05/17/2020 – Day 365 – A revitalized body of Christ..
“I have been in Halley’s Bible Handbook quite often in the past year but I noticed a reference in big letters on the very first page, the title page: “Page 814 is the most important page in this book.” So I turned to it and this is what I see:
“THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN THIS BOOK IS
THis Simple Suggestion:
That each Church Have a Congregational Plan of Bible Reading and That the Pastor’s Sermon be from the Part of the Bible Read the Past Week thus connecting The Pastor’s Preaching with the People’s Bible Reading.
I thought about copying all four pages but I will limit it to a few sections and then encourage y’all to purchase the book – “Halley’s Bible Handbook” by Henry H. Halley”:
“This suggestion if followed would beyond any doubt whaever, produce a Re-Vitalzied Church: PROVIDED the Paster himself throughly Believes in the Bible as God’s Word, and puts his Heart into the effort.
The Church and the Bible go together. The Church exists to proclaim and exalt the Christ of the Bible, and for Nothing Else. A Church that does not Enthrone the Bible in the Lives of its people is False to its Mission.
…. With all our faculties for propagating Christian truth, our well-organized chures and Bible schools, our seminaries, our highly trained ministers and church leaders, with the last word in up-to-date religious education methods, an endless amount of Christian literature, and an ever-increasing number of meetings and organizations where we talk and teach and preach in the name of the Bible, even quoting chapter and verse — Yet the Great Body of our Church Members Treat the Bible as if it were a Mere Side-Issue in their Lives.
They are willing, provided enough promotional pressure is put on them, to listen to preachers and leaders talk of Bible things, but, as the Reading it Themselves, only a Few do it. Of a hundred average church members,perhaps One may even know the names of the Bible books, or have any idea what each book is about. Probably more than three-fourths of our American Protestant Church Members could not, off-hand, tell where to find the Sermon on the Mount, or the Ten Commandments.
And on top of this Ignorance of the Bible and indifference to it, and Neglect of it, they have no great sense of Loyalty to the Church, or Conscience about it. On an average, less that one-third, or one-fourth , of a congregations’ enrolled professed membership, attend its Sunday services with any degree of regularity.
… I marvel that Church People are so Indifferent to , and Neglectful of the Book that tells them about their Saviour. But I marvel more that Church LEADERS are doing so little about it. Unquestionably, the most fatal weakness of the present day Church is the Lack of Leadership in the Pulpit on this One Point of Guding and Leading its people into the ONE HABIT that is the Source and Basis of Everything that the Church exists to accomplish in its people.”
Congregational Bible Reading and the Pulpit
“…
The whole set-up and techique of present day church organization and activity seem designed to give the impression that everything depends on Sermons. To be sure, Preaching is ordained of God, that is, New Testament Preaching. It may be a distortion of the New Testament word “preach” to apply it tot he present prevelent type of pulpit effusions. Certainly the New Testament never intended that Preaching Should be so Utterly Devoid of Instruction in the Word of God as are the common run of Text Sermons that church-going poeple now have to listen to. But be that as it may, Preaching , even in its truest sense, and at its best, was never designed of God to be a complete and sufficient Substitute for the People Themselves Reading for Themselves the Word of God itself.
Every Christian ought to be a Bible reader. It is the one habit , which if done in the right sprit, more than any other one habit, will make a Christan what he ought to be in every way. If any church could get its people as a whole to be devoted readers of God’s Word, it would revolutionize the church. If the churches of any community, as a whole, could get their people, as a whole , to be regular readers of teh Bible, it would not only Revolutionize the churches, but it would purge and purify the communiaty as nothing else could do.
””What better task could a Church set for itself than the task of turning its community into a Bible reading community? Suppose a church, would such a plan of combined congregational Bible reading and Sunday preaching as here suggested , and suppose the church would foster Bible reading, ot only among its own members, but througout its community generally; periodically covering the community with leaflests containing its plan of Bible reading, with incidental invitations to church services — what better evangelistic method could a church have? If this isn’t the Church’s business, whose business is it? If it isn’t the pulpit’s business, then just what is the pulpit’s business?”
Soli Deo Gloria!