Five Solas: Sola Scriptura (Scripture Pt 2)

Scripture – Part 2 (Mark Driscoll)

The Duty of Searching the Scriptures

Author: George Whitefield

“Search the Scriptures.” – John 5:39

Our blessed Lord, though he was the eternal God, yet as man, he made the scriptures his constant rule and guide. And therefore, when he was asked by the lawyer, which was the great commandment of the law, he referred him to his Bible for an answer, “What readest thou?” And thus, when led by the Spirit to be tempted by the devil, he repelled all his assaults, with “it is written.”

A sufficient confutation this, of their opinion, who say, “the Spirit only, and not the Spirit by the Word, is to be our rule of action.” If so, our Savior, who had the Spirit without measure, needed not always have referred to the written word.

But how few copy after the example of Christ? How many are there who do not regard the word of God at all, but throw the sacred oracles aside, as an antiquated book, fit only for illiterate men?

FIRSTLY, it is every person’s duty to search the Scriptures.

SECONDLY, Have always in view, the end for which the scriptures were written, even to show us the way of salvation, by Jesus Christ.

THIRDLY, Search the scriptures with a humble child-like disposition.

FOURTHLY, Search the scriptures, with a sincere intention to put in practice what you read.

FIFTHLY, In order to search the scriptures still more effectually, make an application of every thing you read to your own hearts.

SIXTHLY, direction how to search the scriptures with profit: Labor to attain that Spirit by which they were written.

SEVENTHLY, Let me advise you, before you read the scriptures, to pray, that Christ, according to his promise, would send his Spirit to guide you into all truth; intersperse short prayers whilst you are engaged in reading; pray over every word and verse, if possible; and when you close up the book, most earnestly beseech God, that the words which you have read, may be inwardly engrafted into your hearts, and bring forth in you the fruits of a good life.

EIGHTHLY, Read the scripture constantly, or, to use our Savior’s expression in the text, “search the scriptures;” dig in them as for hid treasure; for here is a manifest allusion to those who dig in mines; and our Savior would thereby teach us, that we must take as much pains in constantly reading his word, if we would grow wise thereby, as those who dig for gold and silver. The scriptures contain the deep things of God, and therefore, can never be sufficiently searched into by a careless, superficial, cursory way of reading them, but by an industrious, close, and humble application.

Search, therefore, the scriptures, my dear brethren; taste and see how good the word of God is, and then you will never leave that heavenly manna, that angel’s food, to feed on dry husks, that light bread, those trifling, sinful compositions, in which men of false taste delight themselves: no, you will then disdain such poor entertainment, and blush that yourselves once were fond of it. The word of God will then be sweeter to you than honey, and the honey-comb, and dearer than gold and silver; your souls by reading it, will be filled as it were, with marrow and fatness, and your hearts insensibly molded into the spirit of its blessed Author. In short, you will be guided by God’s wisdom here, and conducted by the light of his divine word into glory hereafter.