STRONGHOLD OF TRUTH
56
For this reason it is necessary and important to master each Book by itself. God has given the Bible in separate, though connected Books, sixty-six in number, and we shall be doing what is at once the most natural and also the most helpful thing by endeavoring to master each Book. Perhaps there are three questions to be asked as we approach a Book. What? Wh_en? Why?. That is, we must see what the Book contains; try to discover something of the date and circumstances of its issue, and then do our utmost to gather the precise meaning and message of its contents. For this purpose we shall be well advised to read a book straight through at once in order to obtain a general view of it as a whole. Then it will be well to do the same again, without stopping unduly to attend to details. A third reading in this way will be most profitable, especially if at the same time we endeavor to make our own analysis of the Book. When we have endeavored to gain our own impression of what the Book is and contains, then, and not till then, we may compare the results of our reading with those of some writer. Thus, we may look at the analysis of a Book in the "Analyzed Bible" series by Dr. Campbell Morgan, or we might take the treatment found in "Synthetic Studies" or "The Christian vVorker's Commentary" by !Jr. J. M. Gray. The Book method of Bible Study will m any case prove most fruitful. The Book Method As suggesting what may be done in this way, let us tum to the Book of Genesis. A general reading will at once show that there are two main divisions the first covering chapters 1 to 11 and the second, chapters 12 to 50. The fo?Tier covers thousands of years and may be sun~med up m ~ve words: Creation, Corruption, Deluge, Dehveran~e, Dispersal. The remaining thirty-nine chap ters deal 11_1 detail with the lives of a few men, and five may be said to cover practically the whole: Abraham, :aac, Esau, Jacob, Joseph. From this mere outline it "ould be possible to proceed to the thorough study of the contents of the fascinating first Book of the Bible. 1
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