The Bible is today more widely read than ever. Last year Bible societies printed and circulated 11,378,854 Bibles. More Bibles were sold than any other hundred books together. It is now printed in four hundred languages. China alone last year bought 428,000 Bibles. Last year's Bible output of the British and Foreign Bible Society was 6,620,024 copies. In the 106 years of its existence that society has issued 220,000,000 copies of the Scriptures and its annual output is steadily rising, last year's being 685,000 copies in excess of the year preceding. Of what other bo ..read more

The Ideal Pastor Give me the pastor whose graces shall possess Of an ambassador the just address; A father's tenderness, a shepherd's care, A leader's courage, which the cross can bear; A ruler's awe, a watchman's wakeful eye, A fisher's patience, and a laborer's toil; A guide's dexterity to disembroil; A prophet's inspiration from above; A teacher's knowledge, and a Savior's love. Bishop Hare ..read more

The Divine Word - - - - - John 1 : 1-18 The New Birth ------ John 3 : 1-21 Penitence and Pardon - - - Psalm 51 A Psalm of Trust ----- Psalm 91 A Prophet's Call Hosea 14 Some Laws of the Kingdom - Matt. 6 : 19-34 Comfort and the Comforter - John 14 : 1-17 A Model Church ----- Acts 2 : 41-47 The Lord's Supper - - - - 1 Cor. 11: 23-28 The Old and the New - - - Heb. 9 : 1-28 The Mind of Christ - - - - Philippians. 2:5-11 Secure in God's Love - - - Romans. 8 : 26-39  ''Them that are Asleep " - 1 Thess. 4 : 13-18 The Last Day ------ Matt. 25 : 31-46 ..read more

Description of Illustration: two followers of Christ sit in prison, never alone in the dark, chains and cold darkness, the light inside of enlightened men, scriptural reference from Book of Acts 16:25-40, Paul and Silas singing praises to God in the dark, just before the earthquake Have a question about the illustration? Just type it in the comment box and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. I only publish content that is closely related to the subject folks ..read more

       The first thing which impresses the student of the Bible is what may be called the God-consciousness of its writers. As, on a beautiful day in spring, hills and valleys, fields and forests all lie bathed in the sunshine, so all parts of the Bible are bathed in this sense of the divine presence. On that beautiful spring day there may be a few places where shadows fall, so there may be places in the Bible where this divine presence may seem to be wanting. But this consciousness of the divine is certainly one of the dominant characteristics of the Bible. It op ..read more

       There are many texts cited in the New Testament from the Septuagint, where it differeth from the Hebrew; wherein it is utterly uncertain to us whether Christ and His apostles intended to justify absolutely the translation which they used, or only to make use of it as that which then was known and used for the sake of the sense which it contained. If they absolutely justify it, they seem to condemn the Hebrew, so far as it differeth. If not, why do they use it, and never blame it? It seemeth that Christ would hereby tell us, that the sense is the gold, and t ..read more

        ''To suppose that human words and human ideas can be adequate exponents of Divine truths in their full perfectness is simply absurd. As certainly as a vessel can hold no more than its own measure, so certainly no being can understand anything higher than itself. The animals have no power of understanding those qualities in which man transcends the limits of their nature; man has no power of understanding those qualities in which angels excel us. For the finite, however large, can never comprehend the Infinite.'' Payne Smith ..read more

        The Papists receive the Scriptures on the authoritative, infallible judgment of their own church, that is, the Pope; and I receive it as God's perfect law, delivered down from hand to hand to this present age, and know it to be the same book which was written by the prophets and apostles, by an infallible testimony of rational men, friends and foes, in all ages. And for them that think that this lays all our faith on uncertainties, I answer, 1st, Let them give us more certain grounds. 2d, We have an undoubted, infallible certainty of the truth of this tradition, as ..read more

        Consider what, as a matter of fact, we have in this old book, or collection of books, men call the Bible. We have in its first chapters answers to the universal questions, Whence came the world and man? Then we have memorials of the rise and fall of the proudest empires the earth has seen. We have the story of the development of the mightiest of moral forces, even this Christianity which we profess. We have some predictions such as those of the diffusion of the Gospel and the dispersion of the Jews, whose fulfillments are all around us. And its last book is in large ..read more

       We are confident that the careful and minute study of the evangelists, in the light of grammar, of philology, and of history, results in the unassailable conviction of their trustworthiness. The process is one of those profound and unconscious ones which bring us to the goal before we are aware. The conviction that the four Gospels are organically connected, and constitute one living and perfect harmony, cannot be violently and quickly forced upon the mind. At first sight, the objections and difficulties fill the foreground; particularly when protruded and ..read more