Reading
The theory that the truth once known will abide with us,
and render diligent Bible reading an unnecessary trouble is hurtful because it is false.
The truth will not remain with us in power unless we daily deal with it.
The human mind has no power to retain anything apart from regular use.
The memory of everything grows dim without renewal.
This is true even of things for which the mind has a natural affinity;
how much more true it is of divine ideas to which the mind is naturally alien.
Accustoming his mind to godliness, as his daily and hourly habit, a man will be able to say,
"How sweet unto my taste, O Lord, are all Thy words of truth."
Brother Robert Roberts
~
Education is a companion
which no misfortune can depress-
...no enemy alienate-
no despotism enslave.
At home, a friend-
abroad, an introduction-
in solitude, a solace-
in society, an ornament.
It shortens vice- it guides virtue-
it gives at once grace and government to genius.
Without it - what is man?
A splendid slave!
-vacillating between the dignity and intelligence derived from God,
and degradation of brute passion-
Herald of the Kingdom Age
1851
~
Those who do not read
cannot know the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Those who read and do not reflect on what they read
are little better off.
Under the Law,
the clean animals were those which chewed the cud-
those which in zoological language are called ruminant animals,
which not only take food,
but afterwards bring it up again for re-mastication,
deriving additional pleasure and enjoyment and nutrition from the process.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
After reading anything good,
give two or three minutes of quiet thought to the subject
before turning your attention to other things.
See how much you can remember concerning it;
and if there were any new ideas, instructive facts,
or points of especial interest that impressed you as you read,
force yourself to recall them.
Your mind will thus get under control,
and learn to obey your will.
The Christadelphian
1896
~
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”
This is the apostolic exhortation. It is the voice of reason.
It means that we must adopt the habits and methods that will lead to this result.
How can a man expect the word of Christ to dwell richly in him, who does not put it in,
but fills up his mind instead with the human thoughts
reflected in human literature of the moment,
and allows his heart to be wholly pre-occupied with the affairs of fleeting life
which may collapse like a bubble any moment?
“Give thyself to reading” are Paul's words again.
This is an absolute necessity.
Only by reading can we make God's acquaintance in his revealed word,
and come under the power of his thoughts and commandments.
The daily reading of the Bible ought to be the inexorable practice of every man
and woman who aims to “overcome” in the battle all have to wage,
who mean to “lay hold on eternal life.”
Brother Robert Roberts
The Christadelphian 1883
~
Study is a restraint,
compelling us, if we would learn anything,
to concentrate the forces of thought and to bridle the caprice of fancy-
The Herald
1851
~
The reading of the Scriptures
keeps in play a class of mental forces which enable a man to conquer,
and to live as a good steward of the manifold grace of God.
Assuredly, none else will be invited to possess and administer
the great trusts of the kingdom of God.
Waiting for God is a painful part meanwhile.
It never was intended to be anything else.
It involves self-denial on all hands.
It makes those who accept it the poor, the sorrowful, the meek, the weeping, the weary,
the hungry and thirsty, the broken down, the persecuted, the defamed, the disliked,
and (in past times) the killed;
but the future of this class is so glorious that Jesus tells them to rejoice
and be exceeding glad in the midst of their tribulations.
Theirs is the turning of weeping into laughter; theirs is the great joy of being,
in the great day at hand, the manifested children of God with glory,
honor, and immortality.
Who would not, in view of such a coming reversal of position,
choose rather to suffer affliction with the people of God
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season.
Brother Robert Roberts
1875
~
Spiritual decay potently prevails where the reading of the word is neglected.
A lamentable mistake is made by those who conclude they have no time to read.
What should we say of persons concluding they have no time to take their food?
No more insane would this be than the other hallucination in its ultimate effect.
Man does not live by bread alone.
Brother Robert Roberts
Seasons of comfort
~
There is no cheer like that developed
from the clear, quiet, confident repose in God
that comes from the daily reading of the scriptures
- and prayer without ceasing.
The day of sunshine is only a question of time,
which this habit makes us to realize.
Meetings are helpful, but the main reliance must be on
individual appropriation and contemplation of the Truth,
which requires solitude
as much as company for effectual exercise.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
A brother that seeks to be a good teacher
must first become a good student.
