Isaac Mayer Wise Quotes

So long as the New Testament served to decipher the Old, it was taken as an absolute norm.

Reading and understanding the Bible involves lots and lots of interpretation. Not just in light of the world and culture around us, but in reference to other parts of the Bible.

Conservative New Testament studies could also provide an intellectually satisfying alternative to German biblical criticism and to the liberal theology that accompanied it.

What Jerry has done, in a masterful way, is go through and select portions of the Scripture and put words in Jesus' mouth that are legitimate because they already appear in the Bible.

The Bible for me is holy writ. It's a very straightforward thing, although I am not a literalist.

More people are troubled by what is plain in Scripture than by what is obscure.

My aim is that every sermon series I preach is prepared as though I were teaching a college-level course.

Refusing to teach a passage of Scripture is just as wrong as abusing it

Let us receive nothing, believe nothing, follow nothing which is not in the Bible, nor can be proved by the Bible.

It is very pious to say and prudent to affirm that the holy Bible can never speak untruth -- whenever its true meaning is understood. But I believe nobody will deny that it is often very abstruse, and may say things which are quite different from wha.

The Bible is a wonderful book; you can prove anything you want with it.

If the Holy Spirit guides us, He will do it according to the Scriptures and never contrary to them.

The infallibility and inerrancy of biblical teaching does not, however, guarantee the infallibility and inerrancy of any interpretation or interpreter of that teaching; nor does the recognition of its qualities as the Word of God in any way prejudge the issue as to what Scripture does, in fact, assert. This can be determined only by careful Bible study.

And to read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man.

Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.

The Bible, of course, is not a theology book. It is certainly not a philosophy book. So we have to derive the meaning of terms from the context in use.

Value all books in proportion as they are agreeable to Scripture. Those that are nearest to it are the best, and those that are farthest from it, and most contrary to it, the worst.

Remove Christ from the Scriptures and there is nothing left.

To open the Bible is to open a window toward Jerusalem, as Daniel did (6:10), no matter where our exile may have taken us.

The Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard.

You cannot criticize the New Testament. It criticizes you.

If you would follow on to know the Lord, come at once to the open Bible expecting it to speak to you. Do not come with the notion that it is a thing which you may push around at your convenience. It is more than a thing, it is a voice, a word, the very Word of the living God.

[T]o argue that something is so because it is in the Bible is more than intellectually bankrupt.

You can think too highly of your interpretations of Scripture, but you cannot think too highly of Scriptures interpretation of itself. You can exaggerate your authority in handling the Scriptures, but you cannot exaggerate the Scriptures authority to handle you. You can use the word of God to come to wrong conclusions, but you cannot find any wrong conclusions in the word of God.

[On the New Testament:] I ... must enter my protest against the false translation of some passages by the men who did that work, and against the perverted interpretation by the men who undertook to write commentaries thereon. I am inclined to think, when we [women] are admitted to the honor of studying Greek and Hebrew, we shall produce some various readings of the Bible a little different from those we now have.