The Reading of Scripture in Family Worship (2)

How far the portion of Scripture which is read shall be expounded must depend on the gifts of the officiating person, and the circumstances and character of his family. The all-important thing undoubtedly is the word of revelation. Yet it is good to do everything which may render this more plain, or carry it to the heart. Situated as most families are, the continuous reading of an entire commentary is scarcely to be thought of. Great profit has, however, been derived from skilful selections such as Scott’s Notes,Matthew Henry’s Exposition,the works of Brown, Doddridge’s Expositor,and Home on the Psalms. Other books, not commentaries, may be occasionally used in short portions, such as Jay’s “Morning and Evening Exercises,” Mason’s “Spiritual Treasury,” and Hawker’s “Poor Man’s Morning Portion.”…

Oral exposition by the father of the family is a more difficult work, and should not be attempted without due consideration. It is certainly desirable that a passing remark should now and then be thrown in to explain a hard word, prevent a misconception, or apply a divine sentence to the heart. “I make no formal comment on the Scripture,” says Mr. Cecil, “but when any striking event or sentiment arises, I say, Mark that! see how God judges of that thing! Sometimes I ask what they think of the matter, and how such a thing strikes them.” A suitable pause, after some remarkable passage, is often itself a comment. The father may often with profit select a verse or more to be meditated on, or committed to memory during the day.

There are certain persons who, by their station or their gifts, may seem called upon to enter more freely than others upon the work of exposition. And here we would again cite Philip Henry. “What he read in his family he always expounded, and exhorted all ministers to do so, as an excellent means of increasing their acquaintance with the Scriptures. His expositions were not so much critical as plain, and practical, and useful, and such as tended to edification, and to answer the end for which the Scriptures were written, which is to make us wise unto salvation. And herein he had a peculiar excellence, performing that daily exercise with so much judgment, and at the same time with such facility and clearness, as if every exposition had been premeditated; and very instructive they were, as well as affecting to the auditors. He often admired that saying of Tertullian’s, ‘I adore the fulness of the Scriptures.’ When sometimes he had hit upon some useful observation that was new to him, he would say afterwards to those about him, ‘How often have I read this chapter, and never before now took notice of such a thing in it.” He put his children, while they were with him, to write these expositions; and when they were gone from him, the strangers that sojourned with him did the same.

This is a branch of the subject on which we do not use any urgency because few have the gifts of Philip Henry or of Richard Cecil. There are, no doubt, many men who would find themselves less at home in the colloquial exposition of a chapter than in a labored discourse. While few things are better than a timely, judicious exposition, nothing can be worse than the opposite abuse. We dare not give an indiscriminate exhortation to the duty, lest we should subject some poor family to the infliction of tedious, ignorant, erroneous, or overheated harangues, under the name of expounding Scripture at family prayer. But where a Christian parent feels himself called to engage in this service, with due preparation and reliance on God, he may look for blessed results.

The mannerof reading the Bible in the family is of great importance. Our judgment is that too much care cannot be bestowed on this point. If anything should be well read, it is God’s message. Half its meaning, and almost all its effect, are sometimes suffocated and lost by a sleepy, monotonous, careless, inarticulate, drawling, or what is worse, an affected delivery.

For this reason, we are altogether convinced that the portion of Scripture should, in general, be wholly read by the head of the family. We often complain, with justice, of the interruption of the sense, occasioned by the breaking up of the passage into verses; but this evil is made tenfold worse when each verse is pronounced by a different person. However the mode of reading in rotation may seem to awaken attention, it is clearly injurious to the effect. No one would ever think of reading any secular paragraph of lively interest, such as a letter or news from Europe, in this manner. It gives the solemn service too much the air of a school lesson, with all the worst annoyances of a school, such as the spelling out of words, mispronunciation and mistakes, losing the place, and different mishaps tending to the ludicrous. The solemn service of God should not be made a school lesson. Let each have his Bible, but let it be felt that the Scriptures cannot be read too well even by the best reader in the house; and there is a propriety in having it pronounced with all solemnity and expression and without interruption by him who has the reverence of all present. Such is our decided opinion which, however, we would not for a moment seek to impose as a yoke on that liberty which we dearly prize in all divine service.

