Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
A full, correct, and intelligent acquaintance with the Scriptures is not by any means so easy or so ordinary an attainment as men are sometimes apt to suppose. It requires a larger measure of natural ability, a higher degree of acquired learning, and a greater amount of patient and laborious study than is commonly imagined. It is quite true that the great leading doctrines and duties of Christianity are very plainly set forth in Scripture, and that every thing needful to guide men to the saving knowledge of the truth and the enjoyment of eternal blessedness, may be certainly learned, under the guidance of God’s Spirit, from almost any translation of the Scriptures, by men who have but a very small measure of intellectual culture and of acquired knowledge; and it is also true, that men who, from the teaching of the Spirit and of the word, have got a clear perception and a firm hold of the leading principles of God’s oracles, are not likely to fall into any very dangerous errors in the interpretation of particular portions of Scripture.
But though all this is true, and most important and encouraging truth it is, it has nothing to do with the question as to what kind and degree of knowledge of God’s word may be attained, and ought to be aimed at, and what may be reasonably expected of those who aspire to be the public instructors of others. They ought not to be contented with knowing the word of God through the help of a translation, when they have opportunities of becoming acquainted with the original. They ought not to be satisfied with understanding the few fundamental principles of Scriptural truth, but are bound to acquire as thorough and accurate a knowledge as they can of the whole volume which God’s Spirit inspired. ...
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But though all this is true, and most important and encouraging truth it is, it has nothing to do with the question as to what kind and degree of knowledge of God’s word may be attained, and ought to be aimed at, and what may be reasonably expected of those who aspire to be the public instructors of others. They ought not to be contented with knowing the word of God through the help of a translation, when they have opportunities of becoming acquainted with the original. They ought not to be satisfied with understanding the few fundamental principles of Scriptural truth, but are bound to acquire as thorough and accurate a knowledge as they can of the whole volume which God’s Spirit inspired. ...
For more, see:
William Cunningham on the labour of acquiring scriptural knowledge
A full, correct, and intelligent acquaintance with the Scriptures is not by any means so easy or so ordinary an attainment as men are sometimes apt to suppose. It requires a larger measure of natur…
reformedcovenanter.wordpress.com
