Reading the Bible with understanding

The word of God was written by human authors who were inspired by God (2Ti.3:16,17). This inspiration does not mean that every word in the Bible has been placed there as if God was dictating the words to the authors. (This is very important to know especially when we are reading translations.) It can easily be noticed that the different authors were permitted to use their own vocabulary, style and even their understanding in writing down the thoughts God gave them. What this means is that every word does not have the same significance compared to others when we read them. We need to see places where words are to be taken as given to us with authority, and other places where it is a narration of history or using figures of speech to depict hidden mysteries. If we keep this understanding in our mind as we read the Bible, we can try to see which words can be taken as God's direct instructions to us and which not.

I heard one man quoting Ac.1:1, "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach," and teaching that Jesus preached only what He had already practised, and so should we. In the case of Jesus we can very well believe that, because Jesus always did the right thing and His preaching matched His life always. But I realised that nobody else could do that, and if we preached only what matched with our life, we could not preach a lot of things! But we are all growing up, and by necessity we must preach about what we believe and want to experience in our life, to help the listeners, even though many things have not yet become true in our life. In this way, we will keep our heart right. But this preacher was trying to read into the text a meaning the author never had in mind. That is what happens when our zeal goes beyond our prudence. Luke who wrote the book was only saying that he had written in the earlier book about both what Jesus did and what He spoke. He did not mean that Jesus spoke only about the things He had done.

Having said that, let us think of another side. When we love the Lord and want to do His will, we may take certain decisions or make sacrifices for us personally. We may draw principles for these from all over the Bible. Even then we must distinguish these from laws that we can teach others to follow. Everything we do may not be applicable to others. Remember the story of Daniel where he decided not to defile himself with the king's food. We can imitate his heart, yet we cannot take this as a rule about food.

Blessed are those who set their heart to be always right before God and even in matters related to others (Ac.24:16). As they read the Bible they will be taking lessons from many things for themselves. They will be cleansing themselves (2Co.7:1). We said already that we could not expect others to follow all of that. But we must ask God to show us also what He wants us to do, following not just zeal but also wisdom. We can ask the Holy Spirit to teach us.