The Bible in the memory is better than the Bible in the book case.
Interpretation
Internalizing knowledge is more valuable than merely possessing it.
This quote highlights the importance of internalizing and memorizing the teachings of the Bible, suggesting that having its wisdom in one's heart and mind is far more beneficial than simply having physical copies stored away. It implies that true understanding and application of knowledge come from active engagement rather than passive possession.
In practice
In a sermon about the importance of faith, one could use this quote to emphasize internal belief over mere ritual.
Amusement should be used to do us good “like a medicine”: it must never be used as the food of the man...Many have had all holy thoughts and gracious resolutions stamped out by perpetual trifling. Pleasure so called is the murderer of thought. This is the age of excessive amusement: everybody craves for it, like a babe for its rattle.
When you see no present advantage, walk by faith and not by sight. Do God the honor to trust Him when it comes to matters of loss for the sake of principle.
It is far easier to fight with sin in public than to pray against it in private.
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
After faith comes repentance, or, rather, repentance is faith's twin brother and is born at the same time.
["All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant."] The original Hebrew word that has been translated "paths" means "well-worn roads' or "wheel tracks," such ruts as wagons make when they go down our green roads in wet weather and sink in up to the axles. God's ways are at times like heavy wagon tracks that cut deep into our souls, yet all of them are merciful.
True wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of Self.
Liberty of speech invites and provokes liberty to be used again, and so bringeth much to a man's knowledge.
Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler.
The possible's slow fuse is lit by the Imagination.
What care I if it be "wild and improbable" and "lacking in literary art"? I refuse to be any longer hampered by such canons of criticism. The one essential thing I demand of a book is that it should interest me. If it does, I forgive it every other fault.
As sure as God made black and white, what's done in the dark will be brought to the light.
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