Even the most superficial perusal of the Scriptures shows that they came
of practical contact with men and things. There is comparatively little
in the entire content of our Sacred Book to suggest the speculations of
abstract philosophy. The writers deal with the concrete. They tell of
men and of peoples who had to face facts and who achieved comprehensions
and convictions through grappling with facts. There is about the
Scriptures what some one has called a sort of "out-of-doors-ness." There
is very little hint of withdrawal from the push and pressure of daily
living. If the prophets ever withdrew to solitude, they did not retire
to closets, but rather to deserts or to mountains. We must not allow our
modern familiarity with bookmaking as an affair of library research and
tranquil meditation in seclusion to mislead us into thinking that the
Christian Bible was wrought out in similar fashion. The Book is full of
the tingle and even the roar of the life out of which it was born. Jesus
gathered up in a single sentence the process by which the scriptural
revelation can be apprehended by man when he said, "He that doeth the
will shall know of the truth." The entire scriptural unfolding is one
vast commentary on this utterance of Jesus.

It is impossible for us in this series of studies to attempt any
detailed survey of the revealing movement of which our Scriptures are
the outcome. It is important, however, that we should see clearly that
the revelation came to those who opened themselves to the light in an
obedient spirit. While it is not in accord with our modern knowledge of
psychology to assort and divide human activities too sharply, it is
nevertheless permissible to insist that the biblical revelation was in a
sense primarily to the will. As Frederick W. Robertson used to say,
obedience is the organ of spiritual knowledge. The first men to whom
illuminations came evidently received these gifts out of some purity of
intention and moral excellence. These early leaders gathered others