How to Master the English Bible: An Experience, a Method, a Result, an IllustrationGray, James M. (James Martin)
Religion
How to Master the English Bible: An Experience, a Method, a Result, an Illustration
Gray, James M. (James Martin)
Bible -- Study and teaching
My experience in the premises soon began to be that of others. Some
theological students under my care at the time undertook the mastery
of the English Bible in the same way and with the same blessing. Then
the work began to broaden, and God's further purpose to reveal
itself. Such Bible institutes as those already spoken of, organised
for the purpose of training Christian young men and women as
evangelists, pastors' helpers, missionaries and gospel workers
generally, were in need of some simple, yet practical, method of
putting their students in possession of the facts of the Word of God
for use among the people with whom they had to deal, and God had been
making ready to supply their need. But out of these institutes again
have grown those large interdenominational Bible classes which have
become a feature of our church life in different parts of the
country. Their origin is traceable, like that of so many other good
things of the kind, to the suggestion and support of the late D. L.
Moody. One summer, while conducting a special course of Bible study
in the Chicago Institute, he said to the writer: "If this synthetic
method of teaching the Bible is so desirable for and popular with our
day classes, why would it not take equally well with the masses of
the people on a large scale? If I arrange for a mass meeting in the
Chicago Avenue Church, will you speak to the people on 'How to Master
the English Bible' and let us see what will come of it?" The
suggestion being acted upon, as a result about four hundred persons
out of some one thousand present that evening resolved themselves into
a union Bible class for the synthetic study of the Bible under the
leadership of Mr. William R. Newell, then assistant superintendent
of the Institute. This class continued to meet regularly once a week
with unabated interest throughout the whole of that fall and winter,
and the next year had multiplied into five classes held in different
parts of the city, on different evenings of the week, but under the
same teacher, and with an aggregate membership of over four thousand.
The year following, this had increased to over five thousand, two or
three of the classes averaging separately an attendance of twelve
hundred to fifteen hundred. Since that time several similar classes
have attained a membership approaching two thousand, and one, in
Toronto, to nearly four thousand. At the time of this writing, in the
heat of the summer, such a class is being held weekly in Chicago.
From Chicago the work spread in other cities of the East and Middle
West, and under other teachers. Classes for briefer periods have been
carried on in Canada and Great Britain. A religious weekly organised
a class to be conducted through its columns, enrolling tens of
thousands in its membership, and through its influence many pastors,
Y.M.C.A. and Y.W.C.A. workers have instituted classes in their own
fields which have, in turn, multiplied the interest in the popular
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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