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"The Bible is an answer to the question of how to consecrate life.” And if we say we feel no need for sanctification, we only prove that the Bible is indispensable, because it is the Bible that teaches us how to feel the need for sanctification. The Bible has shattered man's illusion of being alone. It shows the way of Yehowah ‘Elohim with man and the way of man with Yehowah ‘Elohim. There dwells, also, in its pages reminders of man's incredible callousness and obstinacy, of his immense capacity to bring about his doom as well as the assurance that beyond all evil is the compassion of ‘Elohim.
He who seeks an answer to the most pressing question: What is living? Will find an answer in the Bible. There is a task, a law, and a way: The task is redemption, the law is to do justice and love mercy, and the way is the secret of being human yet set-apart.
There are no words in the world more knowing, more disclosing, and more indispensable. Words both stern and graceful, heart-rending and healing. A truth so universal--’Elohim is One. A thought so consoling--He is with us in distress. A responsibility so overwhelming--His Name can be desecrated. A map of time--from creation to redemption. Guideposts along the way: The Seventh Day; The Feasts; An offering--contrition of the heart. A utopia--would that all people were prophets. The insight--man lives by his faithfulness, his home is in time, and his substance in deeds. A standard so bold--ye shall be set-apart. A commandment so daring--love thy neighbor as thyself. A fact so sublime--human and divine pathos can be in accord. And a gift so undeserved--the ability to repent.
The Bible is mankind's greatest privilege. No other book so loves and respects the life of man. It has the words that startle the guilty and the promise that upholds the forlorn. And he who seeks a language in which to utter his deepest concern, to pray, will find it in the Bible.
Other books you can estimate, measure, compare; the Bible you can only extol. Its insights surpass our standards. There is nothing greater. Other books can be accounted for, but any attempt to explain the Bible is a supreme opportunity to become ridiculous. Our heart stops when we ponder its terrible greatness. It is the Eternal Book. Irrefutably, indestructibly, never wearied by time, the Bible wanders through the ages, giving itself with ease to all men. We all draw upon it, and it remains pure, inexhaustible, and complete. In 3,000 years it has not aged a day. It is a book that cannot die. Its power is not subsiding. In fact, the full meaning of its content has hardly touched the threshold of our minds. Though its words seem plain, unnoticed meanings and undreamed of intimations break forth constantly. More than 2,000 years of reading and research have not succeeded in exploring its full meaning. Today it is still as if it had never been touched, never been seen, as if we had not even begun to read it.
The Bible is set-apartness in words. It is as if ‘Elohim took these Hebrew words and breathed into them of His power, and the words became a live wire charged with His Spirit. To this very day, they are hyphens between heaven and earth.
“No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own spiritual opacity than his insensitiveness to the Bible."
