PHILADELPHIA
T H E J U D S O N P R E S S
| BOSTON | CHICAGO | LOS ANGLES |
| KANSAS CITY | SEATTLE | TORONTO |
Copyright, 1923 by
GILBERT N. BRINK, SECRETARY
Published October, 1923
PRINTED IN U. S. A.
| THIS LITTLE BOOK |
| IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED |
| TO THE THOUSANDS OF PERSONS |
| W H O T H R O U G H M A N Y Y EARS |
| HAVE OPENED E A R S AND HEARTS |
| TO R E C E I V E THE B E S T THAT |
| O N E T E A C H I N G P A S T O R |
| COULD BRING FROM HIS OWN STUDY |
| AND THOSE OF COUNTLESS OTHERS |
STATEMENT OF
THE SAMUEL A. CROZER LECTURESHIP
IN
THE CROZER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
The Samuel A. Crozer Lectureship founded in 1880, provides for specical lectures dilivered at the Seminary during each year. The instrument defining the object of Lectureship says:
The person to deliver lectures shall be chosen by the Faculty of the Seminary, subject to the approval of the Board of Trustees ...The topic of these lectures to be subjects that are profitable to be presented to Christian ministers or students for the ministry. In selecting lecturers the Faculty shall not be restricted to the Baptist denomination, but may appoint from any denomination termed evangelical, from laymen as well as ministers, and from citizens of foreign countries or our own as they (the Faculty) see fit. The lecturer may give single lectures, or a course of lectures, as circumstances may indicate or the Faculty may appoint.
On this foundation courses of lectures have been deliverd annually since 1880, but very few have been printed.
The present volume contains the lectures delivered in March, 1923, by the Reverend William C. Bitting, D. D., pastor of the Second Baptist Church, St. Louis, Missouri. Few pastors are better qualified to present the material contained in the volume; and it is issued with the conviction that it will be helpful to others in “the ministry of the Word.”
MILTON G. EVANS,
President Crozer Theological Seminary.June, 1923.
THE necessary limitation of the number of these lectures caused the giving up of the first intention to open the course with a treatment of the historical method of Bible study. Every lecture is based upon the use of that method. The writer believes that every part of the Bible is not only literature, but also in conception, utterance, and original publication an historical event that had a definite relation to the author or speaker, and to contemporary conditions. With possibly the exception of some psalms that are general expressions of religious feeling, the Scriptures cannot be understood, nor their power appreciated, without some knowledge of the historical situations out of which they grew.
It should further be stated that the subject was chosen because of experiences of the writer who for many years has tried to pursue the methods he advocates. His ministry has thoroughly vindicated both the intellectual sanity and spiritual value of what the lectures so inadequately describe. Observation also has confirmed experience. The lectures are suggestive, not exhaustive. No one could be more conscious of the incompleteness of treatment of any topic than the writer. Every paragraph in the lectures should be expanded for anything like a full treatment of the subject discussed therein. The reader will be able to enlarge upon the topic.
Quotations have been avoided. References have been confined mainly to the Bible itself. There is little literature extant upon the precise topic with which the lectures deal. The volumes of The Biblical World from the beginning until that periodical ceased to limit itself specifically to Bible study contain many articles that bear upon the topics treated herein. There will also be found in some publications of the Religious Education Association articles which deal with the same matter in a more or less thoroughly scientific way. The resources of general literature have not been utilized, although the wealth of illustration that could have been derived from poems, novels, essays, and books upon the Bible is limitless.
The lectures are published with a high sense of the privilege of making known the experiences of one minister, and of the joy in the effort to induce others to make the same experiment. The writer does not at all depreciate any other form of the ministry, every activity of which is noble, useful, and necessary beyond the power of words to describe. Nevertheless, the specific work herein advocated seems to be called for and is opportune in the present generation with its emphasis upon education, and the constantly increasing facilities provided by the State, by religion, and by private generosity. It also seems to be imperative because of conditions now existing in all Christian denominations, our own no less than others.
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A note to all the Ken and Esther Bitting descendants and those who married us!
Thanks to the assist of a scanner (remarkable, scanned two pages at a time with very few errors!), all six lectures are now up on this site (bugs and all). Presented less than two years before his retirement as pastor of Second Baptist, these lectures are in some sense autobiographical, and in many ways, a personal perspective of what his lifetime as a pastor taught him about life, living and the on-going revelation of God in the world.
On November 24, 1859, the British naturalist, Charles Darwin, published his famous work, THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. It sold out immediately and lauched into the world a theory of the orgins of Homo sapiens (formerly just known as man) that sent powerful shock waves to what seemed then to many to be the very core of Christian belief, and they reverberate with force even to this day.
We all seem to live in exciting times. Perhaps in the world of religion, nothing had lead to such “excitement” in a score of centuries. Quite a time of find one’s self a minister, a scholar, a leader! Part way through the powerful summation of his life and beliefs on the last full page his “Reminiscences” he says:
It was my belief in this method, which could not be withheld in the face of overwhelming evidence, that led me, after a great crisis in 1885, to give to it my thorough allegiance, and ever since then I have been regarded by my more conservative brethren as being off color. Their characterizations have varied according to their own degree of conservatism. To some I have been a liberal, to others a modernist, to others a rank heretic, and have been publicly called an infidel.
I think in these lectures one gets a real sense of the energy and enthusiam that characterised W.C. Bitting as well as his love of the Lord, life and his fellow man. Thanks to the www and it’s vast dimension increasing the democracy of information, we can all share in this little tome of big ideas. I’m sure WCB would have embraced the internet, and found in it more of God’s revelation of Himself to man! I especially hope Doug and Angela will enjoy these words from our past and find in them some ideas as fresh as today! ...wcb2 – 5/17/98
The Teaching Pastor Table of Contents
For a look at the book’s cover.
William C. Bitting II
wbitting@yahoo.com Revised 10/20/00 (prior 6/20/98).