"he that is greatest among you shall be your servant"
~
The Bible Companion -
is a bond of fellowship among brethren and sisters around the world.
All who use it are within the space of twenty-four hours,
reading the same words,
guided into the same channels of holy thought,
moved in ways which can find expression in related prayer,
made strong before the throne of grace because they speak as one.
From Selah
~
Without the daily reading of the scriptures,
and meditation thereon,
there is no chance of success in the endeavor to
put on the new man.
There is so much in us by nature to hinder and oppose the work,
that we shall certainly be defeated
if we do not use amply the aid within our reach
in this life long struggle -
Brother Robert Roberts
~
Three - fourths of the popular novels of the day:
enfeeble the intellect,
impoverish the imagination,
vulgarize the taste and style,
give false or distorted views of life,
and human nature, and,
- which is worst of all,
waste that precious time
which should be given to
solid mental improvement.
Logos vol. 1
~
Those who do not read... cannot know the unsearchable riches of Christ.
Those who read and do not reflect upon what they read- are little better off.
Under the law, the clean animals were those which chewed the cud-
those which in zoological language are called ruminant animals, which not only take food, but afterwards bring it up again for re-mastication,
deriving additional pleasure and enjoyment and nutrition from the process.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
If a man neglect the reading of the Scriptures...
or if he only attend to it in an occasional manner,
his spiritual life will fade, and his mind will be gradually, but certainly,
leavened with the deceptive principles around him.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
Spiritual preparedness
for the Lord's coming is not a thing to be hurried up in a moment.
It is a state reached by a process of growth
and that process is indicated by Peter, when he says,
"As newborn babes
desire the sincere milk of the Word that you may grow thereby."
Brother Robert Roberts
~
The theory that the truth once known will abide with us,
and render diligent Bible reading an unnecessary trouble is hurtful because it is false.
The truth will not remain with us in power unless we daily deal with it.
The human mind has no power to retain anything apart from regular use.
The memory of everything grows dim without renewal.
This is true even of things for which the mind has a natural affinity;
how much more true it is of divine ideas to which the mind is naturally alien.
Accustoming his mind to godliness, as his daily and hourly habit,
a man will be able to say, "How sweet unto my taste, O Lord, are all Thy words of truth."
Brother Robert Roberts
~
The knowledge of God must be constantly kept streaming through the mind.
The study of the Word of God must be incessant.
It must be constantly renewed like our daily bread.
Only thus is the mind so thoroughly affinitized to the divine purpose as to be able instinctively to apprehend it accurately in all its remote and immediate bearings,
and eschew those quagmires of error which the sincere are constantly falling into from partial information…
Brother Robert Roberts
~
"To the law, how readest thou,"
is as applicable today as when uttered by him who
"spoke as never man spake:"
no better safeguard against the inroads of popery and infidelity
can be adopted than a thorough and minute acquaintance with the living oracles.
Brother John Thomas
1852 Herald
~
The knowledge of God's will is stored in a written form.
It is latent in these Divinely inscribed documents;
how to transfer it from these documents to the tablet of the heart-
this is the problem. It is a vital one.
Upon our solution of it depends our whole future...
We must read ponderingly - read regularly -
read with earnest desire - read with prayer.
And as all wise men, avoid whatever acts hinder the result of any difficult or delicate process they may be conducting, the man who aims to have the will of God, as Biblically embodied, inscribed vitally and enduringly on his mind,
will avoid all books and occupations and habits and friendships and companions,
that tend to erase the Divine writing, or to interfere with the power of the heart to receive it. Heb 4:12-13 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit,
and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight:
but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
Spiritual decay potently prevails where the reading of the word is neglected.
A lamentable mistake is made by those
who conclude they have no time to read.
What should we say of persons concluding
they have no time to take their food?
No more insane would this be than the other hallucination
in its ultimate effect.
Man does not live by bread alone.
Brother Robert Roberts
Seasons of comfort
~
If we store our mind by reading and reflection,
we shall be enabled to realize how short are the years as they fly by,
and how brief would be the delay of even a whole lifetime.
The man who neglects the food of wisdom
becomes impoverished and lean in his spiritual man,
and too weak to bear the load of present deprivation
or to endure the weariness of waiting.
