and the prophets He taught them in all things concerning Himself, that His life, His
mission, His sufferings, His death were just as the Word of God had foretold. He
opened their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. How quickly
He straightened out the tangled ends and showed the unity and divine verity of the
Scriptures. How much men in these times need their understanding opened.
The Bible is written by inspired men, but it is not God’s mode of thought and
expression. It is that of humanity. God, as a writer, is not represented. Men will often
say such an expression is not like God. But God has not put Himself in words, in
logic, in rhetoric, on trial in the Bible. The writers of the Bible were God’s penmen,
not His pen. Look at the different writers.
It is not the words of the Bible that are inspired, but the men that were inspired.
Inspiration acts not on the man’s words or his expressions but on the man himself,
who, under the influence of the Holy Ghost, is imbued with thoughts. But the words
receive the impress of the individual mind. The divine mind is diffused. The divine
mind and will is combined with the human mind and will; thus the utterances of the
man are the word of God.—Manuscript 24, 1886 (written in Europe in 1886).
Unity in Diversity
There is variety in a tree, there are scarcely two leaves just alike. Yet this variety
adds to the perfection of the tree as a whole.
In our Bible, we might ask, Why need Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in the
Gospels, why need the Acts of the Apostles, and the variety of writers in the Epistles,
go over the same thing?
The Lord gave His word in just the way He wanted it to come. He gave it through
different writers, each having his own individuality, though going over the same
history. Their testimonies are brought together in one Book, and
