Pleasure & Profit in Bible StudyMoody, Dwight Lyman
Religion
Pleasure & Profit in Bible Study
Moody, Dwight Lyman
Bible -- Study and teaching
There are many Bible students, however, who utterly neglect the command.
They are like sponges, always sucking in the Water of Life, but never
imparting it to thirsty souls around.
A clergyman used to go hunting, and when his bishop reproved him, he
said he never went hunting when he was on duty.
"When is a clergyman off duty?" asked the bishop.
And so with every Christian: when is he off duty?
To be ready with a promise for the dying, a word of hope for the
bereaved and afflicted, of encouragement for the downhearted, of advice
for the anxious, is a great accomplishment. The opportunities to be
useful in these ways are numerous. Not only in inquiry-meetings and
church work, but in our everyday contact with others the opening
constantly occurs. A word, a look, a hand-clasp, a prayer, may have an
unending influence for good.
"Is your father at home?" asked a gentleman of a doctor's child.
"No," he said, "he's away."
"Where can I find him?"
"Well," he said, "you've got to look for him in some place where people
are sick or hurt, or something like that. I don't know where he is, but
he's helping somewhere."
That ought to be the spirit animating every follower of Him who went
about doing good.
LAYING DOWN RULES.
I admit one can't lay down positive rules in dealing with individuals
about their religious condition. Tin soldiers are exactly alike, but not
so men. Matthew and Paul were a good way apart. The people we deal with
may be widely different. What would be medicine for one might be rank
poison for another. In the 15th of Luke, the elder son and the younger
son were exactly opposite. What would have been good counsel for one
might have been ruin to the other. God never made two persons to look
alike. If we had made men, probably we would have made them all alike,
even if we had to crush some bones to get them into the mould. But that
is not God's way. In the universe there is infinite variety. The
Philippian jailer required peculiar treatment. Christ dealt with
Nicodemus one way, and the woman at the well another way.
YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE.
It is a great mistake, in dealing with inquirers, to tell your conversion
experience. Experience may have its place, but I don't think it has its
place when we are dealing with inquirers; for the first thing the man
you are talking to will do will be to look for your experience. He
doesn't want your experience. He wants one of his own.
Suppose Bartimeus had gone to Jerusalem to the man that was born blind,
and said:
"Now, just tell us how the Lord cured you."
The Jerusalem man might have said: "He just spat on the ground, and
anointed my eyes with the clay."
"Ho!" says Bartimeus, "I don't believe you ever got your sight at all.
Who ever heard of such a way as that? Why, to fill a man's eyes with
clay is enough to put them out!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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