J.C. Ryle: Knowing Your Bible in the Time of Need

I want people to fill their minds with passages of Scripture while they are well and strong, that they may have sure help in the day of need. I want them to be diligent in studying their Bibles, and becoming familiar with their contents, in order that the grand old Book may stand by them and talk with them when all earthly friends fail.

~ J.C. Ryle

R.C. Sproul: Five Things Christians Need (Introduction, Bible Study, Prayer, Worship, Service, Stewardship)

R.C. Sproul: Five Things Christians Need, Part 1: Introduction



R.C. Sproul: Five Things Christians Need, Part 1: Bible Study



R.C. Sproul: Five Things Christians Need, Part 2: Prayer



R.C. Sproul: Five Things Christians Need, Part 3: Worship (Ed: Regrettably, Sproul is implicitly and, hence, explictly anti-liturgical. This plays better with his large Baptist constituency. While maintaining the importance of worship, his comments about form and ritual reflected R.C.'s lack of conditioning and exposure to Prayer Book Churchmanship.)



R.C. Sproul: Five Things Christians Need, Part 4: Service



R.C. Sproul: Five Things Christians Need, Part 5: Stewardship

A Response to a Friend about Bible Reading

A friend asks a question re: Cranmer's Preface to the Great Bible. We posted that here. http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2010/11/thomas-cranmers-preface-to-great-bible.html

My friend, a Reformed Anglican, asks: Why is this gold mine not explored?

A few suggested reasons.

1. American Anabaptism--Baptist, Revivalist, Enthusiast--teachings dominant the American landscape. Theology, confessions and liturgy are substantively minimalistic, Arminian, experience-based, and anti-intellectual. Fundamentally, these folks do not think like Cranmer. This Preface by Cranmer makes the Bible--as the Westminster Confession puts it--"most necessary." Cranmer views the Bible as man's "daily medicine."
2. Emergent theology which makes Scriptures less than clear or necessary. Brian McClaren is a liberal.
3. Megachurchdom leaders that abuse the Bible making it a quarry for self-help.
4. Liberalism in the mainline which erases the fear of the LORD.
5. Generally, hypocrisy--as in the days of the Judges and other periods of religious declension. We have other loves and values.
6. As to Anglicans, liberalism above obtains, e.g. #4 above.
7. Leaders with shrivelled up stones who will not speak courageously and believingly like Cranmer. Calvin's Preface is quite bold. Cranmer's love of the Bible is little appreciated from my experiences with Episcopalians. Again, as I have said before many times, Cranmer really became an earnest Bible student. At some time, he crossed the Rubicon and saw the necessity and value of Bible knowledge. I am unaware of the exact date, but, as an examiner of ordinands at Cambridge, he turned many away from holy orders. These ordinands had studied and were learned in the scholastics and fathers--secondary sources, but did not know the Bible--the primary source. He told them to go back and study the Bible for a few years--the Bible itself. He ruffled feathers, but many men bore witness later in life that Cranmer's rebuffs and advice were salutary. Cranmer insisted on Biblical literacy for Rectors. The seminaries today bear much blame here. I can think of several ways for modern seminaries to remedy Biblical illiteracy. Listen to Cranmer at another place in the Preface as he speaks to all the national congregations in the Church of England.

Here's Cranmer again:

