"Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ." -- Jerome (340-420) [Latin scholar who produced the Vulgate.]
"To get the full flavor of an herb, it must be pressed between the fingers, so it is the same with the Scriptures; the more familiar they become, the more they reveal their hidden treasures and yield their indescribable riches." -- John Chrysostom, (347-407) [Antioch-born Greek prelate]
"This Bible is for the government of the people, by the people and for the people."-- John Wycliffe (1330-1384) in "The Lion Christian Quotation Collection" [English reformer]
"I have no rest, but in a nook, with the Book."-- Thomas á Kempis (1380-1471) [German author]
"I am very sorry to know and hear how unreverently that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed, sung, and jangled in every ale-house and tavern, contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same." -- Henry VIII (1491-1547) speaks to Parliament on the translation of the Bible into English. [English monarch] Note: Although no paragon of virtue, he understood what the Bible meant to the people that he ruled.
"But still ye will say I cannot understand it. What marvel? How shouldest thou understand, if thou wilt not read, nor look upon it? Take the books into thine hands, read the whole story, and that thou understandest, keep it well in memory; that thou understandest not, read it again, and again. If thou can neither so come by it, counsel with some other that is better learned. Go to thy curate and preacher; show thyself to be desirous to know and learn, and I doubt not but God - seeing thy diligence and readiness (if no man else teach thee) - will himself vouchsafe with his holy spirit to illuminate thee, and to open unto thee that which was locked from thee."-- Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) [Archbishop of Canterbury under King Henry VIII.]
"There are two books laid before us to study, to prevent our falling into error; first, the volume of the Scriptures, which reveal the will of God; then the volume of the creatures, which express His power."-- Francis Bacon (1561-1626) [Lord Chancellor of England; scientist]
"The Holy Scriptures cannot lie." -- Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) [Astronomer and physicist]
"I am verily persuaded that the Lord has more Truth yet to break forth out of His holy Word. For my part, I cannot sufficiently bewail the Condition of the Reformed Churches, who are come to a Period in Religion and will go at present no farther than the instruments of their Reformation. The Lutheran can't be drawn to go beyond what Luther saw; and the Calvinists, you see, stick fast where they were left by that great man of God, who yet saw not all things... I beseech you, remember, 'tis an Article of your Church Covenant, that you be ready to receive whatever Truth shall be made known to you from the written Word of God."-- John Robinson (1705-1766) [Jamestown colonist]
"For the Bible is not chained in every expression to conditions as strict as those that govern all physical effects; nor is God any less excellently revealed in Nature’s actions than in the sacred testaments of the Bible."-- Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) [English mathematician and scientist]
"Come to the Bible, not to study the history of God's divine
action, but to be its object; not to learn what it has achieved
throughout the centuries and still does, but simply to be the
subject of its operation." -- Jean-Pierre de Caussade
(1675-1751) [professor; author]
"The foundation of the Christian's peace is everlasting; it is
what no time, no change, can destroy. It will remain when the
body dies; it will remain when the mountains depart and the
hills shall be removed, and when the heavens shall be rolled
together as a scroll. The fountain of his comfort shall never be
diminished, and the stream shall never be dried. His comfort and
joy is a living spring in the soul, a well of water springing up
to everlasting life.-- Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) [American
theologian and philosopher]
"I am a creature of a day. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God. I want to know one thing: the way to heaven. God himself has condescended to teach me the way. He has written it down in a book. Oh, give me that book! At any price give me the book of God. Let me be a man of one book. -- John Wesley (1703-1791) [British religious leader, founder of Methodism]
"(The Bible) is in my opinion the most sublime of all books; when all others will bore me, I will always go back to it with new pleasure; and when all human consolations will be lacking, never have I vainly turned to its own."-- Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) [Swiss philosopher, writer]
"God's Word, contained in the Bible, has furnished all necessary rules to direct our conduct."-- Noah Webster (1758-1843) [American lexicographer]
"The nearer I approach to the end of my pilgrimage, the clearer is the evidence of the divine origin of the Bible."-- Samuel F.B. Morse (1791-1879) [inventor]
"I believe the Bible is the best gift God has ever given to men. All the good from the Savior of the world is communicated to us through this book."-- Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) [American president]
"All the wonders of the Greek civilization heaped together are less wonderful than the single book of Psalms. Greece had all that this world could give her; but the flowers of Paradise blossomed in Palestine alone."-- William Ewart Gladstone (1809-1874) [English prime minister, orator, author]
"Oh, ye infidel philosophers, teach me how to find joy in sorrow, strength in weakness, and light in darkest days; how to bear buffeting and scorn; how to welcome death, and to pass through it into the sphere of life, and this not for me only, but for the whole world that groans and travails in pain; and till you can do this, speak not to me of a better revelation than the Bible."-- Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) [orator; American abolitionist]
"Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of your liberties; write its precepts on your hearts and practice them in your lives. To the influence of this Book we are indebted for the progress made, and to this we must look as our guide in the future."-- Ulysses S. Grant (1822-1885) [American president; Union commander, Civil War]
"No book...ever competed with the Bible. The story of Ruth was better than Ramona, and the poetry of Job was better than Longfellow. I still have my first big Bible, carefully underlined through with red and black ink, and interleafed [sic] with painfully written manuscript pages.... Margery [her sister] and I earned our five cents a week for church and a penny for Sunday school by learning three verses of the Bible a day and six on Sunday. We learned dozens and dozens of chapters. I supposed 'Evangeline' and 'Hiawatha' were better poetry, but I didn’t like them so well." -- Ruth Benedict (1887–1948) [American anthropologist]
"Just as the Holy Spirit came upon the womb of Mary, so He came upon the brain of a Moses, a David, an Isaiah, a Paul, a John and the rest of the writers of the divine library. The power of the Highest overshadowed them, therefore that holy thing which was born of their minds is called the Holy Bible, the word of God. The writing of Luke will, of course, have the vocabulary of Luke and the work of Paul will bear the stamp of Paul's mind. However, this is only in the same manner that the Lord Jesus might have had eyes like his mother's or hair that was the same color and texture as hers. He did not inherit her sins because the Holy Spirit has come upon her. If we ask, how could this be, the answer is God says so. And the writings of men of the Book did not inherit the errors of their carnal minds because their writings were conceived by the Holy Spirit and born out of their personalities without partaking of their fallen nature. If we ask, how could this be, again the answer is God says so." -- Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse (1895-1960) [author; preacher]
"The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact, or of Christian faith and practice."-- F.F. Bruce (1910-1990) [Textual scholar]
"We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy." -- R.C. Sproul (1939-present) [professor, author]
Nothing is to be added and nothing taken from the full counsel of
God. All patterns of living must be scrutinized in light God's
Biblical counsel.
To disobey the commands and principles given in His Scriptures is to
invite disaster upon ourselves and our loved ones. Ignorance will
not excuse us from reaping what we sow.