KNOWING THE BIBLE
Read and pray: "Why do you not understand my language? It is because you cannot hear my word." (John 8:43)
Using electricity as an example, we see that understanding electricity is one thing, and contacting it is another. Understanding it is a matter of the mind, while contacting it is a matter of the body.
Often there is an electric current, but a piece of wood insulates it from the body. Under such circumstances, although a person’s mind may understand electricity, their body cannot contact it. On the other hand, some people understand nothing about electricity, but their body truly contacted it. They can contact electricity because it is there and because their bodies are not insulated from it.
As soon as they touch it, they can feel it. This is a good illustration of our relationship with the Bible. Understanding the Bible with our mind is one thing, and touching it, contacting it with our spirit is something quite different. It may be that we understand the Bible with our mind and that our spirit has not yet contacted it. It is not enough just to understand the Bible with our mind; we also need to contact it with our spirit.
On the other hand, just as we need to touch and contact the Bible with our spirit, it is necessary that we also understand it with the mind. We must realize that the reason we want the mind to understand the Bible is so that our spirit can contact and touch its words.
One thing is certain: it is difficult for our spirit to touch the words of the Bible without them first passing through the understanding of our mind. This happens with the words of the Bible, just as with the words that are preached. Even the words of this chapter cannot touch your spirit without first having passed through your understanding.
Suppose I am preaching here in Chinese and there is someone sitting there who does not understand Chinese. Nothing will penetrate that person’s mind. How can their spirit be touched? The truth must first be understood by the mind before reaching the spirit and touching the person.
If there is an uneducated person who opens the Bible to read it, how can their spirit be touched? For their spirit to be touched by the Bible, they must strive first to learn to read with their mind. They need at least to be able to identify the words in the Bible so they can read them and be touched by them in their spirit.
If we do not understand the words in the Bible, even if we pray for three hours with much inspiration, it will still be impossible for us to understand it or be touched when we read it, because its words cannot reach our mind. We must spend a lot of time learning our language with our mind until we come to read the Bible. Only then will the words be able to reach our mind to touch our spirit.
Furthermore, the Bible is not so simple. We can know all the words of the Bible and still not be able to understand its meaning. There are passages in the Bible that cannot be understood by a simple reading. The Bible has its own characteristics and its own history.
Many people with doctoral degrees and much knowledge open the Bible to read it and find that, although they know all the words, they cannot understand some passages because they do not have specific knowledge of the “background” or of certain specific terms of the Bible. Since they do not understand these passages, it is difficult for them to be touched by them.
Of course, there are certain passages, such as John 3:16, that do not present any technical language difficulty. As long as the words are understood, a simple reading is enough for the mind to understand. However, there are many other places in the Bible that present special language problems.
For example, there are specific names of people and places, there is the matter of dispensation, the types, and the prophecies. Furthermore, there are many other subjects like numbers, allegories, and symbols. The ability to understand these expressions and specific terms is not found in someone who is merely cultured or educated in this world.
This can be compared to the fact that, although I am cultured, I am completely lost when I face a book on electricity. I can read the words, but I do not understand their meaning because of the many specific technical terms. To understand a book on electricity, we first need to learn the meaning of some technical terms.
By the same principle, the words of the Bible may seem very common, yet they are very specific and contain many peculiar terms. If we are not properly trained in these specific terms and technical subjects, we will have difficulty understanding what we read.
For example: John 1:17 says the law was given through Moses. “The law” is a special term and “Moses” is also a special name. Without knowledge of the background of these two terms, even a hundred PhDs together would not be able to understand the meaning of this sentence.
Thus, for a saved person to adequately understand the Bible, they must spend some time on the specific terms and language and be trained in their mind. With training, reading becomes much easier. They will not have much difficulty when encountering words like “the law,” “Moses,” or the “shedding of blood for the remission of sins,” because they will already know these specific terms.
As soon as they are read, they will be readily understood. The words of the Bible will immediately pass through the mind and be touched by the spirit. Therefore, this time we will spend a good deal of time on the specific terms and language of the Bible. This aspect of mind training is preparation to help us use our spirit in order to contact and touch the Bible.
We hope that through this training, most brothers will, on one hand, be trained in techniques to penetrate the Bible and its specific terminology to have the called biblical knowledge, and on the other hand, exercise the spirit. In this way, when they read the Bible, the words will immediately penetrate their mind. At the same time, they will know how to use their spirit to contact the Spirit in the Word.
In summary, this training is for everyone to learn to understand the Bible with the mind and to touch it with the spirit. The first half of this series consists of mind training and the second half, spirit exercising. The first half of this series is about mind training; the second is about exercising the spirit.
In the first half, we will spend a lot of time getting into the special terms and techniques that are used. This requires much patience. Lazy people cannot know the Bible. One cannot expect a lazy person to gain adequate knowledge of the Bible. Perhaps, once in a while, God in His mercy may allow them a touch and an inspiration. However, this is like being struck by lightning, which is very rare.
All those who properly know the Bible have an adequate mind and understanding. Although we have a spirit, we are not only spirit. God never intended to make us a spirit. He only wants us to be spiritual people. God still wants us to be human beings, and as human beings, we have not only spirit but also mind.
Therefore, for us to know the Bible, we need to inwardly exercise the spirit and outwardly be trained in the mind. Only when we have both aspects are we adequate persons.
Now we come to the first lesson of this series. We need to discover what the Bible is. What is, in fact, the Bible? If someone asks, “What is this table?” we can immediately answer that this table is made of wood; you can put things on it. But few have clarity about what the Bible is.
Even today, it is difficult for us to explain it fully. We will say what we can. We will use four points to explain what the Bible is. The Bible is one, but we will speak of four aspects of it to fully cover the subject.
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