With the Bible so widely available, it’s hard not to wonder why so many Bible-believing Christians are still not Bible-reading Christians. Perhaps it’s because we’ve developed a “been there, done that” mentality. The Bible is now readily available to us, but we are not as available to it as we ought to be.  — Wendy Speake, The 40-Day Feast

1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
Many believers fail to do the above because we do not know our Bible. When you probe further to ask, one of the common things believers say is that when I read the Bible, I don’t understand, and so I have stopped reading.
There is the letter of the word and the spirit of the word; without the spirit of the word, the Bible will be like a graphic to you. That’s when you hear things like The Bible contradicts itself, The Bible was just written to deceive black people etc. There are no contradictions in the Bible if your eyes are trained to interpret the Bible accurately.
Our lack of understanding has made us accept lies as truth and reject truth as lies. When I tell some believers that Christians and Muslims don’t serve the same God, they argue and it’s a clear sign that we don’t even understand the Bible and the God we serve.
The Holy Spirit is here to help us.

The conditions necessary to understand the Scripture are mainly hinged on these two:
1. The method
2. The person.
We mostly talk about the methods but sometimes forget that the person’s preparedness to understand Scripture is also a big factor. This write-up seems to address the “person” factor.

  1. Be born again or have a regenerated spirit. Your first step of understanding the Bible is to be born again. Man has a spirit and a soul and lives in a body. Man uses his spirit to make contact with God, uses his soul to make contact with the intellectual world, and uses his body to make contact with the physical world. A man that’s not born again is spiritually dead, which means his spirit man is not alive to the things of God. They are foolishness unto him. Without a regenerated spirit, the Bible is a closed book. A Muslim can read our Bible and even quote chapters offhead, he will still lack understanding because his spirit is not regenerated. Though he thinks he understands the Word he doesn’t. John 4:24 - God is a spirit so it takes a (regenerated or born again) spirit to worship, know and understand everything about God. The Bible is not just a documentation of letters but the root and nature of the Bible is that it’s a spirit. Matthew 13:11-15 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. The Bible cannot be understood through research or cleverness or natural talent but by the help of the Holy Spirit and if you’re not born again, the Holy Ghost has no business with you.

  2. You must be spiritual: it’s one thing to be born again and another thing to be spiritual or influenced by the Spirit. 2 Cor 2:13 CSB‬‬ “We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. Man’s wisdom and knowledge are limited to what we see, feel, hear and what the heart contemplates but being spiritual gives you the opportunity for spiritual things to be explained to you, for deeper things to be shown you. We have two types of believers: carnal believers (babes) and spiritual believers 1 Cor 2:15-17, 3:1-3. A carnal believer is a born-again Christian who lives in the flesh. He has not submitted his members fully to the Lordship of the Holy Spirit but a spiritual man is one who is led by the Spirit of God; God is first in everything he does. Just as you can’t explain some things for a baby to understand, that’s how it is in the spirit too. You need to yearn to be spiritual so that your heart can be opened for the Holy Spirit to interpret deep things of the Scriptures to you.

  3. Read the Bible with care: Don’t read the Bible just to please your conscience that you’ve been reading your Bible. Don’t approach the Bible with I already know mentality. Be open-minded and be ready for the Spirit of God to teach you, don’t think you know it all, even if you’ve read that verse or chapter a 100 times. Don’t rush when reading your Bible; be intentional about it and pay attention to punctuation, words, brackets, asterisks, italics, etc., because all these have what they communicate in Scripture. For example, Psalm 23:6: Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. We see a colon in there, and a colon is a punctuation mark used chiefly to direct attention to matter (such as a list, explanation, quotation, or amplification) that follows. This means until you’re ready to dwell in the house of the Lord forget that goodness and mercy will follow you. The colon in there has thrown more light on the verse for us; you can’t neglect these things if you really want to understand Scripture. Generally (not always) in the Bible, when sin is used in the singular sense, it speaks of our sinful nature or the root of sin but when used in the plural sense as sins, it speaks of the fruits of sin or actions of sin. It’ll take a careful reader to notice this. Don’t rush while reading your Bible and be ready to compare verses or chapters to help bring more light to you.

  4. Obedience to the word: God expects us not to be just hearers of the word but doers of the word. The Bible is not just meant to be read or studied intellectually; it is meant to be lived. Heb 5:13-14 GNT: “Anyone who has to drink milk is still a child, without any experience in the matter of right and wrong. Solid food, on the other hand, is for adults, who through practice are able to distinguish between good and evil. You would understand by this scripture that practicing gives experience and experience helps you to understand. The more you live by God’s word, the more your spiritual discernment sharpens. John 7:17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself. Here, Jesus placed doing before knowing. Doing the word has a way of opening you up to the scriptures; it has a way of opening your spiritual eyes for truth to become more real to you.

  5. Don’t be over-curious: Curiosity is needed when studying Scripture because it helps you to investigate and search the word, but know that where Scripture is silent, you should be silent too. Deuteronomy 29:29 The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever, that we may do all the words of this law. When Scripture has not revealed it, don’t venture. Questions like how old Mary was when she gave birth to Jesus, how many wives did Adam marry, etc aren’t really necessary. Harold Camping (1921–2013) was a Christian radio broadcaster and Bible teacher who was obsessed with understanding biblical numerology. He studied and later believed he had found a secret biblical code that revealed the exact date of Jesus’ return. He predicted that Judgment Day would occur on May 21, 2011. His followers sold their possessions, quit jobs, and even pregnant women aborted their babies because they didn’t want to appear heavy. They sang songs of praise for the whole day, but God didn’t show up. When the prediction failed, Harold Camping admitted that he was wrong, but many people suffered emotional and financial ruin. Over-curiosity has led some into heresies, into deception, into thinking that they have revelations no Christian has heard or seen before etc. The Bible is enough, and so what has been written and revealed should be enough for us.

CONCLUSION
Luke‬ ‭24‬:‭44‬-‭45‬ ‭GNT‬‬
“Then he said to them, “These are the very things I told you about while I was still with you: everything written about me in the Law of Moses, the writings of the prophets, and the Psalms had to come true.” Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.
You need the Holy Spirit to help you understand the Bible because He is the author so cooperate with Him and light shall break forth unto you. Understand the Bible for yourself and save yourself from the errors unfolding in our age.

GOD BLESS YOU

Dennis Nemi