The Bible is a spiritual book. What should be your first step in understanding this book of books?
Have you ever thought that the Bible is hard to understand? A lot of people have. They’ve tried to read it, feel that it’s very difficult to understand. Every year people start reading the Bible through one of these annual bible reading programs and many do complete that. Others will get bogged down, perhaps, in some of the more detailed parts of the Bible that are a little bit more hard to understand and just give up. Well, don’t worry. It is possible to understand the Bible. And we’re going to begin a series of understanding the Bible here on BT Daily and what I want to talk about today is perhaps step number one of this. Very simple. As you begin to read the Bible, even before you begin to read the Bible, and every time as you pick it up to read it, pray to God for understanding. Pray for understanding, and God will answer that prayer. The Bible can be invigorating, inspiring, fascinating - it can be something that also can be a bit challenging in certain parts, there’s no denying that. But the key is to ask God for that understanding, even before you open the Bible, and He will answer that prayer to help you understand what you are reading.
There’s also other helps that you could use to pick up - Bible dictionary, a commentary that can add insight to scriptures. But if you’re just looking at the Bible, reading it for what it is, as God’s word to us, then pray for understanding first. And seek that and God will give you that.
There’s a Psalm - 119, verses 33 to 40. Psalms 119:33-40. We’ll just read a few verses here. The psalmist writes this as he prays to God. He says, “Teach me. Teach me, O Lord, the way of Your statutes, and I shall keep it to the end.” He goes on - he says, “Give me understanding, and I shall keep Your law. I will observe it with my whole heart. Incline my heart to Your testimonies, and not to covetousness.” So again, even one who somewhere in the past, involved with writing the Bible, said to God, “Teach me and give me that understanding.” Make that your prayer, of understanding the Bible before you ever even begin to pick it up and read it. It will be something to make all the difference as you begin your journey into the word of God. Pray for understanding.
There are lot of sayings people think are in the Bible but are not. There are also a lot of religious beliefs people have that are not in the Bible. There’s a lot about the Bible that people do not understand.
You ever hear the phrase, “Money is the root of all evil”? How about, “Spare the rod and spoil the child”? Here’s another phrase: “Cleanliness is next to godliness.” You know, people say these things and many times people think they’re quoting the Bible. But you know, you’re not. None of these phrases, and a lot of other phrases, that people will use in everyday speech are not found in the Bible. There’s a lot of sayings like that. There’s also a lot of religious beliefs and traditions and ideas and beliefs that people hold that are not found in the Bible.
What are you going to do about discovering something that God says to do that you haven’t been doing? And if God convicts your heart, that you should do it, you have a choice to make. It’s a fascinating discovery and journey that you do as you begin to go through the Bible. Would you change? Well, if you would, as you begin to read the scriptures, let me tell you, you would be far ahead of many other people who read the Bible and just put it aside then and say, “Oh, it’s a nice book, it’s a nice thought, nice piece of literature,” but go on with their life, and are not convicted and moved by it. But if you admit that you may be wrong, if you keep that open mind and then begin to change, you will be taking a step far greater than you could ever imagine, and that will put you ahead.
There’s a scripture, and an example, in the Bible that I think is a byword for us. a group of people who searched the scriptures and kept the Bible in their mind in terms of what they understood. It’s in Acts chapter 17, as the apostle Paul was visiting with a group of people in a city called Berea. And as he came to this group of people, he found, it says, that “they were more open-minded” than another group back up the road in Thessalonica and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. He goes on to say that “they searched the scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.” Acts 17:11.
Searching the scriptures daily, keeping an open mind, proving whether or not what anyone says about the Bible, the scriptures, is true - it’s a hallmark of a Berean. And it can be a saying or a hallmark for you and for I as we read the Bible, seek God’s understanding, and seek to prove what it is that we believe and what is there and what might be commonly understood or misunderstood in today’s world. It’s a key to understanding the Bible - keep an open mind.
Are you willing to ask directions when lost?
They say that most men will not stop their car when they’re lost, driving around, and ask for directions. It’s kind of a guy thing. I know - I’ve been guilty of that myself. Now ladies, there may be something that’s peculiar to you that you don’t want to ask help or directions for - I’m not going to comment about that today. But let’s face it - it’s a human problem. Human beings don’t like to admit that we might be lost, we might not know something, and we might somehow be inadequate and go and seek understanding, go and seek help, and even at times, correction.
Well, that brings us to the third key that we are talking about in this series on how to understand the Bible. Third key in this is to humbly seek understanding and correction. Humbly seek instruction and correction. As we begin to study the Bible and understand what God has in store for us. Instruction that the Bible is full of and, yes, correction - to correct our lives, our actions, our attitudes, and make us more like God. That, after all, is why you would want to open up the Bible and begin to study it and read it. But recognize that we’re lost at times. We’re off on a different side street and we’re not headed in the right direction and we need to get directions. That’s where the word of God comes in.
In Jeremiah 10:23 - a critical verse in here to help guide us in this - it says, “O Lord, I know the way of man is not in himself.” Sometimes we need a bit of a course correction, we need to be pushed back in line. He goes on, “It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps.” We need God to help us in doing that. And so, as Jeremiah prayed here, “O Lord, correct me, but with justice, not in Your anger, lest You bring me to nothing.” Make that a prayer as you seek to understand the Bible and to let it - its secrets, its revelation, its truth, its instruction, be opened up to you by God. Make that your prayer to God, to teach you, direct you, even to correct you, and go and do that in a humble fashion. God will answer that prayer. You’ll be very surprised at what will begin to be understood and opened up from the pages of the Bible.
I understand going to the word of God and seeking correction is a challenging matter. And be ready for that. We, and you, will have some things revealed to us that may be a little bit hard and difficult to deal with. But understand this: God’s word can discern our thoughts and our hearts and it can open us up to a way of understanding exactly what God has in mind for us as we read His word.
So be ready, as you set out to understand the Bible, be ready to seek and to take and understand that correction.
