Now this is a Workable Method.  The teacher can apply it.  Give every pupil a certain definite Search task.  The teacher can adapt it to every age, and to every degree of Biblical knowledge.  This series of text books will suggest plans of applying this basic method of Bible study in becoming acquainted with the rich contents of the verses, the chapters, the books of this most practical Word of God.

PREFACE TO THE BOOK

1.  The purpose

This book is designed to be used in Bible Study Classes in churches, in communities, in academies, in colleges.  The author has endeavored to furnish a text book of outlines and questions that shall unfold the general contents of the Word of God.  Its primary aim is to impart a swift and comprehensive acquaintanceship with the material of the books of the Bible.

2.  The character of the work

It is not an exhaustive study.  From its aim it could not be such.  Some of the sixty-six books are passed over in brief space, and some (chiefly in the prophecies and epistles) are omitted altogether.  It is a surface study.  The title so suggests.  It does not enter into the deeper things.  It simply aims to lay bare the surface facts.  It is expressly designed to serve as a foundation for later detailed searching of the Word.  It is flexible.  The teacher can add or subtract as time or local conditions demand, and is earnestly exhorted so to do.  One book may be omitted and another added at the teacher’s discretion.  A part of the questions may be omitted, or additional ones inserted.  The outlines may be enlarged or diminished or changed to suit the needs of the class according to the teacher’s personal judgment.

3.  Requisites for study

Let each scholar be provided with a cheap tablet, a well-bound blank book of two hundred pages, a small Bible Dictionary of recognized merit, and a copy of the American Revised Version of the Bible.  (Standard Edition of Nelson & Sons, 1901, bourgeois 8vo, is good.) The teacher should provide for reference, to which the pupils should have constant access, a copy of the Rand-McNally Bible Atlas, by J.L.  Hurlbut, D.D., a copy of Young’s Complete Analytical Concordance, and a copy of a large and complete Bible Dictionary.

4.  Suggestions to teachers

To secure the best results the following plan, tested by experience, is suggested:  Let the assigned lesson be wrought out and recorded by the pupil in the cheap tablet.  At the next recitation let this recorded lesson be read and corrected.  At the following recitation this lesson first assigned and corrected is to be recited from memory.  So at each recitation the following will be the general order:  (1) The assigning of the advance lesson. (2) The reading and correction of the lesson assigned at the previous recitation. (3) The reciting from memory of the lesson corrected at the previous recitation.