Season of 1884.

LESSON X.—BIBLE SECTION.

The Doctrines of the Bible.

By Rev. J. L. HURLBUT, D.D., and R. S. HOLMES, A.M.

Doceo means I teach. Doctum, a teaching. Doctrina, the result of teaching—learning. The doctrines of the Bible are simply its teachings. They are the teachings of God to the race, contained in the record of his dealings with the race. These dealings of God produced a supernatural history, in the course of which man originated and fell, the nature and character of the Creator appeared, the presence, power and effects of sin were made known, and the original and ultimate purposes of God with the race were declared. The outline of these teachings or doctrines is not designed to be exhaustive, nor is it formed on the model of any treatise on systematic theology. It aims to prompt to further study in the classics of theology, and to plainly state a few essential truths. These doctrines of the Bible are:

1. The Doctrine Concerning Beginnings. (a) God was without beginning—Genesis 1:1. First fact—“The Eternal God.” (b) The Holy Spirit was without beginning—Gen. 1:2. Second fact—“The Eternal Spirit.” (c) The Word was without beginning—John 1:1. Third fact—“The Eternal Son.” Essential doctrine: the Triune God; unbegun, coequal, eternal. (d) All else, the whole vast universe, began by the power of God—Gen. 1:1—through the Son—John 1:3. Fourth fact—“Man God’s offspring.” Essential doctrine: The Fatherhood of God; his sovereignty and right to demand obedience of his creatures.

2. The Doctrine Concerning Relations. (a) God is Creator: hence powerful; a spirit—John 4:24—hence unseen; without beginning or ending, hence infinite and eternal—Ps. 90:1. Formula: “God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” (b) Man is the creature. Essentially a thing created; he dies daily, to be recreated daily. What of himself man destroys, the Creator by daily sustenance replaces. He is therefore the bread-giver, Hlaf-ford—Lord. The gifts of the Creator are beneficent; so he is the Good-One, God. The Creator is also guardian, protector—that is, Father.

Relation restated. The Creator, Lord, God, Father. The creature—a dependent child. The law of paternity—like produces like. Essential doctrine—man was originally like God, in harmony with him and at peace with him—Gen. 1:27.

3. The Doctrine Concerning Positions. (a) Man supreme in creation. God calls himself Father of no other created thing. Man a thinker, hence supreme. (b) Man free in the midst of creation. No other power to dispute his right. In fellowship with God, his Father. In a place of his Father’s choice, under rules of his Father’s making; with a work of his Father’s planning—Gen. 2:15-16—with power to follow his own will—(Gen. 2:17, last clause)—answerable to no one but his Father. Essential Doctrines—The sovereignty of God—the freedom of man. (c) Man confronted by a foe—Gen. 3:1—A sinful power in the universe: sin before man—2 Peter 2:4, 1 John 3:8. Picture—The Almighty Father—the boundless earth—the wide permission; the single restraint; the only child; the tempter; the fall; sin’s victory—Romans 5:12. Essential doctrine: By man sin entered the world, and death by sin, imparting to man a sinful nature, and separating man from God.

4. The Doctrine Concerning Results. (a) Separation from God; Eden lost; toil, pain and death—Gen. 3:17-19:23. (b) The kingdom of death—Romans 5:14; its prince, Satan; its subjects unclean—Job 15:14-16; its history a record of “sin, schism, and the clash of personalities.” (c) Eternal punishment probable from analogy, reasonable, just. Let the student carefully examine the testimony.

5. The Doctrine Concerning Rescue. (a) Promised early in history—Gen. 3:15. (b) Divine—John 3:16. (c) Yet human—Gen. 3:15; Romans 5:18; Luke 3:23 and ff. Central fact of history, the God-man. (d) Restoration to God’s likeness—1 John 3:2. (e) A life-giving rescue—Romans 6:23. (f) A cleansing rescue; find the symbolic use of water in Bible. (g) Obtained through suffering and propitiatory death—Isaiah 53. (h) Established by resurrection—Ps. 16:10, 49:15; Hosea 13:14. Essential doctrine: Salvation from God as a free gift of his grace for all who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

