58 The Fundamentals with intense earnestness: ‘We deny at every point that our course is a B ible course; our course is a C hild -T eaching course.’ “As we speak of ‘the Sunday School’ today, we refer to the very limited opportunity for Bible study offered in the session of an hour or so on Sunday, where the actual Bihle studying, Bible teaching period is about thirty minutes. This is the church’s chief’ and only Bible teaching service, at present, in the vast majority of churches. To give any other form of material than the Bible the right of way in this restricted period is a perilous thing. The church must have a service of Bible study and Bible teaching. Its very life, and the life of the home and the community, depend upon this. Nothing that is extra-Biblical can be permitted to encroach upon that vital part of the church’s work. I t will be a sad day indeed when this question is considered even debatable by the majority of the members of the Church of Christ on earth. “It is important to recognize also that there is no real dilemma between the Bible and child-teaching. We do not have to choose between the two. We must have them both, and we can. The Bible is God’s best provision for child teaching. “There is a real danger, also, in using nature as the chief material for Sunday School teaching, even with the youngest beginners. Nature study has its valued place as material to illustrate Bible truths. Our Lord used it in that way. But there is no such revelation of God in nature as there is in the Holy Scriptures. Nature is natural; the Bible is supernatural. The two are in no sense equal revelations of the heart of God and of the Gospel of Christ. Indeed, nature is a sin-distorted, sin-cursed thing. God made this very plain when He said in the Garden of Eden, ‘Cursed is the ground for thy sake; ....................... thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee,’ as He told Adam and Eve how they had degraded even the earth beneath their feet through their sin. It may not be
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