divers places. Men wrote as they were moved upon by the Holy Ghost. There is “first
the bud, then the blossom, and next the fruit,” “first the blade, then the ear, after that
the full corn in the ear.” This is exactly what the Bible utterances are to us.
There is not always perfect order or apparent unity in the Scriptures. The miracles
of Christ are not given in exact order, but are given just as the circumstances occurred,
which called for this divine revealing of the power of Christ. The truths of the Bible
are as pearls hidden. They must be searched, dug out by painstaking effort. Those
who take only a surface view of the Scriptures will, with their superficial knowledge,
which they think is very deep, talk of the contradictions of the Bible, and question the
authority of the Scriptures. But those whose hearts are in harmony with truth and duty
will search the Scriptures with a heart prepared to receive divine impressions. The
illuminated soul sees a spiritual unity, one grand golden thread running through the
whole, but it requires patience, thought, and prayer to trace out the precious golden
thread. Sharp contentions over the Bible have led to investigation and revealed the
precious jewels of truth. Many tears have been shed, many prayers offered, that the
Lord would open the understanding to His Word.
The Bible is not given to us in grand superhuman language. Jesus, in order to
reach man where he is, took humanity. The Bible must be given in the language of
men. Everything that is human is imperfect. Different meanings are expressed by
the same word; there is not one word for each distinct idea. The Bible was given for
practical purposes.
The stamps of minds are different. All do not understand expressions and
statements alike. Some understand the statements of the Scriptures to suit their own
particular minds and cases. Prepossessions, prejudices, and passions have a strong
influence to darken the understanding and confuse the mind even in reading the words
of Holy Writ.
The disciples traveling to Emmaus needed to be disen