6. The Doctrine Concerning Instruction. (a) God himself the teacher of the race. Adam—Abel—the Altar and Sacrifice. Note: service and sacrifice, man’s first lesson; the ark and Noah; rescue from sin’s penalty through obedience, man’s second lesson; Abraham—reckoned as righteous, because believing, man’s third lesson. (b) Moses the teacher of the race; the tabernacle in the wilderness; the same lessons repeated; God using his servant by direct instruction and communion. (c) The prophets the teachers of the race—Samuel—Malachi—the same lesson repeated; God teaching by inspiration; the home; the church; holy men speaking as moved by the Holy Ghost. (d) God by his Son the teacher of the race; Jesus Christ, Galilee, Samaria, Judea, the manger, the desert, the cross, the Easter morn, lessons, service, obedience, sacrifice, victory. (e) God by his teacher of the race.

SUNDAY-SCHOOL SECTION.

LESSON X.—THE TEACHING PROCESS.—ILLUSTRATION.

[This lesson is adapted from the outline of Dr. Vincent, in the Chautauqua Normal Guide.]

I. There are four Uses of Illustrations.

1. They win and hold attention. The ear is quickened to interest by a story; the eye is arrested by the picture or the chalk mark. Nothing awakens and retains the interest more than the illustration, whether heard or seen.

2. They aid the apprehension. The statement of a truth is made plain where it is illustrated, as the rule in arithmetic is seen more clearly in the light of an example; and the definition of a scientific word in the dictionary by the picture accompanying it.

3. They aid the memory. It is not the text, nor the line of thought, but the illustrations, which keep the sermon or the lesson from being forgotten.

4. They awaken the conscience. How many have been aroused to conviction of sin by the parable of the Prodigal Son; and what is that but an illustration? So, many, like Zinzendorf, have been awakened by some picture of a Bible scene. Mr. Moody’s stories have sent the truth home as deeply as his exhortations.

II. There are four Classes of Illustrations.

1. Those which depend upon the sight, and derive their interest from the pupil’s delight in seeing. Such are maps, pictures, diagrams, etc., and when drawn in presence of the scholar, though ever so rudely, they have an increased interest and power.

2. Those which depend upon the imagination. At no period in life is the imagination as strong as in childhood, when a rag doll can be a baby and a picture has real life. Thence come “word-pictures,” fairy stories, imaginary scenes, etc., as illustrations of the lesson.

3. Those which depend upon comparison. To see resemblance in things different, or the correspondence between the outward and the spiritual, is as old as the parable of the sower, and the miracle of the loaves. “The likes of the lesson” form a fruitful field for the use of illustration.

4. Those which depend upon knowledge. More than for anything else children are eager to know; and the story has an added value which is true. History, science, art, and indeed every department of knowledge will furnish illustrations of spiritual truth.

III. How to obtain Illustrations.

1. By gaining knowledge, especially Bible knowledge. The wider the teacher’s range of thought, the more readily will he find illustrations to fit his thought. Particularly will the incidents of Bible story be found to furnish the frame for his thoughts in the class. Know the stories of the Bible, and you will have an encyclopÆdia of illustration in your mind.

2. By the habit of observation. People find what they are seeking for, and the teacher who is looking for illustrations will find them everywhere, in books, among men, on the railway train, and in the forest.

3. By the preservation of illustrations. The scrap book for clippings, the blank book for stray suggestions, the envelope, will all have their uses. Plans innumerable have been given, but each worker’s own plan is the best for himself.

4. By practice in the use of illustrations. The way to use them is to use them, and use will give ease. The teacher who has once made the experiment will repeat it, and find that his rough drawing, or his map, or his story will always attract the eager attention of his scholars.

IV. A few hints as to the use of Illustrations.

1. Have a clear idea of the subject to be taught. Learn the lesson first of all, and know what you are to teach, before you seek for your illustration.

2. Use illustrations only in the line of the teaching. Never tell a story for the sake of the story, but always to impress a truth; and let the truth be so plain that the story must carry its own application.

3. Obtain the help of the scholar in illustration. Let the pupils suggest Bible incidents or Bible characters which present the traits of character which the lesson enforces. Never add a feature to the portrait which the scholar can himself give from his own knowledge.

4. Do not use too many illustrations. Let not the lesson serve merely as a vehicle for story-telling, or picture drawing, or blackboarding; but keep the truth at all times in the foreground.