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    How Readest Thou?
    How Readest Thou?
    How Readest Thou?
    Ebook78 pages1 hour

    How Readest Thou?

    By J. C. Ryle

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    About this ebook

    Join J.C. Ryle as he explains the benefits of reading (and rereading) the Bible, and find inspiration for your daily devotions in this classic work.

     

    From the text: "The Bible alone explains the state of things that we see in the world around us. There are many things on earth which a natural man cannot explain. The amazing inequality of conditions, the poverty and distress, the oppression and persecution, the failures of politicians and legislators, the constant existence of uncured evils and abuses—all these things are often puzzling. We see it, but do not understand. But the Bible makes it all clear. Do you read the Bible?"

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCommunity Christian Ministries
    Release dateJan 3, 2024
    ISBN9781882840762
    How Readest Thou?
    Author

    J. C. Ryle

    J. C. Ryle (1816–1900) was a prominent writer, preacher, and Anglican clergyman in nineteenth-century England. He is the author of the classic Expository Thoughts on the Gospels and retired as the bishop of Liverpool.

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      Book preview

      How Readest Thou? - J. C. Ryle

      Epigraph

      What is written in the law? How readest thou?

      —Luke 10:26

      How Readest Thou?

      Reader,

      The question before your eyes is 1,800 years old. It was asked by our Lord Jesus Christ. It was asked concerning the Bible.

      I invite you to examine and consider this question. I warn you, it is just as mighty and important now as it was on the day when it came from our Lord’s lips. I want to apply it to the conscience of everyone who reads this paper, and to knock at the door of his heart. I would fain sound a trumpet in the ear of every one who speaks English, and cry aloud, How readest thou? Dost thou read the Bible?

      Why do I hold this question to be of such mighty importance? Why do I press it on the notice of every man, as a matter of life and death? Give me your attention for a few minutes, and you shall see. Follow me through these pages, and you shall hear why I ask, How readest thou? Dost thou read the Bible?

      I. I ask, first of all, because there is no knowledge absolutely needful to a man’s salvation, except a knowledge of the things which are to be found in the Bible.

      We live in days when the words of Daniel are fulfilled before our eyes: Many run to and fro, and knowledge is increased (Daniel 12:4). Schools are multiplying on every side. New colleges are set up. Old universities are reformed and improved. New books are continually coming forth. More is being taught, more is being learned, more is being read, than there ever was since the world began. It is all well. I rejoice at it. An ignorant population is a perilous and expensive burden to any nation. It is a ready prey to the first Absalom, or Catiline, or Wat Tyler, or Jack Cade, who may arise to entice it to do evil. But this I say—we must never forget that all the education a man’s head can receive will not save his soul from hell, unless he knows the truths of the Bible.

      A man may have prodigious learning, and yet never be saved. He may be master of half the languages spoken round the globe. He may be acquainted with the highest and deepest things in heaven and earth. He may have read books till he is like a walking cyclopaedia. He may be familiar with the stars of heaven, the birds of the air, the beasts of the earth, and the fishes of the sea. He may be able, like Solomon, to speak of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop that grows on the wall, of beasts also, and fowls, and creeping things, and fishes (1 Kings 4:33). He may be able to discourse of all the secrets of fire, air, earth, and water. And yet, if he dies ignorant of Bible truths, he dies a miserable man. Chemistry never silenced a guilty conscience. Mathematics never healed a broken heart. All the sciences in the world never smoothed down a dying pillow. No earthly philosophy ever supplied hope in death. No natural theology ever gave peace in the prospect of meeting a holy God. All these things are of the earth, earthy, and can never raise a man above the earth’s level. They may enable a man to strut and fret his little season here below with a more dignified gait than his fellow mortals, but they can never give him wings and enable him to soar towards heaven. He that has the largest share of them will find at length that without Bible knowledge he has got no lasting possession. Death will make an end of all his attainments, and after death they will do him no good at all.

      A man may be a very ignorant man, and yet be saved. He may be unable to read a word, or write a letter. He may know nothing of geography beyond the bounds of his own parish, and be utterly unable to say which is nearest, Paris or New York. He may know nothing of arithmetic, and not see any difference between a million and a thousand. He may know nothing of history, not even of his own land, and be quite ignorant whether his country owes most to Semiramis, Boadicea, or Queen Elizabeth I. He may know nothing of the affairs of his own times, and be incapable of telling you whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer, or the Commander-in-Chief, or the Archbishop of Canterbury is managing the national finances. He may know nothing of science and its discoveries: and whether Julius Caesar won his victories by gunpowder, or the apostles had a printing press, or the sun goes round the earth, may be matters about which he has not an idea. And yet if that very man has heard Bible truth with his ears, and believed it with his heart, he knows enough to save his soul. He will be found at last with Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, while his scientific fellow creature, who has died unconverted, is lost forever.

      Knowledge of the Bible, in short, is the one knowledge that is needful. A man may get to heaven without money, learning, health, or friends—but without Bible knowledge he will never get there at all. A man may have the mightiest of minds, and a memory stored with all that mighty mind can grasp—and yet, if he does not know the things of the Bible, he will make shipwreck of his soul forever. Woe! woe! woe to the man who dies in ignorance of the Bible!

      Reader, this is the Book about which I am addressing you today. It is no light matter what you do with such a book. It concerns the life of your soul. I summon you—I charge you to give an honest answer to my question. What art thou doing with the Bible? Dost thou read it? How readest thou?

      II. I ask, in the second place, because there is no book in existence written in such a manner as the Bible.

      The Bible is given by inspiration of God (2 Timothy 3:16). In this respect it is utterly unlike all other writings. God taught the writers of it what to say. God put into their minds thoughts and ideas. God guided their pens in setting down those thoughts and ideas. When you read it, you are not reading the self-taught compositions of poor imperfect men like yourself, but the words of the eternal God. When you hear it, you are not listening to the erring opinions of short-lived mortals, but to the unchanging mind of the King of kings. The men who were employed to indite the Bible spake not of themselves. They spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost (2 Peter 1:21). All other books in the

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