58 - Pathways to the Feet of Jesus
“DOES MRS. ROBINSON study her Bible much?”
”Oh, my, yes! She is always studying her Bible.”
This question was asked toward the close of Mrs. Robinson’s life by a young ministerial student and answered by Mrs. Robinson’s constant companion of her last years, Hilda Nilsson. In common with so many, the questioner doubtless thought that a person of Mrs. Robinson’s spiritual attainments and experience, especially possessing so many of the gifts of the Spirit as she did, would not need to read and to study the Bible very much.
This idea is indeed an error to which many people who have emphasized the ministry of the Holy Spirit have been susceptible and into which many have fallen with disastrous results. Into such a temptation Mrs. Robinson never fell. On the contrary, she fought such a fallacy, knowing that the spoken word flows out of a vessel filled with the written Word and, of course, the spoken word never supercedes or contradicts the revelation of God as found in the Bible.
“You never get through with the Bible,” she declared in one of her last sermons.
And through the years she repeatedly gave exhortations such as these:
“You need your Bible, beloved.”
“Learn to love the Bible.”
“Say, ‘Yes,’ to Jesus when reading the Bible; the Word is being given your soul when you are reading the Word.”
“Live the Bible.”
“It is my business to know the Bible; I am an ambassador of the King; this is my message.
“Study Bible history like you study your country’s history..... It is a disgrace not to know it as a Christian. You ought to know the history of the Bible.”
“Get what you can from the Bible by digging. Hear the divine calls for yourself.”
“You are happier and healthier when you do not get up [in the morning] cross, but get up in God. These things are told to you over and over because you don’t go to the Bible and get them for yourself.”
“I read Isaiah twenty-five times,” Mrs. Robinson commented in the course of one of her sermons, “before it began to unfold. Isaiah is rich; study it in the Holy Ghost. Read it softly at His feet. Commune with God about it. The promises in Isaiah are ours.
Again Mrs. Robinson testified, she would have been “at sea” when she began to study prophecy, “if I didn’t know the Bible as a whole.”
“Study your Bibles how to love one another.”
“Do not ever go by messages alone; use the Bible and follow Him, and when Jesus gives a message, take it and go right to God and carry it out, but do not lay your Bible down.”
“How many of you know that you love your Bibles?” Mrs. Robinson asked in one of her last addresses. “He [the Lord] says hardly any of you grow with your Bibles enough.”
That Mrs. Robinson practiced what she preached, that she was “always studying her Bible,” is abundantly substantiated by even a casual perusal of her Testaments and Bible. The studies found in one of these have already been examined and discussed in some detail. A second Testament, evidently one used in her later years, has numerous underlinings, but with no comments or indicated design of any specific studies undertaken. Her two Bibles, an American Standard Version and an Authorized or King James Version, remain to be examined.
Before considering the studies found in these volumes, however, it is well to state Mrs. Robinson’s belief concerning the inspiration of the Scriptures and the comparative value of the King James and the Revised Version, including the American Standard Version.
That Mrs. Robinson believed in the verbal inspiration of the Scriptures can be accepted as a matter of course. In this connection she wrote a very interesting note in one of her books. The author, in discussing the different theories advanced for the origin of the Bible, said:
“The first is the Verbal Theory. It claims that every word [was dictated to the authors], or that they were but mouthpieces of the Holy Spirit.”
Commenting on this the author said: “Serious objections to this theory can be easily shown. It destroys the individuality of the respective writers: an individuality which is apparent to every fair-minded critic, and accounts for a variety exhibited in the treatment of the subjects which would otherwise be inexplicable.”
The last sentence Mrs. Robinson marked by one of her own characteristic set of marks and beside it wrote:
“Easily accounted for in God’s gift. Various gifts of wisdom and prophecy perfectly spoken. This then might [be] different by different gifts in different ways of expression.”
Of course, this observation is but a restatement of the truth set forth by the Apostle Paul when he says, “Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. . . . And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all” (I Cor. 12:4, 6).
