Friday, April 8, 2016
To many
it’s difficult to understand, yet the Bible itself gives us keys to understand
it!
The Bible
is the world’s best-selling book. Year after year millions of copies are sold
or given away. Although most ancient books have disappeared from memory, the
Bible continues to be printed more than any other book and is available in more
than 2,000 languages. It has helped form the basis for Western society and has
shaped much of its religious, economic and social outlook.
Yet in
spite of the Bible’s popularity, it has also rightly been described as the
world’s most misunderstood book. Although millions of people are Bible
readers, many find it hard to understand. Some even give up trying, thinking it
is too confusing.
Possibly
you have been one of those who have found the Bible difficult to comprehend.
Perhaps you wish you knew how to better apply its timeless principles and use
it to build a right relationship with its author, your Creator.
How can you
become one of those who do understand what the Scriptures
say?
Let’s look
to the Bible itself for the answer. It reveals ways to better grasp its message
to mankind. Throughout its pages are principles that, when applied, can help
your comprehension. Let’s now explore a number of important keys that will help
open up this Book of books to your understanding.
APPROACH THE BIBLE WITH A PROPER ATTITUDE
Why do so
many have difficulty grasping the Bible's message and meaning?
The answer
is simple-they don’t have the right frame of mind. We must approach the Bible
with respect for what it is-God’s divine revelation to us.
Curiously
enough, we find that the Bible is not a book that everyone can readily
understand. Many find it puzzling, difficult to figure out. How, then, can we
come to understand it?
The first
set of keys to comprehension can be grouped under the umbrella of the
right approach we must have at the outset of our reading and study.
We must
come to the Bible with the right attitude and perspective—looking with profound
respect and reverence to the divine Author behind its pages, willing to believe
and follow what He says.
Without
this approach, we may be able to discern certain biblical truths on at least
some level, but we will suffer profound blind spots regarding major aspects of
scriptural revelation—blind spots that will seriously impair our overall
understanding.
To get the
big picture, we need to approach Scripture with the right frame of mind.
GOING TO THE SOURCE
Our first
step is prayer, to humbly ask God for His help. This is the first vital key to
understanding His Word.
God
describes the kind of attitude and approach He respects: “But on this one will
I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite [i.e., repentant] spirit, and who
trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2).
Understanding
God’s Word is not a matter of superior intellect. God looks on the heart, our
attitude and approach, to determine whether to give us understanding. The
apostle Peter tells us: “In truth I perceive that God shows no partiality. But
in every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him”
(Acts 10:34-35, emphasis added throughout).
The Lord Jesus
thanked God the Father for the way He chose whom to give spiritual
understanding: “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You
have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes…
No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and who the Father is except the
Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him” (Luke 10:21-22).
God
reserves the right to choose those to whom He will reveal spiritual
understanding. Sometimes one whom God so chooses may initially hold to views
that oppose the truth, as did the apostle Paul. God miraculously called this
man who had vigorously persecuted the early Christians, then opened his mind
and used him as a powerful tool to reveal a wealth of spiritual truth and write
much of what we know as the New Testament.
Notice the
importance of God’s involvement in our understanding of the Bible. Christ said
to His disciples: “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still
with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of
Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me. And He opened their
understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures” (Luke
24:44-45). It was not their intellect that let them grasp the meaning; God had
to open their minds.
Most
overlook this point in studying the Bible. Even though we might possess the
world’s brightest minds, if God does not act to open our minds, the Bible will
remain closed to us. As the apostle Paul explained: “These things [God’s Word]
we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy
Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not
receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him;
nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians
2:13-14).
Because God
inspired the Bible, it follows that it is not a mere book that takes only a
measure of intellectual effort to understand. God reserves the right to grant
an understanding of His precious truths to whomever He will.
Furthermore,
we must realize that our motivation for reading and
studying the Bible is important. If we feel compelled to read it simply to
please others or pore over it only as a religious duty, God likely will not
open the Scriptures’ true meaning to us. His truths will remain hidden. How,
then, can we discover these truths?
As we have
seen, the first key to understanding Scripture is to ask for God’s help with a right
attitude. In Jeremiah 29:13, He tells us, “You will seek Me and find
Me, when
you search for Me with all your heart”.
Why is
attitude so important? Paul reveals the answer: “Instead, God deliberately
chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they
are wise. And he chose those who are powerless to shame those who are powerful.
God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and
used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important, so that no
one can ever boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:27-29, New Living
Translation).
No one will be able to boast that he was
able to rightly understand God’s spiritual truths with only his intelligence,
his education and his own effort!
On the
other hand, once a person humbly asks God for help and is committed to obeying
what he learns, he is on the right path to understanding. The Lord explained
this to His disciples: “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and
become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3-4).
No matter
how intelligent we may be, if we don’t humble ourselves and become
teachable like a small child, God will not help us to grasp His Word.
God
promises that He will faithfully answer a humble request for understanding from
those with whom He is working. The apostle James writes, “If any of you lacks
wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach,
and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).
