By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
To hint, as the title of this article does, that there is any place where one should not read the Bible, may, at first sight, cause something of a shock. Nevertheless it is true that there are places where one has no right to read his Bible. One of these places is the House of God during the time of preaching and prayer. The present writer has to acknowledge that, in his own congregation, he is not troubled with this un-Scriptural and unbecoming practice, but he has been made painfully aware of it in various places, when, occasionally, an adherent, a member, or even an office-bearer, will take up his Bible during the sermon, and continue to read it until his attention is drawn, in some form or another, to the fact that he is being noticed and is on the verge of receiving a well-merited rebuke.
The Holy Ghost, through Solomon, says that, “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Eccles. iii, 1). The preaching of the Word, which has a season and a time for attending to it, is a means of grace set up by the Lord Himself to awaken poor sinners and to revive those who are already in Christ. When any person goes to where the preaching of the Word is, he professes to go to hear for his soul’s good, and his going should be accompanied with prayer that the Lord would bless the preaching to him. What are we to say to the profession and prayers of such a one, when, instead of listening to the preaching of the gospels, he calmly sits down to his own private devotions by reading his Bible and ignoring that on which he is supposed to have been asking God’s blessing? To our mind it is a daring example of running upon the thick bosses of the Almighty’s bucklers, which is bound to have serious consequences to the one so acting. The practice is not merely improper and in very bad taste, but amounts to a violation of the decency and order which the Most High has required in His House, and a forgetting of the truth that “holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever.”
The practice is positively forbidden in the Westminster Directory for the Public Worship of God, where it is said, “The public worship being begun, the people are wholly to attend upon it, forbearing to read anything, except what the minister is then reading or citing; and abstaining much more from any private whisperings, conferences, salutations, or doing reverence to any person present, or coming in; as also from all gazing, sleeping, and other indecent behaviour, which may disturb the minister or people, or hinder themselves or others in the service of God.” When we have such a clear statement on the matter in one of the subordinate standards of the Church in Scotland, to say nothing of the dictates of common sense and decency, one is surprised to find any person indulging in the habit, and we believe, when the evil is pointed out it will serve as a corrective to such as have been doing it thoughtlessly.
Others, however, have been known to do it out of contempt for the preacher and his preaching. This is a very serious matter for such as are guilty of it, for, if the preaching is in accordance with the Word of God, they are guilty, not only of unbrotherly and un-Christian conduct, but of insulting the Majesty of Heaven by a gross violation of the order which belongs to His House. Such conduct, whether arising from carelessness or contempt, grieves not only the heart of a godly preacher, but it does more. It grieves away the Spirit of God. When the practice is persisted in, the only obvious course for the preacher is to rebuke it, and in that way to show that, in faithfulness to his Master and to the never-dying soul of the culprit, such conduct will not be tolerated, and, when that is done in a Christian spirit, we believe that the average person guilty of the practice will not need a second rebuke. The exception, however, is a sure indication of a hardened spirit which is the very antithesis of the Spirit of Christ, and, generally speaking, is to be found with those who, however diligent in reading their Bibles in the House of God, seldom read them at home. “Let all things be done decently and in order.”