INTRODUCTION

       This booklet seeks not so much to argue or enter into controversy, as to expound the Truth as it is in Jesus. Truth has an enormous vitality in itself. Once seen it can never be forgotten. It may be hated, but not confuted. It is hopeless, for example, to struggle against the ten times tables! Every ray of truth carries with it a real illumination, which satisfies both heart and mind, so that we exclaim involuntarily "I was blind, but now I see". The full assurance of understanding is the magnificent goal which God has set before all who give themselves to the study of His Word. (Col. 2:2).

       We are exhorted to "buy the Truth and sell it not". Yes, it is expensive; it may cost a man his life or his livelihood, his relations or his business, his career or his pleasures; and the temptation to sell it for the same price when once purchased will come in times of strain or stress. That is why men's accounts of Christianity vary so much. One man has only felt able to afford a little bit of the Truth; another will go further, and a third beggar himself completely! It is, for instance, cheaper to be a minister in a respected church organisation than to be a member of a despised sect. The Army bonnet cost a great deal more fifty years ago than it does today!

       So the seeker after Truth, since he must begin somewhere, often finds himself so entangled in some traditional view of Christianity that it is next to impossible to go forward till he has extricated himself from ideas accepted without question, but also without sufficient reason. The author well remembers how in his early Christian life he found himself so confused by the different doctrines presented to him by Christians, who were obviously good, that he hardly knew what to believe. It was at this juncture that he read Psalm 1, and

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found there the way for his steps. God has never advised us to listen to what men have to say, but rather to dwell by the River of Living Water provided in His Word. Here He can speak to us: when we read the Gospels we find Him repeating to us the very words which He spake to His disciples. It is strange how far away from His words and interests is much that we find in current Christian doctrine and practice!

       The aim, then, of this booklet is to direct the reader's mind back to the Bible, and then leave him to discover for himself from constant study of it, whether these things be so or not. To many Christianity seems very complex and difficult, and even self-contradictory. But suppose that actually it is very simple, and all hangs upon the single Truth, that God is Love!

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