"And that I exhort you (saith he) and ever have and will exhort you, that you not only here in the Church give ear to that that is said by the preacher, but that also when ye be at home in your houses, ye apply yourselves from time to time to the reading of holy scriptures, which thing also I never lin [i.e. spare] to beat into the ears of them that be my familiars, and with whom I have private acquaintance and conversation. Let no man make excuse and say (saith he), I am busied about matters of the commonwealth; I bear this office, or that; I am a craftsman, I must apply mine occupation. I have a wife, my children must be fed, my household must I provide for. Briefly, I am a man of the world. It is not for me to read the scriptures. That belongeth to them that have bidden the world farewell, which live in solitariness and contemplation, and have been brought up and continually nuzzled in learning and religion. To this answering, What sayest thou man? (saith he) Is it not for thee to study and to read the scripture, because thou art encumbered and distracted with cares and business? So much the more it is behoveful for thee to have defense of scriptures, how much thou art the more distressed in worldly dangers. They that be free and far from trouble and intermeddling of worldly things live in safeguard and tranquility, and in the calm, or within a sure haven. Thou art in the midst of the sea of worldly wickedness, and therefore thou needest the more of ghostly succor and comfort! They sit far from the strokes of battle, and far out of gunshot, and therefore they be but seldom wounded. Thou that standest in the forefront of the host, and nighest to thine enemies, must needs take now and then many strokes, and be grievously wounded, and therefore thou hast most need to have thy remedies and medicines at hand. Thy wife provoketh thee to anger; thy child giveth thee occasion to take sorrow and pensiveness; thine enemies lie in wait for thee; thy friend (as thou takest him) sometime envieth thee; thy neighbor misreporteth thee or picketh quarrels against thee; thy mate or partner undermineth thee; thy lord, judge, or justice, threateneth thee; poverty is painful unto thee; the loss of thy dear and wellbeloved causeth thee to mourn; prosperity exalteth thee, adversity bringeth thee low. Briefly, so divers and so manifold occasions of cares, tribulations, and temptations, beset thee and besiege thee round about. Where canst thou have armor or fortress against thine assaults? Where canst thou have salves for thy sores but of holy scripture?"

Cranmer: WHY, HOW, AND THAT EVERYONE SHOULD READ THE BIBLE

Cranmer: WHY, HOW, AND THAT EVERYONE SHOULD READ THE BIBLE

To help people read the Bible, Cranmer wrote a preface to the Great Bible (1540). The Great Bible was appointed by Henry VIII to be placed throughout all the churches of England. It was an answer--we believe--to Tyndale's prayer and final words at the firey stake in 1536 in Belgium, "Lord! Open the King of England's eyes." The Great Bible was based on Tyndale's and was placed in the churches of the Church of England. May we never forget that Rome has counselled the exact reverse of Cranmer's counsel--it has kept the Bible closed to parishioners for centuries, unlike England. It was Vatican 11 (1962-1965) that has loosened the controls permitting parishioners to read His Majesty's sovereign Word.

The Archbishop of Canterbury pastorally counsels two types of parishioners and shows his zeal for and devotion to Scripture.

From Cranmer:

"For two sundry sorts of people it seemeth much necessary that something be said in the entry of this book...

"For truly some there are that be too slow and need the spur; some other seem too quick and need more of the bridle; some lose their game by short shooting, some by overshooting; some walk too much on the left hand, some too much on the right.

"In the former sort be all they that refuse to read, or to hear read the Scripture in the vulgar [common] tongues; much worse they that also let [hinder] or discourage the other from the reading or hearing there-of...

"Neither can I well tell [which] of them I may judge the [greater] offender, him that doth obstinately refuse so godly and goodly knowledge, or him that so ungodly and so ungoodly doth abuse the same...

"And as touching the former, I would marvel much that any man should be so mad as to refuse in darkness, light; in hunger, food; in cold, fire . . . .

"I would marvel (I say) at this, save that I consider how much custom and usage may do. So that if there were a people...which never saw the sun by reason that they be situated far toward the North Pole and be enclosed and overshadowed with high mountains, it is credible and like enough that if, by the power and will of God, the mountains should sink down and give place, [and] the light of the sun might have entrance to them--at the first some of them would be offended therewith...

"Such is the nature of custom that it causeth us to bear all things well and easily wherewith we have been accustomed, and to be offended with all things thereunto contrary.

"And therefore I can well think them worthy pardon which, at the coming abroad of Scripture, doubted and drew back. But such as will persist still in their willfulness, I must needs judge not only foolish, forward, and obstinate, but also peevish, perverse, and indurate.

