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Article Index
A.A.'s Roots - Jesus's Sermon on the Mount
The Sermon on the Mount
Matthew Chapter 5
1 John 4:20
Matthew Chapter 7
All Pages

The Parts Dr. Bob Considered "Absolutely Essential"

A.A.'s Bible roots are as numerous and varied as the A.A. sources that used them. If you start with the Bible devotionals in wide use by A.A.'s oldtimers, you'll see lots of mention of all the Bible verses, chapters, and books we'll discuss. Key among those devotionals were The Upper Room, The Runner's Bible, and My Utmost For His Highest.

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If you start with the books Dr. Bob's wife Anne recommended and shared from her journal with early AAs and their families, you will find Anne recommending the Book of Acts, Psalms, Proverbs, and other specific sections. She also recommends Fosdick's book on The Meaning of Prayer, which is filled with Bible references pertaining to prayer. She recommends several books on the life of Jesus Christ which, also, are filled with Bible references. She recommends life-changing books by Sam Shoemaker and others, and these spell out appropriate Bible sources for the very spiritual ideas Rev. Shoemaker was teaching early AAs. So too with the Glenn Clark books and E. Stanley Jones books.

If you start with some of the books Dr. Bob recommended, you'll be looking at The Greatest Thing in the World by Drummond, which discusses 1 Corinthians 13. You'll look at several books on Matthew 5-7 (the sermon on the mount delivered by Jesus). These include books by Oswald Chambers, Glenn Clark, E. Stanley Jones, Emmet Fox, and others. Most of those authors discuss almost every single verse in the sermon. Though there is no commentary on the Book of James, The Runner's Bible (which Dr. Bob widely recommended) discussed many parts many portions of James, which is the book Anne frequently read to Bob and Bill at the Smith home in the summer of 1935. The many books by Rev. Sam Shoemaker, Oxford Group writers, new thought writers, and others such as Kagawa all became rich sources for the simple ideas AAs extracted from the Good Book and incorporated into their spiritual program of recovery. That program, of course, involved intensive work with newcomers, prayer, Bible study, and being in frequent, daily fellowship with like-minded believers..

In this segment, the focus will be on the three portions of the Bible which Dr. Bob said he and the early A.A. pioneers considered "absolutely essential." Here are some of the pioneer comments about those three segments (Matthew 5-7, the Book of James, and 1 Corinthians 13):

When we started in on Bill D. [who was A.A. Number Three], we had no Twelve Steps [said Dr. Bob]. . . But we were convinced that the answer to our problems was in the Good Book. To some of us older ones, the parts that we found absolutely essential were the Sermon on the Mount, the thirteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and the Book of James (The Co-founders of Alcoholics Anonymous: Biographical sketches Their last major talks. New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1972, 1975, pp. 9-10)

Members of Alcoholics Anonymous begin the day with a prayer for strength and a short period of Bible reading. They find the basic messages they need in the Sermon on the Mount, in Corinthians and the Book of James [said Dr. Bob] (Wally P., But for the Grace of God, p. 45).

Before there was a Big Book-in the period of "flying blind," God's Big Book was the reference used in our home [said Dr. Bob's son, Smitty]. The summer of 1935, when Bill lived with us, Dr. Bob had read the Bible completely three times. And the references that seemed consistent with the program goals were the Sermon on the Mount, 1 Corinthians 13, and the Book of James (Dick B., The Good Book and The Big Book, p. ix).

There is the Bible that you haven't opened for years. Get acquainted with it. Read it with an open mind. You will find things that will amaze you. You will be convinced that certain passages were written with you in mind. Read the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew V, VI, and VII). Read St. Paul's inspired essay on love (I Corinthians XIII). Read the Book of James. Read the Twenty-third and Ninety-first Psalms. These readings are brief but so important (A Manual for Alcoholics Anonymous, 6th rev. ed. Akron, Ohio, AA of Akron, 1989, p. 8).

Each morning there was devotion [said Bill Wilson]. After the long silence Anne [Dr. Bob's wife] would read out of the Good Book. James was our favorite (RHS. New York: The AA Grapevine, Inc., 1951, p. 5).

I sort of always felt that something was lost from A.A. when we stopped emphasizing morning meditation [said Bill Wilson] (DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers, New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., 1980, p. 178).

We much favored the Apostle James. The definition of live in Corinthians also played a great part in our discussions, [said Bill Wilson] (Kurtz, Not-God. Hazelden, 1991, p. 320, n. 11).

I learned a great deal from you people [said Bill Wilson in December 12, 1954 interview of T. Henry and Clarace Williams], from the Smiths themselves, and from Henrietta [Seiberling]. I hadn't looked in the Bible, up to this time, at all [referring to the meetings and conversations in the summer of 1935] (Dick B., The Akron Genesis, p. 64).

The Sermon on the Mount [Matthew Chapters 5 - 7] contains the underlying spiritual philosophy of A.A. [said both Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob] (Dick B., The Good Book and The Big Book, p. 4).

The key Bible segments most frequently mentioned in connection with the essentials used to put the pioneer program of recovery together, then, were the Sermon, James, and Corinthians.

And we believe any study of A.A. history, A.A. principles, A.A. literature, and the A.A. fellowship requires a knowledge of what the early AAs took from the three key Bible sources. You will no doubt see how the various segments of those particular Biblical materials seem quite clearly to have influenced or found their way into the Big Book and the Twelve Steps. We think those materials so important that they justify a separate item-by-item review at this point.

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