To anyone familiar with the ministry of Mrs. R. and the other Faith Home vessels, this difference of expression was very easy to understand, for even in the limited circle of the Faith Home ministers, for example, there were a number who had the gift of the word of wisdom and of prophecy, and yet the individuality of the various instruments employed was most marked, and the “style” of speaking of each one was decidedly different. In fact, that was one of the outstanding features of this group of ministers; there was no copying of each other, and for all their years of living and laboring together so closely, they retained their distinctive personalities. Yet, it was obvious to any fair-minded critic, whether he accepted their explanation of their ministry or not, that these people were definitely “spoken from” as the Quaker of Charles Lamb’s essay, rather than speaking of their own volition.
As to the comparative merits of the King James and Revised Versions, Mrs. Robinson firmly believed that although the Revised Version was unquestionably more accurate in some instances, the King James Version had been more spiritually translated because its translators were not only men of education, but also men of prayer who most earnestly asked God to enable them to translate according to the intent of the Author, the Holy Spirit Himself.
The fact is that in her early Christian life Mrs. Robinson used the Revised Version almost exclusively. In this, doubtless, she was influenced by Dr. Dowie who strongly recommended this version because of its greater accuracy.
For one who emphasized so strongly the practical and spiritual use of the Bible for application to one’s daily life, it is interesting to note the attention which she paid to the minute accuracy of the translation. To her not only “the spirit” but the letter was important. Just one more evidence of the thorough student, Martha Wing Robinson.
For that matter, in a few instances, Mrs. Robinson goes beyond version translation in her marginal notes and gives the Greek word itself. And in a few cases she writes out the word in its Greek letters and does so with a perfectness and precision which denotes a familiarity with the Greek language. To be sure, she told young, prospective preachers, “It is more important for you to study your Bible to live a daily, spiritual life than to preach.” At the same time she also told them, “We have got to study out just exactly to what extent the verb always had to be translated that way”—in the passage being studied.
Perusing her American Revised Version one notes the very special attention she paid to (1) the various Hebrew names used for God; (2) the genealogies; (3) the dimensions of Noah’s Ark, the Tabernacle, etc., changing the measurements into the English equivalents; (4) lists of the kings of Judah and Israel together with the length of their reigns; (5) a list of the various prophets with their contemporary prophets—many details and facts which are often regarded as neither important nor profitable for “spiritual” Bible students. Thus, not only the New Testament but the Old afforded her material for deep, concentrated study.
In the Book of Psalms there are exhaustive studies of the prayers found therein together with a topical study of loving-kindness, the heart, etc.
As for the New Testament, there are topical, chain reference studies on the Holy Spirit, divine healing, and prayer (in the Acts). The Epistles of John bear evidence of diligent study of two interrelated subjects very close to her heart: knowing Him and keeping His commandments.
On one of the blank pages in this Bible is a list of the Early Apostolic Fathers down to Jerome and Augustine. There are a few other notes on early church history with special reference to the Teachings of the Twelve Apostles or the Didache and the Apostolic Constitutions, indicating her interest and high regard of the same.ⁿ
Note: Church history and the biographies of soldiers of the Cross, in particular, were of very special interest to Mrs. Robinson. Often she gave some biography to a young Christian to read, in this connection she studied and annotated with numerous comments and corrections The History of Christianity by J. S. C. Abbott. Although this is by no means an exhaustive history, it does contain numerous anecdotes from the lives of the early Fathers of the church and the martyrs, which are not readily accessible or usually found in church histories. Still another set of books of church history which Mrs. Robinson seems to have valued is: Church History Handbooks by Henry C. Vedder. A few passages she specially marked in the first volume, The Early Period, are so connected with the New Testament and are of such importance, reflecting her own belief, that they are included here: Under the heading, “Apostolic Ideal of the Church,” the author says: “The word ‘church’ in eighty-five out of one hundred and fourteen cases in which the word occurs in the New Testament means a local assembly of Christians.” Then follows a discussion of the usage and application of the word elsewhere in the New Testament followed by this: “But of a church that extends throughout the world as a visible body, of which local churches are the branches, the New Testament knows nothing. That was the perverted ideal of a later age. . . The bond between them [these local churches] was not a system of church law, but Christian love” (pp. 24, 25) Two other sentences are specially marked which deal with the opposition of heathen writers against Christianity by their “argument, satire, and slander,” Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry. Then the author concludes with this observation: “Of the heathen polemic in general, it is enough to say, no serious objection, whether on philosophic, historic, or critical grounds. has been raised against Christianity during the last three centuries, that was not raised and for the most part exhaustively argued, during the first three centuries of the Christian faith. Modern infidelity has done little more than use again the spent ammunition of ancient heathenism” (p. 33).
