{"id":641,"date":"2016-06-29T20:31:03","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T00:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pilgriminstitute.org\/blog\/?p=641"},"modified":"2025-02-19T16:05:21","modified_gmt":"2025-02-19T21:05:21","slug":"the-history-of-the-bible-is-the-history-of-liberty-interview-with-ruth-j-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pilgriminstitute.org\/blog\/the-history-of-the-bible-is-the-history-of-liberty-interview-with-ruth-j-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"The History of the Bible is the History of Liberty…Interview with Ruth J. Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"
This is the final question in the interview between Mrs. Ruth J. Smith and a homeschool blogger.<\/div>\n
The first two questions can be found here: 1. The Bible In English, Do We Treasure It?<\/a> and 2. Without the Bible, Truth will be Hidden<\/a><\/div>\n
The Question asked of Mrs. Smith was, “<\/div>\n
\u201cIf you were to teach just three things about the Bible in English link on the Chain of Christianity what would they be?\u00a0 What is the \u201cbig idea\u201d we should be teaching our children in this link?\u201d<\/em><\/div>\n
Here is Mrs. Smith’s final answer:<\/div>\n
3. The History of the Bible is the History of Liberty!<\/strong><\/div>\n
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II Corinthians 3:17 teaches us that \u201cWhere the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.\u201d \u201cHistory reveals that liberty for the individual in the civil sphere is predicated upon spiritual liberty. Spiritual liberty begins internally, as the individual receives the gift of salvation provided through the death of Christ on the cross. Individuals realized the simple truth of salvation as the Bible was place in their hands and available for personal study.\u201d6<\/div>\n
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No man or nation gives liberty to the individual. As our founding fathers identified in the Declaration of Independence, liberty is an unalienable right given by our Creator. Men and nations must preserve and protect that liberty.<\/div>\n
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\u201cSince the time the Bible was published in English and made available to the individual, there have been greater and greater and greater expressions of liberty\u2014first spiritual liberty and, then, its correlative, religious liberty \u2013 protected by laws limiting the power of men in civil government. \u2018The liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free\u2019 gave rise to liberty of conscience where men resolved \u2018to obey God rather than men.\u2019 Conscientious Christians, led to worship together, also covenanted together religiously and civilly to enjoy religious liberty\u2014the liberty to worship God as God gave them light. But, there could be no religious liberty without civil liberty \u2013 where laws not only condemned and punished lawlessness, but protected the free exercise of religion by limiting the power of kings and legislators.\u201d7<\/div>\n
The three ideas which I have selected for teaching the Bible in English are taken from the series, The Mighty Works of God<\/a>. The underlying theme of this series is to teach the children of America the truth that the Word of God in the hands of the people is causative to events in history. To teach these ideas, I recommend the three volumes that are currently available in The Mighty Works of God <\/a>series. All of these ideas are expanded in the Teacher\u2019s Guides, along with a number of student pages which will confirm the ideas for the student.<\/div>\n