J.F. Cowan: The Bible was given by God. The topics for our prayer-meetings were made by men. This is not to disparage the use of topics: they serve a useful purpose. Only when we take them out of their subordinate place and push them into prominence ahead of the Bible itself, do they work mischief. I have been in prayer-meetings, both for adults, and for young people - but oftener for the latter - that were "topicked to death."
How may we discern such danger; how avoid it? By noting the following principles:
1. A topic is a handle to God's message. It is merely a condensed statement of what is in the scripture passage selected for use in the meeting. It is a brief, handy summary - a sort of label stuck on the outside of the package, that we may divine at a glance what blessings for us are within. Now the contents of a package are always more valuable than the label. The message in a letter is worth more than the address on the envelope, however ornate the penmanship. So the message of God in the scripture passage is the main thing for the meeting, and the topic is of secondary importance.
The use of a topic is to lead the mind into the heart of the message by the shortest route. It is like the guide-board by the wayside that says, "This way to Boston." The traveller would make a great mistake were he to climb the post and sit on the guide-board, fancying that he had arrived at Boston, instead of continuing on his way as directed. Yet a similar mistake is sometimes made in regard to the relative importance of the topic, and the scripture passage on which the topic is based. In fact, the customary phrase, "Scripture reference on the topic", is misleading. The references are not on the topic; the topic is on the scripture reference. That is to say, the Bible message is the principal thing, and the wording of the topic the subordinate thing.
A concrete illustration is afforded by a topic once given for the young people's meeting, "Our Heavenly Home." Now, if the topic were the main thing, then the proper procedure for a leader would be to sit down and wrinkle his forehead and ask, "What have I ever heard or read about 'Our Heavenly Home'? What poetry has been written about it? What gems of thought can I find in the encyclopedia of quotations? Whose sermons can I quote?"
But if the Bible message about heaven is the main thing, and the topic merely a handle to that, then the first question of the leader would be, "What does God's word say about heaven? What message has He given for this meeting through the fourteenth chapter of John, or the twenty-first chapter of Revelation?"
2. Some errors against which a leader needs to guard, that result in more topic and less Bible, are:
(1) Magnifying the topic and belittling the Word. The leader, for example, starts out with the announcement of his topic. He proceeds to talk about his topic. He wrestles with it, analyzes it, amplifies it, rings all the changes on it that he can conjure up, charges it front and rear. It is "topic, topic, topic!" from first to finish. The Bible message he reads once, perfunctorily, and then takes his departure from it to the realm of topic, never more to return.
(2) Spending undue effort on collecting accessories on the topic. Shakespeare, and Drummond, and Spurgeon, and Milton, and Meyer, and Moody, and other good men may be quoted profitably in a prayer-meeting as side-lights on the Word of God, but never to the exclusion of the Word of God. God's Word is the lamp; they are only reflectors. A hundred of the brightest reflectors are no substitute for a lamp. Literary quotations are not out of place in a prayer-meeting; but let us light the lamp before we hang up the reflectors.
A prayer-meeting with too much topic and not enough Bible is like a farm on which some one should try to substitute moonlight for sunlight. Moonlight is good for skating, and drives, and walks, but for raising corn and wheat, and for all the vital processes of life moonlight would be a poor substitute for sunlight. Let us have the sunlight first in our prayer-meetings, and after we have got God's thought then it is time enough to have men's thoughts on God's thoughts. This is an age in which we are using too much peptonized [pre-digested] spiritual food: too many of us are getting our knowledge of the Bible at second hand, through books of daily devotions, through Sunday-school lessons, and the "meditations" of others in published form. We need to get more of the Bible at first hands, and less of men's thoughts on God's thoughts; meditate ourselves, be devout without a model. There is too much of the canning factory in our modern religious life, and not enough of the garden and farm.
3. How may we put the Bible ahead of the topic?
(1) By having Bibles enough in the prayer-meeting room for everyone present. It is a bad sign when there are in the hands of the attendants upon the prayer-meeting more copies of the church paper, or some other paper treating the topic, or more books with poems or other extracts marked for use in the meeting, than there are Bibles in the room. It is a splendid thing to cultivate the habit of carrying one's own Bible to the prayer-meeting. One knows his own Bible better, and can turn to what he wants with much more readiness than if he is handling a strange Bible picked up in the pew. Elsewhere will be found a suggestion for a "My Own Bible" meeting, which will emphasize this advantage with singular force.
(2) The leader should have some plans that will call for the use of the Bible in the meeting by as many as possible. Suggestions are made on this head farther on, especially as to getting all to take part in reading the scripture on which the topic is based, and as to making scripture explain and enforce scripture by use of the marginal references, and by topically arranged Bible-readings.
The vital thing in the leader is to get as many as possible to feed on the Word of God. "Tell me what you eat and I'll tell you what you are," has its spiritual counterpart. No diet of pretty quotations from popular religious authors will make strong spiritual heart-beats come out of the prayer-meeting, if the Bread of Life is overlooked there. Mechanical Bible quotations are not much better than other mechanical things. "The letter killeth; the Spirit maketh alive." (2 Cor. 3:6).
By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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By John F. Cowan, New York, 1906
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