God's plans are on a great scale, and of slow growth.
If we make ourselves familiar with what is past,
we shall understand what is present,
and be able to patiently wait what is future.
Brother Robert Roberts
The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.
Isa 40:8
~
"Pleasure"
deadens all moral perceptions and inclinations,
and leads its votaries downward in the path that leads to death.
No one has ever been helped to the Kingdom of God by theater going or novel reading.
By these the present life, which is a shadow, is stamped on the imagination as the reality;
and the purpose of God, which is a reality, is made to appear a myth.
Brother Robert Roberts
Seasons of Comfort
~
Imprint
the beauties of the prophets upon your imagination,
and their morals upon your heart.
Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come 1852
~
Ruin, slavery and death
are preferable to such a departure from the only thing that sweetens life and makes its evils tolerable.
"The Faith" and the contention for the faith "once delivered to the Saints,"
are the most interesting as well as the important subjects of thought and action that can be presented to the human mind.
They are the only things upon which we enter with any spirit
or energy of mind;
for there is no real abiding profit to be derived from anything else.
Brother John Thomas
The Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come
1852
~
This is the true meaning of edification:
the building of one another up in our most holy faith.
Now that which gives us the faith in the first instance is that which must keep the faith.
The reading that will plant the faith is the reading that will preserve and nurture it.
The human mind is like shifting sand in relation to everything
-not only in relation to things divine, but things human;
though more especially things divine. Human memory is a very feeble thing.
The substance of the mind, as it were, is always on the move
-always changing, always receiving new impressions, new thoughts.
The thoughts and impressions of yesterday are feebler to-day than when first received; and as time goes on,
they become feebler and feebler, until we are almost unconscious of them.
To keep a thing constantly in the mind,
it must be held continually in contact with it in some shape or form.
The faces of friends seen daily are not forgotten.
Now . If we look in its face daily, we shall keep it in mind;
but if we live in neglect of it, if we abandon or refrain from reading the scriptures,
or assembling one with another, the face of friend Truth will become dim.
The impressions that the truth has made upon our minds will gradually fade,
until they disappear altogether, and we shall become worldly-minded.
What a mistake for any of us to give the preference to any friend above friend Truth.
Friend Business, Friend Sociality, Friend Enjoyment, will cheat us at last;
but Friend Truth is a tree of life to them that lay hold of her.
Happy is everyone that receiveth her;
she will never deceive us but be precious and refreshing to our last mortal hour,
and crown us with life and joy for evermore.
Brother Robert Roberts
1868
~
“Thy word have I hid in my heart, that I might not sin against Thee.”
Beware of the danger of supposing that because we have once known,
it is no longer necessary to read diligently.
A greater or more fatal mistake could not be made.
While we are in the flesh, the natural mind is ever with us,
spontaneously generating its anti-god-like maxims, principles and feelings.
Unless we oppose to these the constant antidote of Scripture reading,
the natural mind will obtain the ascendant,
even after we have known the way of righteousness.
Brother Robert Roberts
~
Eureka is a breeze of truth
that comes from the high hills of prophetic vision
upon the nearly-stagnant atmosphere of the plains of ignorance below,
blowing away the sultry vapors and dispersing incipient disease.
It is a temple of light, resplendent with the hues of precious stones:
in the courts of which, those who love the light and the truth,
will often be found.
Brother Robert Roberts
1869
~
The Truth is for every-day use.
It is not, as some people imagine, a theory of things which,
once known, may be put away in an intellectual drawer or cupboard,
in reserve, like a useful document or memorandum of reference.
It is not a sensational thing, or an exceptional thing.
It is a thing of sober and practical necessity.
We require it every day, like our food.
God lives every day, and must be thanked and supplicated every day,
as the daily incense in the tabernacle typified.
This is what he requests, and what we need.
Christ lives every day, and makes intercession every day:
and every day we must come to the Father in his name,
as the morning and evening lamb of the first year on the altar showed forth.
The need for hope is with us every day,
and the need for help and the need for learning and guidance
in the ways of righteousness and danger.
“Be thou in the fear of the Lord all the day long,”
is one of the standing exhortations of the Spirit:
and it points to a constant actual need which the truth alone supplies.
Brother Robert Roberts