BIBLE STUDIES AND RELATED SUBJECTS (ELDER JOHN G. CROWLEY)

A sister church has adopted formal Bible studies, giving rise to wounded feelings among our fellowship. 

We wish to record our reasons for opposing these new things. We wish to be distinctly understood that we recommend the reading of the Holy Scriptures to all and sundry without reserve. We believe that the reading of the Scriptures has been used by God to awaken and feed His elect and that He imparts to them a hunger and thirst for His Word. 

We further believe that the people of God delight speak to one another about the spiritual treasures they find in the Word of God. 

We feel, however, that formal Bible Studies (so-called), after the manner of the Arminians, held week after week at a stated time, where the Bible is discussed and dissected with the tools of carnal reason as if it were the mere textbook of a human science, are a grave departure from the spiritual manner in which Old Baptists desire to worship. 

We feel such practices smack of burdensome duty and legal bondage, and give the appearance of going “after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the LORD had charged them, that they should not do like them” (II Kings 17:15). 

Some think formal Bible studies beneficial to the young, but often such tiresome regimentation sours children on worship and the Scriptures. A child growing up in a home where the Scriptures are truly loved and revered will not have to attend a special meeting to hear the Word quoted and expounded. Nor do we expect that the truth as it is in Jesus will long abide in such institutions founded on worldly wisdom.