HOW TO TEACH THE BIBLE.* MB. MrreRELL attacks a problem
which must be troubling, as dt never troubled before, many minds. The old way of teaching the Bible "from cover to cover" is discredited, at least among people who think. The pious feat, as it used to be thought fifty years ago, of reading the Bible through would be at least tacitly discouraged. Even the most intrepid and least
• conaiderate teacher feels compelled to discriminate and select. Another method is to teach the Bible "with the guidance of, the Creed which teacher and taught confess in public worship." "The obvious answer," as Mr. Mitchell puts it, "is that the devout Churchman will remain in profound ignorance otthe Bible." This ignorance is notorious where the method • How to Teach the Bible. By the Rev. A. F. Kitchell, M.A. London: Willianis and Norsate. Lie, 9d. net.] is used in its most complete form. A curious instance was given in these columns a few weeks ago, where it was evident that a devout and accomplished Italian lady, who had showed
an intimate knowledge of the Holy Land and its legends, was , not acquainted with the Gospel of St. John. A third method Mr. Mitchell mentions with approval; he even thinks that it will • be "the method of the future." This is to work along the lines of the development of morality and truth, to follow the course of progressive Revelation. But there are difficulties in the way: One of them, where Mr. Mitchell insists that the order of the books in our Bible does not lend itself ,to this method, is
typical of all. It is, so to speak, too revolutionary. What, then, is to be done P Our author's guiding maxim is, "The
key to the Scriptures is the mind of a child." He develops it thus :—
" The teacher has to make this instrument handy for use. He has to find out some method by which the literature of a great people, containing the doings, thoughts, aspirations of men and women of almost every kind and degree ; their impressions of life, and of Him who revealed Himself as the Lord of Life, through 900 years of strange prosperity and woe—all these he has to put into some shape which shall be teachable. He will do it well if he uses as his guiding principle the way in which God has already spoken to those whom he intends to teach. He will remember that they have an imagination or creative power which requires opening out and guiding; a reason which calls for enlightenment on moral questions ; and a heart that is, feeling about for a spiritual Master and Lord. If he can make the Scriptures speak truly to these three aspects of the growing mind, he will bring them to their highest use. In the attempt' he will require freedom to select and omit; he will have to make . an entirely new classification of Biblical material; and in doing this he will be saved from mere arbitrary choice by the con- sciousness of a definite spiritual aim."
It is a method of selection, then, that we have to employ.
How is the selection to be made P We may pass quickly over Mr. Mitchell's suggestion that the child's questions, "Where do people come from when they are born P" and "Where do people go to when they die F" are to be answered by reading to it the story of the Nativity as it is found in St. Matthew
and St. Luke, and the story of the Resurrection. We must own that it does not commend itself to us. But the questions are not likely to occur in class teaching. They will be best dealt with separately. The teacher begins, then, with "parts of Scripture which deal with Nature." The Psalms are rich in them; so is the Book of Job; the Hymn of Creation, which occupies Genesis i. and ii. 1-3 (curiously contrasting with the • an.thropomorphisni of what follows), is the moral, so to speak, of all of them. The next subject is "God speaking to Man."
Examples of this are, in the Old Testament, Isaiah vi., the first three chapters of Ezekiel, Samuel in the Tabernacle, Elijah on Horeb. Moses on Sinai is reserved, not without good reason, for older classes. In the New Testament we have the visions related by St. Luke in his proem to the Gospel story ; the Baptism, Temptation, and Transfiguration of Christ; Peter's vision at Joppa, St. Paul's on the way to Damascus. Next come ethical lessons. It is here that the teacher will find himself most in revolt against commonly accepted methods. Nine-tenths of actual Bible teaching, so far as regards the Old Testament, is concerned with the history. The course is easy, it is full of matter. And yet it is not really instruc- tive. "I should not be careful," says our author, "to familiarise the young with the accounts of the wars of possession—or acquisition—such as we have in Exodus, Judges, Samuel, Kings." But the patriarchal history has many passages of the kind we want, only we must be free, and allow the judgments of our pupils to be free, in dealing with them. There we get examples of justice in the home ; for justice in the State we go to the Prophets; as for the Church, we will quote a, highly suggestive passage :—
" Young people are entitled to receive a Biblical answer to the question, What is a Church P from a Bible teacher. The most useful coarse, probably, would commence with the building of the temple after the exile, and would consist of passage from Ezekiel, leading to the historical books of Ezra and Nehemiah: the Psalms treated as the hymn book of the temple: the great festivals of the Jewish church: its idea of priesthood and sacrifice: the rise of the village church or synagogue : and the connection between the synagogue and. the scattered notices of Church life in the New Testament amongst the first Jewish and Gentile believers. In any one of these groups, the duty of Worship : the place of Forms and Ceremonies : the function of Art and Music : the check to exaggeration in all these things, found in the teaching of the prophets and of the early Christian Church, could be brought before the conscience of the young."
General illustrations may be found abundantly in the Wisdom
Literature of the Jews, a portion of the Bible which is strangely neglected in the Anglican Order. We have, it is true, the pessimistic Ecclesiastes read every year, but in the next nine years Sunday congregations will only twice hear lessons from the wonderful treasury of Proverbs. Finally, we have the teaching of the Bible in regard to the affections and will. And here we are shut up, so to speak, to the New Testament. We feel that no words of ours could put the case so admirably as Mr. Mitchell has done :—
"Youth wants its aspirations and ideals focussed in one master soul, who is sufficiently human to attract the will to follow, sufficiently divine to be the principle of a pro- gressive spiritual life. The Bible reveals such a person. It closes with an attempt to satisfy this need. It changes its character to do it. It becomes for the first time intensely individualistic and personal: Nation, Church, Family, Chosen People, fall into the background. A picture is presented in which there are no ideal kings, prophets, priests, statesmen, or wise men, but one solitary figure. Just as the Old Testament has its proper function to hold up the idea of a holy nation, a devout church, honourable marriage and a wise ordering of social life, so the New Testament has its peculiar work—to hold up to view the beauty and strength of the single soul, in whom dwelletb righteousness. In all its parts, its main purpose is to reveal one whom it calls by a name before unknown in Scripture, the Christ."
We do not delude ourselves with the hope that the ideas set forth in this pamphlet will meet with a general acceptance. They will be encountered with the active hostility of ortho- doxy so called, with the passive resistance of ignorance and indolence. But they will,win their way. The future, be it near or remote, is theirs.
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