On: The Bible

“Some think that the Old Testament is stricter than the New, but they are judging wrongly; they are fooling themselves. The old law did not punish the desire to hold onto wealth; it punished theft. But now the rich man is not condemned because he has taken the property of others; rather, he is condemned for not giving his own property away.” (St. Gregory the Great, 540-604)

“I vehemently dissent from those who would not have private persons read the Holy Scriptures, nor have them translated into the vulgar tongues. I wish that all women—girls even—would read the Gospels and the letters of Paul. I wish that they were translated into languages of all people. To make them understood is surely the first step. It may be that they might be ridiculed by many, but some would take them to heart. I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler should beguile with their stories the tedium of his journey.” (Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536)

“The authority of scripture is greater than the comprehension of the whole of man’s reason.” (Martin Luther, 1483-1546)

“Come to the Bible, not to study the history of God’s divine action, but to be its object; not to learn what it has achieved throughout the centuries and still does, but simply to be the subject of its operation.” (Jean-Pierre de Caussade, 1675-1751)

“Read whatever chapter of Scripture you will, and be ever so delighted with it—yet it will leave you as poor, as empty and unchanged as it found you unless it has turned you wholly and solely to the Spirit of God, and brought you into full union with and dependence upon Him.” (William Law, 1686-1761)

“’The Bible,’ we are told sometimes, ‘gives us such a beautiful picture of what we should be.’ Nonsense! It gives us no picture at all. It reveals to us a fact; it tells us what we really are; it says, ‘this is the form in which God created you, to which He has restored you; this is the work which the Eternal Son, the God of Truth and Love, is continually carrying on within you.’” (F.D. Maurice, “The Prayer Book and the Lord’s Prayer.” 1805-1872)

“The sacred page is note meant to be the end, but only the means toward the end, which is knowing God Himself.” (A.W. Tozer, 1897-1963)

“Doctrinal rightness and rightness of ecclesiastical position are important, but only as a starting point to go into a living relationship—and not as ends in themselves.” (Francis Schaeffer 1912-1984)

“Have you noticed this? Whatever need to trouble you are in, there is always something to help you in your Bible, if only you go on reading till you come to the word God specially has for you. I have noticed this often. Sometimes the special word is in the portion you would naturally read, or in the Psalm for the day . . . but you must go on till you find it, for it is always somewhere. You will know it the moment you come to it, for it will rest your heart.” (Amy Carmichael, “Edges of His Ways”, 1955)

“Never was a book so full of incredible sayings—everywhere the sense of mystery dominates; unless you feel that mystery, all becomes prosaic—nothing about God is prosaic.” (“The Notebooks of Florence Allshorn", 1957)

“Men today, do not, perhaps, burn the Bible, nor does the Roman Catholic Church any longer put it on The Index, as it once did. But men destroy it by not reading it as written in normal, literary form, but ignoring its historical-grammatical exegesis, by changing the Bible’s own perspective of itself as prepositional revelation in space and time, in history.” (Francis Schaeffer, “Death in the City,” 1969).