All through
the Bible we see examples of people who asked humbly for godly wisdom and were
rewarded. Among them are David, Solomon, Daniel, Esther and the Lord Jesus’ first
disciples.
On the
other hand, others are prime examples of those who relied on their own ability
and were subsequently humiliated, such as Adam and Eve’s son Cain, the Egyptian
pharaoh during the time of the Exodus, Israel’s King Saul, King Nebuchadnezzar
of Babylon, the religious teachers who opposed the Lord Jesus, and Herod
Agrippa, the Judean ruler who persecuted members of the New Testament Church.
An example
of a proper, humble, godly approach is that of the Bereans, mentioned in Acts
17:10-12: They “were more receptive than those in Thessalonica, for
they welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day
to see whether these things were so. Many of them therefore believed, including
not a few Greek women and men of high standing” (New Revised Standard Version).
Unlike
others, the Bereans did not immediately reject what Paul was saying, even
though many things they heard contradicted their own long-held beliefs. They
carefully reviewed the Scriptures with an open mind and saw that what Paul had
said made sense. Then, after diligently searching the Scriptures, they verified
that what he taught was indeed the truth, and they humbly accepted his
teachings.
Similarly,
if we want to understand the Bible, we need the attitude of the Bereans. We
need to carefully review the Scriptures, not taking our beliefs for granted,
because, as the Bereans found, our own ideas can be wrong.
Furthermore,
God wants us to have a submissive, teachable attitude as we
read His Word and hear it preached to us. Indeed, we must embrace it as a guide
for living and follow it accordingly.
James
compared God’s law revealed in Scripture to a sort of spiritual mirror that can
reveal aspects of our character when we look into it—often problematic
thoughts, habits and behaviors that we should strive with God’s help to change.
As James
stated: “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive
yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do
what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking
at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man
who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do
this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it— he will be blessed in what
he does” (James 1:22-25, New International Version).
An attitude
of prayerfully, humbly seeking help from God so we can learn, leading to putting
into practice what we do learn, is critical to
understanding God’s truths in the Bible. You can put this principle to work by
asking God to enlighten, teach, instruct and correct you from His Word and lead
you in understanding it.
We will
delve more into the importance of applying the truths we learn from Scripture
at the end of this series.
ALL SCRIPTURE IS INSPIRED
Another
vital factor in how we approach the Bible involves the way we view it. We must
recognize that the Bible is indeed the Word of God. To understand the
Scriptures, we must accept the authority over us of all the Bible (Matthew
4:4). All the books of the Bible—in both the Old and New Testaments—are
inspired by God.
God assures
us that we can absolutely trust the Holy Scriptures. “All Scripture is given by
inspiration of God”, wrote Paul, “and is profitable for doctrine, for
reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God
may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:16-17).
This is a
powerful statement. It means we can confidently accept the Bible, as originally
written, as the inspired and infallible Word of God.
However,
the various versions and differing translations that have been handed down to
us are not free of occasional human error. Therefore, a comparison among the
versions is helpful, as we will consider further later. But we can rest assured
that the differences are minimal among the major versions that are faithfully
based on the Hebrew and Greek texts. Many ancient copies have been used to
search out almost all mistakes introduced through copying the text by hand over
the centuries. The Bible’s basic truths are faithfully preserved.
What
evidence do we have that all the Bible is inspired by God?
That’s an important question. If the Bible were just another religious book
written thousands of years ago, why would we need it? After all, we have plenty
of those already available, and new books on religion appear almost every day.
What makes the Bible one of a kind is its consistency. Its underlying
principles never changed throughout the 1,500 years of its creation.
Some 40
authors composed the various books of the Bible over the centuries, and only a
few of its writers personally knew any of the others. Yet an unbroken unity of
thought is obvious in their writings. The religious writings that form the
basis for other religions and philosophies are imperfect. They contain both
easily identifiable doctrinal and historical errors and inconsistencies.
Only the
Bible has held up under centuries of scrutiny from historians, critics and the
archaeologist’s spade. Unparalleled in the history of literature, the Bible has
proved reliable in ways unmatched by other books. (To learn more, read our
series Is the Bible True?)
Not only is
the Bible historically accurate, but its unifying principles are found from the
beginning to the end of the Scriptures. Faith, for example, is one of those
unifying principles. Back in Genesis 4, at the beginning of human history, we
see the faith of Abel, who paid for his faith with his life. Throughout the
centuries of the biblical record, this same faith is to be found in the trials
of Noah, Abraham, Moses and the prophets, the Lord Jesus Himself, the apostles
and the members of the early Church.
One New
Testament chapter in particular, Hebrews 11, shows that for thousands of years
a unity of thought was based on the principle of faith. Therefore, when reading
the Bible we need to keep in mind the unity of its spiritual principles.
Whether
we’re studying a narrative, a psalm, an apostolic letter or the four Gospels,
we find that all are connected to the same underlying principles inspired by
God. If left to the devices of fallible men, the contradictions in its
principles would long ago have been exposed—as they have been in most of man’s
writings. Many views and interpretations about what the Bible says are
contradictory. But none of these human opinions affects the integrity of
the Scriptures themselves.
