BIBLE & CHURCH

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 December 1939, Page 4

BIBLE & CHURCH

ADDRESS BY ARCHDEACON BULLOCK LOYALTY AND SELF-SACRIFICE. UNITY OF PURPOSE STRESSED. "The Bible is a Divine library consisting of 66 books, yet it is held to be one because it has such a unity of purpose," stated the Ven Archdeacon W. Bullock, Vicar-general of the Wellington Diocese in the course of an address on the Bible and the Church at the New Zealand Anglican Boys’ Bible Class Union's Dominion camp at Wairarapa College last night. There were three main points to be noted about this book, he said: —

(a) It began by being national in its outlook and then broadened out into the international. There was in it the story of a nation's life and its growth and development from the time of Abraham. This nation regarded itself as a "peculiar" people with a definite work given itself by God. The Hebrews had no artistic genius like the Greeks, nor law-making genius like the Romans, but they had a genius for religion to a far greater extent than any other nation. Starting with a national outlook it gradually widened out to become international and in the New Testament this religion widened out to become a big thing, in fact a world-wide thing. (b) This book or this library was selective. Not every bit of literature written by the Hebrews became part of it. There were other books before coming to the New Testament, which were not in the canon. There were certain standards which the books had to measure up to before they could be admitted to the canon. The books were therefore very carefully selected—the miracle of the preservation of the Scriptures. (c) This Divine book was a collection of religious writing. It had to do with the record of man’s dealings with God. This was an evolutionary thing—evolution and development never proceeded evenly. That was why they had a mixture of noble and ignoble stories x in the Old Testament. We saw the evolution in the idea of God until in the New Testament times Christ came —God’s reaching down to man and mans’ reaching up to God. “The Bible is not a thing which exists in ‘vows’—it does not exist by itself,” said Archdeacon Bullock. “It did not produce religion—it was produced by it. It was the life of the community that produced the book —but the Church and the Bible must never be separated. ‘No Scripture is of pri- o vate interpretation.’ You cannot disregard the beloved community that produced the Bible—if you do you go wrong. In interpreting the Book you have to remember that it is the Book of God's people, and you must take that into consideration if you are to understand it properly. You must take the ‘Catholic’ view. This regard for the f Church is a very important matter. The Jewish Church was all, right until a certain disease set in. They believed they were God’s people. That was right. Then, however, they came to think that they were exclusive and existed only for themselves. When that happened this usefulness was gone. The Christian Church went on for a time as a beloved community until the same fault crept in. The Church exists not for its glorification but to bring the Kingdom of God on earth. The Church got broken up. It broke up into many pieces, particularly at the Reformation period. For this it is impossible to apportion the blame, as all men are sinners. The beloved community has been broken into fragments, and the body of Christ has no unity. Because of this division each section of the Church at its worst thinks only of itself. Because of all this, false Gods have taken the place and captured the vision that should be devoted to the City of God. The qualities that should belong to the Church are today being given to false Gods in the totalitarian states: (1) a sense of ’corporateness: (2) loyalty: and (3) self-sacrifice. It is because we have lost the sense of the Church, and the sense of the community, that we have lost those qualities—corporateness and catholicity. Unless we regain this we are finished. And we cannot have corporateness unless we have loyalty. This means faithfulness. It must be free, yet it must always include the idea of the welfare of the community. But you cannot have this loyalty unless you have self-sacrifice. If we are to build up a Bible Class Union which matters, we must build it up on the idea of corporateness, loyalty and selfsacrifice."