When You Do Not Understand The Bible

Charles H. Spurgeon

Quoting Charles H. Spurgeon:

You may read the Bible continuously and yet never learn anything by it, unless it is illuminated by the Spirit. Then the words shine forth like stars. Then the book seems made of gold leaf; every single letter glitters like a diamond.

Oh! it is a blessed thing to read an “illuminated Bible” lit up by the radiance of the Holy Spirit. Have you read the Bible, and yet have your eyes been unenlightened? Go and say, “O Lord, illuminate it; shine upon it; for I cannot read it to profit, unless You enlighten me.”

Blind men may read the Bible with their fingers, but blind souls cannot. We need a light to read the Bible by; there is no reading it in the dark.

How To Read The Bible, Part I

Thomas Watson

Do you find the Bible hard to read? Thomas Watson offers this advice to Christians:

1. Remove hindrances. (a) remove the love of every sin (b) remove the distracting concerns of this world, especially covetousness [Matt. 13:22] (c) Don’t make jokes with and out of Scripture.

2. Prepare your heart. [1 Sam. 7:3] Do this by: (a) collecting your thoughts (b) purging unclean affections and desires (c) not coming to it rashly or carelessly.

3. Read it with reverence, considering that each line is God speaking directly to you.

4. Get a true understanding of Scripture. [Ps. 119:73] This is best achieved by comparing relevant parts of Scripture with each other.

7. Read with seriousness. [Deut. 32:47] The Christian life is to be taken seriously since it requires striving [Luke 13:24] and not falling short [Heb. 4:1].

8. Persevere in remembering what you read. [Ps. 119:52] Don’t let it be stolen from you [Matt. 13:4,19].

9. Meditate on what you read. [Ps. 119:15] The Hebrew word for meditate’ means to be intense in the mind’. Meditation without reading is wrong and bound to err; reading without meditation is barren and fruitless. It means to stir the affections, to be warmed by the fire of meditation [Ps. 39:3].

10. Read with a humble heart. Acknowledge that you are unworthy that God should reveal himself to you [James 4:6]

11. Believe it all to be God’s Holy Word. [2 Tim 3:16] We know that no sinner could have written it because of the way it describes sin.

12. Prize the Bible highly. [Ps. 119:72] It is your lifeline; you were born by it [James 1:18] you need to grow by it [1 Pet 2:2] [cf. Job 23:12].

13. Love the Bible ardently [Ps. 119:159].