"But now to...pass [on from] custom, and to weigh, as wise men ever should, the thing in [its] own nature: let us here discuss what availeth Scripture to be had and read [by] the lay and vulgar [common] people.

"And to this question I intend here to say nothing but that was spoken and written by the noble doctor and most moral divine, St. John Chrysostom [the Greek church father of Antioch and Constantinople, 340-407], in his third sermon De Lazaro...

"He exhorteth there his audience that every man should read by himself at home in the mean days and time, between sermon and sermon, to the intent they might both more profoundly fix in their minds and memories that he had said before upon such texts, whereupon he had already preached; and also that they might have their minds the more ready and better prepared to receive and perceive that which he should say from thenceforth in his sermons, upon such texts as he had not yet declared and preached upon...

"In few words [we] comprehend the largeness and utility of the Scripture, how it containeth fruitful instruction and erudition for every man; [how] if anything be necessary to be learned, of the holy Scripture we may learn it. If falsehood shall be reproved, thereof we may gather wherewithal. If anything be to be corrected and amended, if there need any exhortation or consolation, of the Scripture we may well learn.

"In the Scriptures be the fat pastures of the soul; therein is no venomous meat, no unwholesome thing; they be the very dainty and pure feeding. He that is ignorant shall find there what he should learn. He that is a perverse sinner shall there find his damnation to make him to tremble for fear. He that laboreth to serve God shall find there his glory and the promises of eternal life, exhorting him more diligently to labor.

"Herein may princes learn how to govern their subjects; subjects [may learn] obedience, love, and dread to[wards] their princes; husbands how they should behave them unto their wives [and] how to educate their children and servants; and contrary, the wives, children, and servants may know their duty to their husbands, parents, and masters...

"Here...men, women, young, old, learned, unlearned, rich, poor, priests, laymen, lords, ladies, officers, tenants and mean men, virgins, wives, widows, lawyers, merchants, artificers, husbandmen--and all manner of persons, of what estate or condition soever they be--may in this book learn...what they ought to believe, what they ought to do, and what they should not do, as well concerning Almighty God as also concerning themselves and all other.

"Briefly, to the reading of the Scripture none can be enemy, but that either be so sick that they love not to hear of any medicine, or else that be so ignorant that they know not Scripture to be the most healthful medicine...

"Therefore now to come to the second and latter part of my purpose. There is nothing so good in this world but it may be abused and turned from fruitful and wholesome to hurtful and noisome.

"What is there above better than the sun, the moon, the stars? Yet was there [any] that took occasion by the great beauty and virtue of them to dishonor God and to defile themselves with idolatry, giving the honor of the living God and Creator of all things to such things as he had created? What is there here beneath better than fire, water, meats, drinks, metals of gold, silver, iron, and steel? Yet we see daily great harm and much mischief done by every one of these...

"Thus to them that be evil of themselves everything setteth forward and increaseth their evil, be it of [its] own nature a thing never so good; like as contrarily, to them that studieth and endeavoreth themselves to goodness, everything prevaileth them and profiteth unto good, be it of [its] own nature a thing never so bad...Even as out of most venomous worms is made treacle [antedote for poison], the most sovereign medicine for the pre-servation of man's health in time of danger.

"Wherefore I would advise you all that cometh to the reading or hearing of this book, which is the Word of God, the most precious jewel and most holy relic that remaineth upon earth, that ye bring with you the fear of God, and that ye do it with all due reverence, and use your knowledge thereof not to vainglory [or] frivolous disputation but to the honor of God, increase of virtue, and edification both of yourselves and other...

"Every man that cometh to the reading of this holy book ought to bring with him . . . [also] a firm and stable purpose to reform his own self according thereunto; and so to continue, proceed, and prosper from time to time, showing himself to be a sober and fruitful hearer and learner. Which if he do, he shall prove at the length well able to teach, though not with his mouth yet with his living and good example, which is surely the most lively and most effectual form and manner of teaching."