VALUING THE SCRIPTURES
J. Castle
2 Timothy 3: 14–17; Luke 24: 27, 30–32, 45–47
A thought has come before me, beloved brethren, relative to the value of the Scriptures, and what the Scriptures have to say about themselves. God has a right to present certain truths in that way, and we should learn to value more and more the way He has conveyed the truth to men, specifically to ourselves as living in this day. He has His word and He has His Spirit.
Not only has He given us the finest of translations of the Scriptures, but He has in those Scriptures spoken of Himself and of them.
As we grow older and get on in the things of God, and especially, too, with those of us who are younger, there needs to develop with us a knowledge of the Scriptures. What Paul says here shows that Timothy knew them from a child. He had the advantage that many of us have had, that is, godly parents. And in his case, a godly grandmother as well. How that fits into present experience! I think that God would, in presenting that to us, cause us to think of the value of what He has handed down to us, so that we might cherish it, and learn to grow up into it, knowing it and loving it. That is primarily what is in one’s mind—knowing the Scriptures and loving them so that they become real to us. A brother known to me used to enjoy speaking of what he had learned from a young lad who was called by his mother but did not come. Asked why he did not come, he simply answered, ‘I am looking at Jesus raising Lazarus’. He was not just reading about the Lord Jesus; it was real to
his soul. So there is something that can be effected as we read the Scriptures and come to know them. We find that there is power in them. The Spirit of God is power. Not only do the Scriptures speak of themselves, but they speak of the Spirit of God coming and giving power.
So as Paul is writing to Timothy he is not only speaking of what Timothy has learned and known—and that indeed from a child—but he refers to the Scriptures as “the sacred letters”.
Notice his language, language which shows how Paul valued the Holy Scriptures. Men may be sometimes respectful in what they say about the Bible; the term ‘the good book’ is often used sincerely, but to Paul they had become ‘the sacred letters’. There was that in them that spoke to him of what was intensely holy and precious, and that is what he conveyed to Timothy. He says of them in verse 15, “which are able to make thee wise unto salvation”.
That was experience on Paul’s part. He knew what they had done in himself. So we want to make way for that. As we make opportunity to read the Scriptures we want to make way for what they can do in us “through faith which is in Christ Jesus”. That is how they are to be read and known for it is a book that is indited by God Himself. It is not an ordinary collection of information. It is a collection of divine thoughts which God has sought to convey to men, putting them into one blessed whole, so that as we read them we might realize the truth of what the Lord Jesus meant when He said to the Jews, “they it is which bear witness concerning me”, John 5: 39.
I read in Luke 24 only to convey that as the Lord is sought by us He Himself will give the interpretation of the. Scriptures. And what would take place is like what they relate as they say, “Was not our heart burning in us as he spoke to us on the way?” That, I think, is something we want
to experience. So that as we are reading the Scriptures we want to learn not only what they say but learn to love them because of the One of whom they speak. They are intended to draw us to Christ, to the blessedness and richness of divine thoughts. They are intended to move us. That is what took place here. They were moved; they were moved in their affections.
“Was not our heart burning in us as he spoke to us on the way, and as he opened the scriptures to us?” It reminds one of the time when the law was sought and read in Nehemiah’s time. There was a holy day; a high platform was set up from which the law was read. And what is more, it says, “And they read in the law of God distinctly out of the book, and gave the sense”, Nehemiah 8: 8. That is the Spirit of God coming into it; they gave the sense. Something was operating in them as they read; and then something was operating in the people—“For all the people wept when they heard the words of the law”. God makes room for that, true spiritual emotion. That is how formation proceeds, and that is the point as we take up the Scriptures.
It has been a precious thing in my outlook and in my soul to be able just to come and be in the attitude of sitting at the feet of Jesus, to learn from Him. Mary, as she sat at His feet, had the whole Person in view. To transfer it to our day we might say she had the whole truth in view, “as the truth is in Jesus”, Ephesians 4: 21. It is not that she, or we, would comprehend the fulness of the truth, but that is what was in her view as she sat at His feet. And what He said to her can be our experience as we are in that attitude of mind and soul and affection as the Scriptures are in our hands. These beloved persons in Luke 24 understood something of that. The Lord would give the sense in a way that surpassed the ability of any as “he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself”.
So my impression was just that, beloved brethren, that as we start out in our histories, as we continue and, maybe, finish, we should value increasingly the reading of the Scriptures and be affected by the Spirit of God Himself through the word which He has indited. Thus there can be formation and change with us in view of what Christ is to have eternally. The Lord opened their understanding (now this is collective) and said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it behoved the Christ to suffer, and to rise from among the dead the third day; and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all the nations beginning at Jerusalem”. He was beginning something and He is going to finish it. He is going to finish His work in our souls, no doubt by the access that He has to us. The Spirit of God has access to us in our thoughts and through the word of God. So let us seek to be moved by what we read, by the Holy Spirit Himself, in view of what Christ has to do in us, and in view of what He is to have for Himself, for His name’s sake.