Study your Bible believingly (1) - R.A. Torrey

Taken from How to succeed in the Christian life by Torrey, R. A.

For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
1Th 2:13

The Bible ought then to be studied as no other book is. It should be studied as the Word of God. This involves five things:

(I) A greater eagerness and more careful and candid study to find out just what it teaches than is bestowed upon all other books. It is important to know the mind of man. It is absolutely essential to know the mind of God. The place to discover the mind of God is the Bible. This is the book in which God reveals His mind.

(II) A prompt and unquestioning acceptance of, and submission to its teachings when definitely ascertained.

If this book is the Word of God, how foolish it is to submit its teachings to the criticism of our finite reasoning. A httle boy who discredits his wise father's statements simply because to his infant mind they appear unreasonable, is not a philosopher, but a fool. But the greatest of human thinkers is only an infant compared with the infinite God. And to discredit God's statements found in His Word because they appear unreasonable to our infantile minds is not to act the part of the philosopher, but the part of a fool. When we are once satisfied that the Bible is the Word of God, its clear teachings must be for us the end of all controversy and discussion.

(III) Absolute reliance upon all its promises in all their length and breadth and depth and height.

(Continúa)