for the first time in the history of modern warfare, is giving the Scriptures to its fighting men.

Yet in spite of the fact that the Bible is the all-time world’s "best-selling" book, how many persons know how to get out of it what God has put there for them?

Intellectual struggle is not incompatible with true piety and the deepest spirituality. Because the Bible is more than mere literature it is nonetheless real literature. It was conveyed to the writers through mental and spiritual travail and will not be revealed without a little mental exercise of the same sort.

All right, you are willing to pay the price in time, patience and energy, what should you do? Here are a few suggestions which you might find practical if you give them half a chance.

Did it ever occur to you that each of the 17 of the 27 New Testament books is short enough to be printed in a column or two on the front page of any daily newspaper? Yet, all that many know of the Bible are a few isolated texts, misleamed, misquoted or utterly divorced from their contexts. We have a fleeting impression of an idea here or an expression there without the faintest conception of unity or order.

Did you ever read only the fifth chapter of a novel and condemn the whole book as dull and uninteresting? Then why not be as fair to the Author of the Bible as you are to a fiction writer? Try reading a book as a whole. Read it from the author’s viewpoint and when you have finished write down the impressions left upon your mind. Whatever those dominant impressions are may be the author’s main points and are the things you want to go back and study.

Now it is time to go back and read the book more slowly and carefully. This time your object is not to see what the spiritual meaning is, but simply to get the content as it

lies before you on the printed page. You are in no position as yet to interpret the meaning, draw conclusions and suppositions and apply them, for you have not yet acquired and accurate knowledge of what is written there.

So read it. Re-read it. Now read it again.

Read it as though you were an artist looking for something to paint and if there are any objects or scenes described visualize them.

Read it as though you were a dramatist and if there is conversation or action imaging seeing it dramatized.

Read it as though you were a musician and if there are any songs sung, do all within your power to hear them. Remember we have a Hallelujah Chorus because Handel heard a song in the Revelation.

Now read it aloud and interpret as you read. Keep in mind that thoughtfully to read is to study.

Go back now to the beginning of your book and look for some specific things. Don’t read aimlessly. Always look for something. Ask yourself these simple questions:

Are there any people mentioned in this book? Who are they?

Now write down everything you can find that throws light on the character and circumstance of those mentioned. Thai’s the way great Bible Teachers who give such wonderful character studies get their information. Gannett says the Bible is a book of lives. It is a book of men praying rather than a book of prayer, of men believing rather than a book of beliefs, of men sinning and repenting themselves rather than a book of ethics.

In studying an epistle write down all you can find out about the writer from what he says and the way he writes.

Also look at the recipient. What in the letter throws light upon those to whom it was written? In reading narrative portions such as the four gospels always look for the reactions of people. Jesus’ words caused peculiar reactions upon both believers and unbelievers. These reactions may help you know what to expect from those students who hear the Gospel from you.

Then what is said here? This may be a revealing question. Here you want to get carefully everything the scriptures say, not what you think they say. Get all the details of the situation. Use your pencil and write down the points. Now review them in you mind in proper order.

Next, get the geographical location. Use the map in the back of your Bible, that’s what it’s there for. Geography and locality very often affect events. In Acts 17, Paul preached a sermon in Athens that he never had preached anywhere else. There was something in that particular location that gave him his there. Look it up and see. Get a yellow pencil and mark all points of geography.

Now, look for the time element. Some of the things Jesus did would not have bothered the Pharisees on Tuesday. but upset them terribly because He did them on the sabbath. How do people know that Jesus lived 33 years, and that there is one week between Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday? They simply watch the passage of time. Get yourself a green pencil and mark all the hours. days, sunsets and sunrises in your Bible.

Seek for the reason behind the things put in the scripture. The Holy Spirit never wrote one unnecessary worcL just as Beethoven never wrote an unnecessary note. See why it was that Jesus spoke of the bread of life when He did (John 6). This investigation wifi lead you to see that all the things in the Bible are related. Connect everything that is said with what goes before and what comes after. Perhaps this hint will help — look for such conjunctions as but, wherefore, therefore; they are words which indicate that something has gone before and something else will follow.

One more suggestion. When reading a long involved passage, take the cen~al verb, free it from the surrounding detail and discover how other statements in the passage are related to it. Do this with Hebrews 13:20-21. If there are a number of verbs, especially verbs of action (don’t limit yourself to involved passages), jot them all down and not the sequence. There may be some logical steps which the Holy Spirit put there for our progress.

Keep all your senses awake. Be alert. When there is a sunset, see it. When Isaac smells his son’s clothing which is "as the smell of the field which Jehovah bath blessed," smell it. When the wind blows and a storm arises, listen for it. The Bible is a living book. If we would have it affect lives today, we must let it live.

Final and most important point in any Bible study is this. Look for the message which God has in it for you. What is the main thing God is teaching in this portion of scripture, how does it fit into God’s whole plan of redemption, and what bearing does it have on my life right now? Obey implicitly and share it immediately.

One famous Bible scholar says, "All we need to know is that God has spoken, then obedience becomes the very highest order of intelligent acting." We bring glory to God when we obey Him ourselves, we bring more glory to God when we bring others to obey Him.

"Light obeyed increaseth light.

Light rejected bringeth night."

TRYIT

"We have done," says Prof. R. Moulton, "Almost everything that is possible with the Greek and Hebrew writings.. . There is just one thing left to do with the Bible — simply

to read it."

From Christus Medicus Magnus