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The Study of Scripture By Arlen L. Chitwood
Contents & Foreword
Contents
Foreword
Chapter 1 Foundational Prerequisites
Chapter 2 The Septenary Arrangement of Scripture
Chapter 3 Beginning and Continuing
Chapter 4 Building on the Foundation
Chapter 5 Ages and Dispensations
Chapter 6 Jew, Gentile, Christian
Chapter 7 Heavenly and Earthly
Chapter 8 Types and Antitypes
Chapter 9 Parables, Figurative Language
Chapter 10 Studying, Proclaiming the Word
Chapter 11 The Goal
Foreword
Moses, after walking a lifetime with the Lord and knowing His ways (Psalm 103:7), pressed upon the hearts of the Israelites the one thing he considered to be of the utmost importance before he died, namely to give heed to the Word and to obey it carefully. And then he added:
For it is not a futile thing for you, because it is your life, and by this Word you shall prolong your days in the land that you cross over the Jordan to possess. (Deuteronomy 32:47)
This admonition — referring to the power of the Word as it is able to bring about a change in one’s life — climaxed Moses’ expression of deep concern for the present and future spiritual welfare of his people. Careful obedience to the Word would produce a walk by faith and progressively result in spiritual maturity; and spiritual maturity, being built up in the faith, pertained not only to the Israelites’ present spiritual life but to a future prolongation of that life in the land to which they had been called as well.
Likewise, Christians being built up in the faith is with a view to their realizing not only present spiritual blessings but future as well. It is with a view to Christians ultimately, during the coming Messianic Era, realizing their calling through dwelling in a heavenly land and occupying ruling positions in that land as co-heirs with Christ.
And Christians being built up in the faith, with a view to their ultimately realizing a calling in the heavens, is the one purpose upon which this book, The Study of Scripture, can be seen to center. This book provides insights into key portions of the Word so that spiritual growth might be effected through Christians being able to study the Word after a proper fashion, with understanding.
Unfortunately, many Christians lack the correct foundational framework in their lifelong effort to come into a proper understanding of the Scriptures. And that is why it is such a privilege to recommend this book.
This book begins with the approach that we first must know the essence of the Word before we can understand it. The Bible is the divine breath, without which there can be no spiritual growth.
Four features, not clearly seen in current theology, stand out in this book as particularly noteworthy:
First, The Study of Scripture shows us that we have to begin the study of the Bible where a person should begin, in Genesis, especially in the opening chapters.
Second, The Study of Scripture challenges us to reconsider the normal dispensational outlook and simply let the Bible itself speak through its own natural divisions.
Third, The Study of Scripture deals with heavenly and earthly aspects of the coming kingdom, something almost no one sees today, but something that must be recognized to properly understand the Bible.
Last, but not least, I have never more clearly seen the necessity to study the typology of the Bible as presented in The Study of Scripture, not as an area of Scriptural truth, worthy of investigation, but as the basic way Scripture reveals itself.
The whole of Scripture (Genesis 2:4ff) is built on a type (Genesis 1:1-2:3); and because of this overall type-antitype structure, the Bible, with its inherent typical nature, has to be studied after this fashion, i.e., after the fashion in which it is structured.
One can hardly do better than study this instructive book if he or she seeks to teach the place where the Bible’s limitless treasures can begin to be mined.
Roel Velema Hattem, The Netherlands May, 1994
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