It is so far from being a matter of indifference, how or by whom the Scriptures shall be read in family worship, that particular care should be bestowed on a due preparation for this work by every head of a family. Supposing him to be a man not familiar with every part of the Bible, there would be nothing amiss in his reading over with great attention, in private, the chapter to which he is about to attend with his family. No one need consider it beneath his dignity to make good reading his special study, not in the way of rhetorical rule and elocutionary trick (far be it from us to recommend the emptiest of all pretenses!) but by fully understanding the language and deeply entering into the spirit of the passage… It has often been asserted that the reading of a chapter by the late Dr. John M. Mason was as good as another man’s exposition; and we have heard a clergyman say, that he would walk ten miles to hear Dean Kirwan repeat the Lord’s Prayer. We have seldom felt the power of delivery more than in hearing Summerfield rehearse a passage of Scripture, without a comment. It is true that we cannot, with all our study, hope to be Kirwans, Masons, or Summerfields, but we may keep ourselves from being intolerably bad. From the acme of their elocution there is an unbroken descent, down to the halting humdrum, listless, careless, and therefore profane manner in which the sacred oracles are sometimes read at family worship,

Bible distribution, now in so happy a progress, should lead to family Bible reading. Happy would be our nation if every house possessed not only the volume, but this use of it. It is not enough that we lay the volume at every man’s door…. Though we strive to furnish the book, it is not the mere furnishing of the book which is to save the world. Yet the storehouse of medicine is not the less necessary because some will not use it. It is the book in which all have a common interest; it is the onlysuch book. Since the great efforts made during our century for this object, certain mockers have sneered at an alleged superstitious adoration of the Bible which the objectors have been pleased to name Bibliolatry.They have declared that the Word of God was more venerated, and sought more eagerly, when it was hard to reach, and when the massive folio of the sixteenth century used to be chained fast to a pillar in some English church. Now, while we acknowledge that a loaf of bread is more valued in a ship on short allowance, or in the famine of a siege, than on the tables of plenty, we are not the less desirous that every man should have his loaf.

We bless God for handing down his precious Word, not only by the church, but by the family. We have received it from our fathers, and we would transmit it to our latest posterity. Family instruction in the Scripture goes very far back: “And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children,and shalt talk of them, when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes. And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates” (Dt. 6:7–9). The modern Jews resemble the Papists in some things, but they have never become idolaters and they have never withheld the Word of God from laity. It has been read in every synagogue for centuries and is so read to this hour; it is read in every Hebrew house every day. It is our hope that the day will come when at least as much as this may be said of Christians all over the world. Let us send down the Word of God to our descendants. When I look at the folio Bible which was my grandfather’s, I cannot bear the thought that it should stop with me. Human generations change, but God’s truth abides. “For all flesh is grass, and all the glory of man is like the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but the Word of the Lord endureth for ever” (1 Pet. 11:24,25). This is the Word which we desire may be read in the houses of our offspring, when Christ shall appear.

Jesus the Reward

He’s the goal …

the destination … the objective.

He’s the purpose …

the cause … the reason.

He’s the incentive…

the motivation … the inspiration.

He’s the hope …

the assurance . .. the security.

He’s the prize …

the glory. .. the crown!

In GENESIS—the Seed of the woman,

EXODUS—the Passover Lamb,

LEVITICUS—atoning Sacrifice,

NUMBERS—the smitten Rock,

DEUTERONOMY—the Prophet

JOSHUA—the Captain,

JUDGES—the Deliverer,

RUTH—the Kinsman,

KINGS—the Ruler,

NEHEMIAH—the Restorer,

ESTHER—the Advocate,

JOB—the Redeemer,

PSALMS—the Shepherd,

PROVERBS—Wisdom,

ECCLESIASTES—the Goal,

SONG OF SOLOMON—the Groom,

PROPHETS—Coming One,

GOSPELS—the God-man,

ACTS—the risen One,

EPISTLES—Head of the Church,

REVELATION—the worthy One.

Dr. lames W. Alexander (1804–1859), eldest son of the renowned Archibald Alexander, wrote many volumes on practical Christian Themes, includingPlain Words to a Young Communicant (1854) andThoughts on Preaching (1864). This article is drawn from hisThoughts on Family Worship (1847).

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