TARBELL'S TEACHERS' GUIDE

TO THE

INTERNATIONAL SUNDAY-SCHOOL LESSONS

FOR 1913

INTRODUCTION

SUGGESTIONS TO TEACHERS

The Value of Old Testament Study. In the days told about in the Gospels the most common name for a school was Beth Hassepher, The House of the Book: practically the entire time was given to the study of the writings which form our Old Testament. Our Sunday-schools this year are to be Beth Hassephers, for we turn back in the Bible to the beginning of beginnings. What value has for us this Old Testament study?

In the first place, the Old Testament is the background of the New. As Augustine long ago expressed it: The New Testament is latent in the Old; the Old Testament is patent in the New. "Did you never read?" asks Jesus in one of our lessons in the year's course just completed, enforcing his teaching in regard to the keeping of the Sabbath by a reference to an Old Testament episode. Said his friend George H. C. Macgregor to Dr. Campbell Morgan as they walked through the streets of Northfield one summer morning: "Morgan, I have been wondering, if we were to take our New Testament and tear out every chapter that has in it a quotation from or a reference to, the Old Testament, how many chapters we should have left." The suggestion Dr. Morgan did not forget, and later he took his New Testament and blue-penciled all the Old Testament quotations and allusions. The result was that he did not have twenty chapters left. The Old Testament is interwoven in the New. To rightly understand the New Testament we must know the Old.

Most important of reasons for studying the Old Testament is the example of Jesus. Its fundamental doctrines he took for granted in his teaching, its history he accepted as a preparation for his coming, its laws and ideals he expressly set himself to fulfil, enlarge; its precepts nourished his soul; its words rose naturally to his lips. It was his only Bible.

All the world is agreed that young and old know all too little about the grand stories of the Bible. Into the best English literature, and even into current newspapers and magazines, the Bible is woven. Charles Dudley Warner, writing in Harper's Magazine, says that wholly apart from its religious or from its ethical value, the Bible is the one book of which no intelligent person, who wishes to come into contact with the world of thought, and to share the ideas of the great minds of the Christian era, can afford to be ignorant. All modern literature and all modern art are permeated with it. There is scarcely a great work in the language that can be fully understood and enjoyed without this knowledge, so full is it of allusions and illustrations from the Bible. A boy or girl at college, in the presence of the works set forth for either to master, without a fair knowledge of the Bible is an ignoramus, and is disadvantaged accordingly. For example, in Shakespeare there are quotations from fifty-four Books of the Bible, thirty-one from Genesis alone; in Tennyson there are two hundred and one quotations or allusions from the Old Testament.

The Old Testament has great value today for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness. While much of the Old Testament legislation was of temporary, much also is of permanent, religious value. With this conviction every teacher must start this year, appreciating the Old Testament's greatness and power, feeling its inspiration, believing in it as a message from God.

The Course for 1913. Our year's course covers the Creation, the Flood, the Lives of the Patriarchs, the Bondage in Egypt, the Exodus and Wilderness Wanderings, and the Conquest of Canaan.

We begin at the very cradle of the world's infancy and learn the inspired writer's conception of the beginning of things; see the beginning of sin and the results of sin; learn how Abraham lived as the friend of God, how Isaac led his uneventful life, how Jacob the trickster became the Prince of God, and how Joseph lived nobly in Egypt; we follow the career of Moses as he worked for and with God; and with Joshua, the strong and courageous-hearted, we enter the long-promised land.

It is not only "in the beginning, God," but throughout the whole history God is transcendent. We see his power manifested in creation, his will gradually revealed in his dealings with the men of the early Hebrew world, and his love made known in that despite their repeated sinning he would not let his Chosen People go. The Nature and Being of God, his relation to us, the fundamental doctrines of creation and providence, of sin and righteousness-these are our great themes.

For the Various Grades. As Lettice Bell says in "The Lost Garden," each of the stories have "different aged meanings": if you are five, there is a five-year-old lesson; if ten, there is a ten-year-old lesson; and so on. And true it is that every lesson has a story to which little folks will listen spellbound and a truth simple enough for them, and it also has a problem of impelling interest for the wisest seer and furnishes scope enough for the exercise of his deepest thought. A Teacher's First Duty This Year. There comes to many men and women after their school days are over a mental inertness which makes the continuous study of any subject seem a burden. Such a Sunday-school teacher, if in earnest in his work, will resolutely rout the first approach of this insidious foe to success. As interest in his work grows, so will love for study grow.

This book is not a substitute for a teacher's own effort; it will not do away with the necessity for his own study. He cannot take it up a few minutes before going to class, cram his mind with facts and illustrations, and then teach successfully. It will, however, save him from all aimless study, will furnish him all the needful information bearing upon each lesson, will develop and illustrate his lesson topic, and will give him confidence and joy in teaching.

First of all, take a forward glance over the course for the year and fix in mind what is to be accomplished. Next read what is said about the Hexateuch, pages 18-21 of this book. Then read the book of Genesis through. You can read it aloud in three and a half hours. Study what is said here about the book on pages 22-24. Re-read carefully the story of creation and of the life in Eden, chapters I-III. The week before Lesson VII, read thoughtfully all that is recorded in Genesis about Abraham; read till you can think through his entire life without the aid of the Bible. Before Lesson XII, do the same with the life of Isaac; before Lesson I of the Second Quarter, with the life of Jacob; and before Lesson IV of the Second Quarter, with the life of Joseph. Grasp the life of Moses as a whole and the book of Exodus, studying pages 24-25 of "The Guide," before you begin the Third Quarter. Read Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, pages 26-31, before you take up Lesson I of the Fourth Quarter. Before beginning Lesson VIII of that Quarter, recall all that has been said about Joshua in the lessons, and read the first fourteen chapters of Joshua, and the account of the book on pages 31-32.

For Primary Teachers. The little child needs to see life in action, and all these lessons (save four) are of life in action. The stories of the childhood of the race and of the early Hebrews are fascinating narratives for little folks. They have, moreover, not only the power to please but also the power to evoke the right feeling and to lead to the right action. Do not make the mistake of drawing the moral of every story, for oftentimes just the vivid telling will teach the truth you wish to impress.