The awakening of the Berean Spirit (Acts 17:11).

`The Berean Expositor stands for unhesitating investigation and undaunted publication of the testimony of the

infallible Word of God. The Editor and his colleagues are human, but they seek grace to continue, regardless of

human opinions. If the truth is desired the magazine will continue, if the truth is not needed the magazine has no

further warrant for existence.

While valuing the fellowship of all like-minded believers, The Berean Expositor will continue untrammelled. It is

the organ of no society, it is the property of no sect, it is the exponent of no creed. It is a searcher of Scripture'.

It must be admitted that there is something pugnacious about this extract from the Foreword to Volume 1,

re-issued in 1914, but there is a history and a reason behind it as the reader can well imagine.

Three days after his conversion, and immediately after the gracious visit of Ananias, Paul passed through an

experience which in the language of The Acts reads:

`And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales' (Acts 9:18).

Paul was well-stored with the letter of the Word, he was called to be an apostle, he was filled with holy spirit,

and the scales fell from his eyes `immediately'. Alas, in my case, I had no such store of Scripture truth, not even the

mere letter of the Word; I received no apostolic call, neither was I filled with the spirit! Seven years, not three days,

intervened between my conversion and liberation. In my case no Ananias came and called me `brother', but alone,

with no one to help or to guide except the Lord and His Word, the scales fell, immediately the same spirit was

exercised that prompted the Bereans `to search and see if it were so'. If my road to Damascus was Exeter Hall, my

parallel with Acts 9:18 was in the privacy of my room seven years later.

I have sketched very lightly in the earlier articles of this series, both the occasion of my conversion and the

subsequent Secretaryship of the Training College that covered the years 1904 to 1908. In that sketch the reader will

have seen that I had no Christian upbringing, no Bible knowledge, not even a traditional or formal faith. It was not

surprising therefore that I eagerly absorbed teaching that appeared to have the sanction both of Scripture and of

As time went on and the knowledge of the Scriptures increased, increasing light began to have its liberating

effect, but any move in the direction of liberty of thought or independent opinion was held in with a tight rein. Over

and over again when I expressed a difference of opinion regarding a doctrine, an interpretation or a principle of

action, my search for light was checked by the suggestion that I should `pray about it' with the very obvious

implication, that to dare to differ from the teaching of the leader was something beyond argument. However, certain

passages from Ephesians having come up in the course of routine study, were ever in the background, until there

came a day when I dared to differ strongly on some item of teaching. Coupled with this, the discontinuance of the

Training College work, and the taking up with the idea of founding a `primitive church' led at length to the

severance already spoken of.

One of the lessons I then learned and one that I have never since forgotten, was the danger of leaning upon

another, however qualified and advanced that other might be. It was the dawning of the Berean spirit, although

unrecognised at the time. After one such painful conference, when much that I had originally accepted snapped

under the strain of criticism, I made a mental vow that never again would I accept from any man, whoever he may

be, any teaching as Truth until I had made it my own after rigorous and thorough searching of the Word. The

Berean spirit came out into the realm of recognised experience in the following way.

Among the unquestioned teachings that had up till then been received, was that which is expressed in the words

`The Seven Parables of Matthew 13'. Not only had the parables been expounded and explained, a parallel had been

instituted to show the close relationship between them and `the Seven Churches' of the Apocalypse. Book after

book, pamphlet after pamphlet proclaimed with awe-inspiring unity `There are SEVEN parables in Matthew 13', and

the idea of even questioning the statement or of counting the parables never entered the mind. It was as though one

might as well question the existence of the sun and the moon! One such book which I still possess has the statement

`The seventh and LAST parable', shutting the mind up to the idea of seven and seven only. Incidentally, one of the

favourite interpretations of these parables, was to imply, without actually asserting, that we were approaching the