And how characteristic of Mrs. R. to have put on the front end pages these verses, some oft quoted by her, from the pen of F. B. Faber:
The perfect way is hard to flesh
But is not hard to love;
If thou wert sick for want of God,
How swiftly wouldst thou move.
and these from Tersteegen:
O dare and suffer all things:
Yet but a stretch of road—
Then, wondrous words of welcome,
And then—the face of God.
The world, how small, and empty—
Our eyes have looked to Him;
The mighty Sun hath risen—
The taper burneth dim.
We follow in his footsteps;
What if our feet be torn!
Where He hath marked the pathway
All hail the briar and thorn.
Scarce seen—scarce heard—unechoed—
Despised, defamed, unknown,
Or heard but by our singing—
On, Brethren, ever on!
And then turning the page bearing her name, there is a verse from Freda Hanbury’s hymn, one of Mrs. Robinson’s favorites:
And wouldst thou know the secret
Of constant victory?
Let in the Overcomer,
And He will conquer thee.
But it was her Authorized Version of the Bible, which her Bible class had given her as a birthday present in 1916, that was the constant companion of her last twenty years. From a perusal of this sacred volume, one sees again how intensive was her study of the Psalms and Proverbs. There one finds a chain reference study of verses dealing with “words,” the “tongue,” “voice,” and their synonyms. Still another chain reference study deals with the topic of guidance and leading. Another follows the theme of “trust.” The subject of the “heart” in Psalm 119 impressed her deeply.
Throughout the New Testament there is a chain reference on the subject of the “judgment,” “hell,” “condemnation,” and the end times in general. Beside the much-argued-over verse, Hebrews 6:6, Mrs. R. wrote in the margin: “This does not refer at all to the ordinary Christian, but one of those far beyond, such as have the victorious experience in Jesus.”
In the back end-papers may be found a table of “Incidents of Healing” from the Gospels, also “Healings after Christ Bose,” and her own study of the subject of “Divine Healing.” These seem to have been copied from her notebook studies made at the time of her first great healing in 1899, for they are almost identical. In addition, there are numerous notes on other subjects.
There is also a study of “The Lord’s Return” with a list of verses together with the word or phrase of the verse pertaining to the subject. This compilation reminds one of a word spoken in one of her sermons, oft-repeated in different words, however, but always the same in substance: “The Lord wants us to know the Bible well.., all about His coming and where to find it. . . . Lay down your own opinions and see what the Bible says about the second coming of the Lord.”
So it was that Martha Wing Robinson meditated in the Word of God day and night. It was her constant delight, and upon it she fed continually, drawing from it the help she needed for soul and body. Her attitude toward this Book of books and toward the need for diligent study of this volume she best expressed, perhaps, in these two short statements:
The Bible is an outline to be filled out in each individual life.
The truths of the Bible are but pathways to the feet of Jesus.
During the course of a visit with Mrs. R. a young minister, who really spent hours daily with the Scriptures, remarked that he wished he had more time to spend with the Bible. “It takes me so long to read it,” he continued. “I read one verse and then I have to close my eyes and meditate upon it to get the life from just those words.”
Looking up in an attitude of worship, as she often did in the course of her teaching or preaching, she replied to this comment by talking directly to Christ, “Well, Jesus, after we have been with You a thousand years, we’ll still be drawing life from it.”