Musicals or The book?

3/7/2020

Morning! Surprise! I’m blogging two days in a row. That’s how this started back in August of 2018. Everyday. But this morning’s SIMH was loud and clear, as well as, odd. So, my thoughts came fast making me think I should write. (Sure hope this turns out good after this lead in.) “What a day this has been, what a rare mood I’m in, why it’s Almost Like Being In Love.” —from Lerner and Loewe’s broadway hit of 1954, Brigadoon. Most of that song is in my head. If I start singing it, the next lines just sort of roll out without much thought. Why? you asked? I wish I understood it.

There was always a certain cadence, sort of an expectorant pattern to music numbers from the Broadway musicals of the Lerner and Loewe, Rogers and Hart/Hammerstein, types of musicals. One didn’t have to hear them often to remember them. Think of Oklahoma!, South Pacific, Sound of Music, et al. We just remember them. Strange. (Personally, I think the only reason for their popularity fading has been because the world has invented a communication superhighway of (largely) useless information which fills our heads and our time so as to take us away from the desire for stage production entertainment.)

A few years back, a pair of brothers (sons of our friends, the Kirkpatricks) wrote the music for a new broadway musical called “Something Rotten” which was very well written and performed and turned out to be a very successful run in New York and now is still on tour. Big! But not South Pacific big. Or Singin In The Rain big. We went to NYC and saw Something Rotten and it was terrific. It just didn’t ring out the songs as if the “Hills are alive with the Sound of Music…” Know what I mean? 

So, what drives popularity? The “mood” of the people? The constant barrage of public messaging, either advertisements or news articles? TV sound bites? Or is it any sort of genuine need to know or need to feed off of, or am I missing the point of what is really good entertainment? Wait: why do we seek to be entertained? Why don’t we seek truth for our enlightenment?

You know, about 100 years ago an era came to an end which was quite remarkable. It was an era of intense study and research which brought about very detailed information still constantly in use today. 

The first of the Great Study Era (my terminology) was by Dr. James Strong, a Methodist Seminarian who through years of compilation completed and published Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible in 1890. Can you picture in your mind the kind of toil and fatigue this work would have given him? and it is said that both he, and even the next fellow I name, worked with only one secretary (though I couldn’t verify that from my research.)

The next publication through this sort of study was by Dr. Frank Charles Thompson, also a Methodist. Dr. Thompson started his great work of bible study systems called the Thompson Chain Reference Bible in 1890. He completed and published his work in 1908. He devised a numbering of words and/or phrases of like thought, taking sides notes to a massive comparable numbering at the back of all Scripture, then listing verses of the same or similar meaning, to aid the student in finding cross-references for his study enhancement. What a great work it was!

The third very popular and historically noted work in this era was by an American lawyer, not a preacher or a “divine,” just a student by the name of C.I. Scofield. He wrote the still available Scofield Reference Bible, a bible with Scofield’s notes running along the same page as the Scripture about which he wrote notes (separated by a “break” line on the page.) He first published it in 1909, then with revisions in 1917.

His notes brought a renewal of oft ignored Scriptures which brought emphasis to the pre-millenial thoughts preached so clearly by the Apostle Paul in Romans through Philemon, 13 books in the middle of the New Testament. Scofield’s 1917 edition also had added Archbishop Ussher’s calendar, adding approximate years from the 6 day creation through to the last New Testament books written. These things caused people to study along the lines of literal understanding of the bible instead of simply making spiritual application of many things.

Drs. Strong and Thompson, having a similar mindset, have become standard bearers to many young bible students for more than 100 years now. Scofield’s notes are a basic dispensational study aid to many people of all ages today. 

Along about the same time an American Baptist pastor named Clarence Larkin wrote and drew timeline sensitive and prophetic centered charts of bible activities and expected fulfillment of prophecy in an over-sized book called Dispensational Truth in 1918, with an update and alternate name, God’s Plan and Purpose in the Ages in 1920. His works always had elaborate explanations as well as detailed artwork. By trade, and before pastoring, Larkin was a teacher of the blind and an architectural draftsman. His works, also remain in use today.

One more author of this time who greatly influenced many students of Scripture and still does was Sir Robert Anderson. Sir Robert was a Scotland Yard detective and later a Commissioner in London, but was a noted bible scholar of his day. He wrote several pertinent books in explanation of both the way things are and the expectation of the Lord’s return. Sir Robert was after his conversion, a Presbyterian, but later became part of the Plymouth Brethren group.

Here’s an excerpt from a biographical sketch about the later years of his life (he departed this veil in 1918.)

He was especially close to some of the greatest biblical teachers of his day, including James Martin Gray, Cyrus Scofield, A. C. Dixon, Horatius Bonar and E. W. Bullinger. He also preached with John Nelson Darby in the West of Ireland. Anderson was a member of the Plymouth Brethren, first with Darby then with the Open Brethren party, before returning to his Presbyterian roots. He wrote numerous theological works: C. H. Spurgeon commented that Anderson’s book Human Destiny was “the most valuable contribution on the subject” that he had seen.^[5]

The two books of his which most impressed me to study the Scripture on the subject were “The Silence of God” and “The Coming Prince.” After reading what Mr. Spurgeon (a Baptist) said, I think I must read “Human Destiny” as well. 

All these men, and I could have added Mr. Moody, Mr. Darby, Mr. Bullinger and others, lived and ministered in this same era, from about 1880 to 1920. We have no other such era of great publicized personal ministry works. In my years of being a student and preaching the truths I see in Scripture, I’ve known many great preachers. But none in the mode of written explanation any where close to being as worthy as the Great Study Era—1880 to 1920. Many of you may say, we didn’t need them. OK. Granted, the bible was already in our hands. 

But in 1881, the great and true word of God, the King James Bible, began to come under an attack so vicious and so insidious that today, with over 100 false version of the bible, we who hold this truth are but a tiny minority in our world. These men and their works collectively can strengthen our resolve to be true to the Lord, as well as our dependence on the written and Holy Word. None of them ever usurped the word as an authority., nor made themselves to be somewhat.

Thanks for reading, the Elder