God’s
commandments are another example of a unifying principle. His laws form the
backbone of Scripture, the basis for His relationship with mankind. They begin
in Genesis, where basic principles are revealed, and are expanded on throughout
the rest of the Bible. And finally, in the last chapter of the Bible’s last
book, Revelation, we read, “Blessed are those who do His commandments, that
they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates
into the city” (Revelation 22:14).
God’s
commandments do not change from the beginning to the end of the Bible, even
though they are amplified in the New Testament. The same Author, God, inspired all of
the Scriptures.
The Lord Jesus
mentioned the principle that Scripture is built on the framework of the
commandments of God. He explained in Matthew 22:37-40 the two greatest
scriptural and spiritual principles. One covers the First through the Fourth
Commandments, and the second deals with the Fifth through the Tenth.
Quoting the
Old Testament, the Lord said: “ ‘You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with
all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love
your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the Law and the
Prophets”. These two great principles, said the Lord Jesus, form the foundation
of all of God’s laws.
Another
example of biblical unity of thought is found in the genealogies listed
throughout the Bible. Some think they are only a remnant of history and of
little worth. Yet these genealogies, in Genesis 5 and 10 and 1 Chronicles 1
through 9, form the basis for the lineage of New Testament figures, including the
Lord Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3.
These
genealogical records present Christ not as a legendary figure, but as descended
from Old Testament personalities whose existence can be verified. Historical
and archaeological evidence has confirmed the existence of several people in
these genealogical lists, giving credence to the prophecies about the Lord Jesus’
descent from Abraham (Genesis 12:7; Galatians 3:16) and King David (Matthew
1:1). Genealogies thus serve as historical guideposts for the existence of the
Lord Jesus.
Although
many Bible writers lived centuries apart and didn’t necessarily realize they
were writing words that would become part of Scripture, God saw to it that
their writings fit with the rest of the Bible, carefully intertwined according
to His will and purpose.
Yes, the
Bible contains history, genealogies, poetry, letters, prophecies and symbols,
but they were all inspired by the same infallible God, and each section is a
part of a greater whole. Christ Himself said that “the Scripture cannot be
broken” (John 10:35). God does not contradict Himself.
This is one
of the main reasons, in spite of countless attempts to destroy it, that the
Bible is still with us after several thousands of years. It will survive as
long as mankind is on earth, and it is intended for our reading and understanding.
As Paul tells us, “For whatever things were written before were written for
our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the
Scriptures might have hope”(Romans 15:4). Christ stated that His words in
the Bible would be preserved: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words
will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35, NIV).
The
principle of the inspiration of the Bible means that our beliefs must be
brought in line with and conform to Scripture, which consistently conforms to
its own principles. God does not make mistakes; He does not contradict Himself.
We see in the Bible an intricate interweaving of God’s truths and the
revelation of His plan from beginning to end.
The apostle
Peter said of the inspiration of the Hebrew prophets: “Of this salvation the
prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that
would come to you… To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us
they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through
those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from
heaven—things which angels desire to look into”(1 Peter 1:10-12). All Scripture
is unified, clearly manifesting divine inspiration.
Peter
explains further, in 2 Peter 1:20-21, that “no prophecy of Scripture is of any
private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy
men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit”. God’s Spirit is the
guiding force behind the Scriptures.
As early as
Peter’s time some were already twisting parts of the Old and New Testament
writings to their own folly. “Therefore, beloved”, he warned, “. . . be
diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and consider
that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother
Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, as also in all
his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard
to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own
destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures” (2 Peter 3:14-16).
When Paul
explained in 2 Timothy 3:15-17 that all Scripture is inspired and is important
to righteous living, this was before the books of the New Testament had been
canonized or portions of it had even been written. So the “Scripture” to which
Paul referred was the Hebrew Bible, what we commonly call the Old Testament.
For several decades in the early Church, this was the only “Bible” available.
Later, as we saw in 2 Peter 3:14-16, the apostle Peter referred to Paul’s
writings as Scripture also.
Accepting
only a part of the Scriptures as a basis for faith has resulted in literally
hundreds of denominations professing to be Christian, but holding contradictory
beliefs. Yet if we do justice to what the Bible says, all Scripture should be
respected and believed, from Genesis to Revelation. The Lord Jesus plainly told
us to live by every word of God (Matthew 4:4; Luke 4:4). We should rely on
Scripture, and not man’s ideas, to explain God’s truths.
It’s one
thing to view the Bible as a mere collection of stories. It’s quite another to
accept it as an inspired body of unified and related instructions, history and
illustrations. The Bible is full of examples of people like us whose lives
demonstrate their obedience or disobedience to the principles of God.
The right
approach is to accept Scripture for what it is—God’s revealed Word—and to
prayerfully and humbly embrace and follow its teachings. With that crucial
background and attitude we are ready to embark on learning what the Bible has
to tell us.
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