"Sudoku", Agassiz and the Bereans

“Sudoku” is a numbers game designed to facilitate mental agility and can be somewhat addictive. 

Agassiz in 1848 became a professor at Harvard and was known as a great systematist and paleontologist.  For purposes of this article it is noteworthy that he had spent a lifetime, amongst other things, studying fish.  He employed keen observation, hour after hour and day after day, combined with the power of deduction to render his conclusions.  He taught his students this same method.  It was a difficult method particularly for the young and Americans—he was not a native American, having come from Switzerland where he had served for 13 years as a professor at the Lyceum of Neuchatel in Switzerland.

The “Bereans” are identified in the Book of Acts this way:  “These [people of Berea who had received the Gospel from Paul and Silas] were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so [that Jesus was the Christ and that it was necessary He suffer and rise again from the dead—See Acts 17:3]” (Acts 17:11).

From “Sudoku” one can learn the principle of “pressing through” to a conclusion because only one number can fit within a given slot and one develops a variety of techniques to “deduce” this.  Techniques for easy puzzles are not sufficient for harder ones.  New techniques must be developed for harder puzzles and generally these come from patient observation.

Professor Agassiz taught his students that only after the most patient and continuous observation would a subject (a given fish) begin to yield its secrets.

This is what the Bereans did; beginning with a “closed system” [the Scriptures—as they related to Messiah] they “searched” (made diligent inquiry concerning) them and compared them with the data Paul and Silas were presenting.  We can deduce the Bereans pursued their line of study until they were satisfied with the truthfulness of the material.

Presently there are all kinds of Bible Study helps available to the interested student and there is absolutely no reason why a generation of master students cannot be raised up.  It is not enough to take the “word” of your pastor, teacher or denomination.  You need to search a thing out for yourself.  Get yourself several different versions or translations of the Bible.  Perhaps get a one-volume commentary on the Bible.  Every student should have a copy of Strong’s Expanded Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible (KJV) or one can get one for the NKJV.  This will get you started.

Agassiz method as applied to the Scriptures would have you look at a chapter or portion of Scripture until certain patterns begin to emerge.  Dig these things out for yourself; always putting larger and larger portions together.

Finally, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing [handling] the word of truth” (II Timothy 2:15).