King's Business - 1913-06

The King’s Business

Voi. 4

JUNE, 1913

No . 6

Wasting Precious Time O NE' of the great evils wrought by “the Higher Criticism” is the appalling waste of time that it has occasioned. Many theological professors and students and many ministers of the Gospel have for years devoted almost all the time that they have given to Bible study to attempted research along the line of “the Higher Criticism.” And what has this tremendous expenditure of time really accomplished? Practically nothing. We are not practically any further ahead than we were thirty years ago. A few years ago the critical school were quite confidently speaking about “established results,” but now every well informed per­ son knows that the results were not established. The critics have at­ tained to no agreement whatever among themselves. Their methods have been entirely discredited by their reaching no settled conclusion after years of most earnest study. Their science' is a science that leads no­ where. It has been thoroughly tried and has utterly failed. We are coming back to the very point that was sufficiently well settled before these studies were begun. We have discovered absolutely nothing new. We have simply wasted our time. If half of the time had been devoted to the discovery of what the Scriptures really taught, that has been devoted to this fruitless search for “the sources” of Scripture, invalhable discoveries would have been made. The only thing that has been learned is the utter futility and foolishness of the methods of literary criticism employed. Satan kept men as long as possible from the study of the Word but when they were at last aroused to the importance of Bible study, he beguiled them into methods of study that he knew would yield no results. For nearly a generation now, our students in universities and collèges have been led by misguided teachers to devote their time to methods of research that cannot yield results. And now there is an organized movement to introduce these barren methods into our Sunday schools and churches. It is hoped that this subtle scheme of the adversary will fail. Let us not waste our time threshing out old straw; it is sufficiently proven that the Bible is the Word of God whoever the human authors of the various books may have been ; let us get down to the study of what God Himself has to say and not waste our precious time in the pursuit of methods of literary criticism that are thoroughly discredited by more than thirty years of utter failure. Observing Days and Months and T imes and Years T HE Apostle Paul entered a vigorous protest in the Epistle to the Galatians against believers being in bondage to the beggarly elements of the Jewish law, in observing days and months and times and years (Gal. 4:1-11). But the Christian church is getting in bondage to a new series of days and festivals. Every minister is pestered with letters and circulars urging him to observe “Hospital Day,” and “Temperance Day”

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