When I commenced preaching it was usual to quote, in a single sermon, almost a hundred texts of Scripture. Each head of discourse had its own list of authorities. In my youthful sallies I was accustomed to quote ten texts, as we called them, for one I now cite. There is no greater delusion than an array of verses, torn out of their respective contexts, and arranged in a new connection in support of some view or tenet, that was not before the mind of the inspired author, whose words we thus take without his consent, to illustrate or prove that which, were he present, he would most explicitly repudiate and disallow. - Alexander Campbell, Campbell-Rice Debate, p.542.  

Alexander Campbell said that there is no greater delusion than to quote an array of verses out of their contexts. It is that delusion that is the subject of this installment. As Campbell grew older and learned more, he quoted but one verse for every ten he quoted in his youth he tells us. Ashe learned to interpret the Scriptures more responsibly he overcame the delusion of his youth.  

This delusion is especially present among so-called "Bible preachers" and Fundamentalists, and it is by no means absent in our own Churches of Christ' Christian Churches. Sermons are judged by "how much Bible" they have, and this usually means an array of quotations. Only recently here in Denton I heard a sermon praised on the basis that "It must have had at least 70 scriptures quoted." Many of our people are convinced that one doesn't "preach the Bible" if he does not quote a lot of Scripture.  

It is odd that people who profess such loyalty to the Bible would have this idea when the Bible itself would suggest just the opposite. The earliest Christians studied portions of Scripture or letters as a whole and not as an array of isolated quotes. This is the way it was with Paul and the apostles: "When this epistle is read among you, see that it is read also in the church of the Laodicians, and that you likewise read the epistle from Laodicea" (Col. 4:16). Paul assured the Ephesians that they could "understand the mystery" when they read the letter he wrote to them (Eph. 3.4), and Rev. 1:3 blesses both the reader and the hearer of the words of that book. Today in our churches we have little reading of the Bible itself, and not much study of it contextually. We have sermons instead, and these are often prooftexting: an affirmation followed by a prooftext. Such preachers often dogmatize, even pontificate. We are right, and we prove it by endless quotations from the Bible!

There is far too little expository teaching in our pulpits and classrooms, where the Bible, if no more than a paragraph, is explained and made relevant to our time and circumstance.

It is a fallacy to presume that one is teaching the Bible when he is quoting an array of verses. True, the hearers may become familiar with certain passages when they are repeated over and over, but they will understand little of the Scriptures as a whole and in connection, and virtually nothing of the intent of the writer in a given passage. Edification means more than lining up Bible verses.

If the Bible is our guide in this regard, it is evident that when Jesus and the apostles made use of their Scriptures, which is our Old Testament, it was their intent to get at the meaning of a verse, perhaps but one, rather than to string out quotations as one hangs clothes on a line. On two different occasions Jesus answers his critics by referring to one verse. "Go and find out what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,"' he said to the Pharisees in reference to Hosea 6:6 (see both Mt. 9:13 and Mt. 12:7).

This suggests that our Lord was highly selective in drawing upon the Scriptures. So it was when he confronted Satan in the wilderness, a few well-placed passages being sufficient. In his home town of Nazareth he read from the Scriptures, all of two verses from Isaiah, and then shocked his hearers with, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." Jesus' use of Scripture indicates that his desire was to reach the heart and mind of people qualitatively rather than quantitatively. He did not bombard and lambast with the Bible.

His chosen apostle, who gives us much of the New Testament, was not unlike him in this regard. Paul was in fact very effective with one-liners, such as "The just shall live by faith" (Rom. 1:17), which he quoted from the Old Testament to support his great doctrine of justification by faith. Even when Paul resorted to "As it is written," his favorite entree, he often referred to but a single line, as in 1 Cor. 3:19. When he uses Scripture more extensively, as he does throughout Romans, he usually selects a body of verses, such as a Psalm, in context, in making his point, as we see in Rom. 3:10-18. As fond as Paul is of drawing upon Scripture, the reader never gets the impression that he indulged in overkill.

Actor Alan Alda recently demonstrated to a graduating class at Harvard Medical School that it is not how much you say that counts but what you say, not how much you prove something but how well you prove it. Since he had for many years played the part of a physician on TV, the students supposed that he would have a lot to say about what it means to be a doctor. He surprised them with how little - and yet how much - he had to say. When it was time for him to address the graduating class, he got up and spoke one sentence and sat back down. That one sentence struck home with such force that the students gave him a standing ovation.

The sentence was "The head bone is connected to the heart bone."

Those students are more likely to remember that one sentence than if Alda had talked at length. And long after they become doctors they may be influenced by the great truth of a single sentence, that in serving suffering humanity the heart counts too.

Brother Campbell would have us see that imposing on an audience a headfull of verses is actually a hermeneutical fallacy. It is not the right way to interpret or to teach the Bible. It is the shot from a rifle that hits the bull's eye, while the scattered shots of a shotgun blast go astray and fall short of the target. It is results we want, not noise. We want to teach and edify and encourage, not to intimidate or impress. We want the Spirit to speak through God's word, not ourselves.

In saying that we might use less Scripture and yet be more effective I do not want to be misunderstood. We should be eminently Biblical in our preaching and teaching, and this may sometime call for the use of considerable Scripture, especially in verse by verse contextual study, or even in thematic studies where we gather all the information available on a given subject.

But I am saying that we should nurture people in the Bible somewhat like we nurture them with food. The best cooks do not necessarily serve up everything in the cupboard. One delicious, nutritious dish on one table just might be better fare than a smorgasbord on another. Being truly Biblical is not simply calling up an array of verses on a given subject, but in being a faithful interpreter of the Scriptures. — the Editor