EXTRACT

ACCURACY

“For this reason every scribe discipled to the kingdom of the heavens is like a man that is a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old”, Matthew 13: 52. No one should make up his mind that this belongs to others and not to him. It is not so intended. You should take that to heart, to do your part as a disciple to the kingdom of the heavens. That is to say, you are no longer a free-lance doing as you will; you are brought under rule, not simply because of what you are told, but through discipline you are brought in as one who has been discipled to the kingdom. You are a disciplined person, as Enoch of old.

A great portion of our difficulties is through want of teaching by discipline in the school of God, for the scribes of old learned in this way and were valuable men. Every man of that kind is like a householder. Matthew makes more of householders than any other evangelist. The truth of the household is what supports a man more than anything else. The householder is a scribe, he is a literary man, he does not swallow things down, he is taking them in. He can unfold them to you gradually.

Take a man like Aquila, or a woman like Priscilla, or a man like Apollos of Alexandria. The latter knew only the teaching of John, but he knew it correctly. There was not slipshod instruction with him. He wanted to know the thing as it was. Then Aquila and Priscilla took this brother to them and unfolded to him the way of God more exactly. They were correct, they were not slipshod in the way they took on instructing him.

I am speaking now very soberly of the importance of being correct in what we allow in the way of instruction in our

spiritual education. Let me inquire into things, like the Bereans, of whom it is said they “searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so”, Acts 17: 11. They were correct people, not slipshod. ‘Is this just so? Is the passage quoted correctly?’ In looking it up you get to know the Scriptures better. There is hidden treasure in the Scriptures. I am speaking now of accuracy. Say what is there, do not add to it, let Scripture have full force. That is how the scribe recorded things. He was discipled to the kingdom of the heavens. I would like to hear him speak, for he would be sure that all he said to you was confirmed by Scripture.

The scribe is a person whose writings must be accurate; he has treasure, and he tabulates things; he does not mix them. He brings out of his treasure new things and old things, but he brings out the new things first. I believe a man like this, discipled to the kingdom of the heavens, would bring out Paul’s things first. It is really the light in which all Scripture should be read; hence, if it is a question of the Lord’s supper, Paul discoursed until midnight. Whatever he has to say, he must have time to say it; but if any go to sleep they suffer by the government of God.

So this householder brings out of his treasure things new and old. He has the treasure in view, all this glorious ministry. The new things are first, and then the old things, for the old things have their place. You must not discredit the Old Testament; no scribe would do that, he makes much of it. The old things are hidden treasure, and the new things are brought forward for the good of the Lord’s people, by being accurate as disciplined and instructed.

J. Taylor (Vol. 92, pp.262, 263)

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