Good day
Below are 5 things we should consider when reading the Bible:
Number 1: Know God's motive / heart towards us.
Because we know that God loves us, we need to view every instruction or promise given to us through those lenses. When a parent sees a child do something that may cause them harm, they warn them about it. It's not done to punish the child or prevent them from enjoying their freedom, etc. It's done to help and protect them - and it's the same with God's instructions to us, it's done out of love - To provide salvation, help, guidance, healing, hope, strength, peace, wisdom, encouragement, purpose and whole life prosperity.
Number 2: Ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand what we're about to read.
Isaiah 11:2
The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.
The Spirit referred to here is the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:38, Luke 4:1) and this same Holy Spirit is available and dwells within every believer who has received the free gift of salvation by placing their faith in Christ.
Ezekiel 36:26-27
I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them
Acts 1:4-8
And being assembled together with them, He (Jesus) commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, “Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” And He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Ephesians 1:13
In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
Acts 2:38
And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:1-17
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering. And so He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of His Spirit who lives in you.
Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory.
One of the characteristics of the Holy Spirit, as seen above in Isaiah 11:2, is that He is the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, counsel and knowledge. Jesus confirms this in the below passages and also establishes that one of the responsibilities of the Holy Spirit is to teach/guide us into all truth.
John 14:15-17
“If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever—the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
John 14:26
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
John 16:13-15
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
In the below two passages we find the Apostle Paul praying that God would grant the believers wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him and His will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. This acknowledges that the dependence for understanding doesn't rest solely with the intellect of man but by faith in God's Holy Spirit to reveal His truth to us.
Ephesians 1:15-19
Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power.
Colossians 1:9-14
For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
The below passage also makes it quite clear that the revelation of God's word comes via the Holy Spirit:
1 Corinthians 2:9-12
But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
Number 3: Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what this passage teaches us about the character of God.
It's a sad case if all someone ever did was gain information and knowledge through their Bible reading but never actually took the time to ask the Holy Spirit what the word teaches us about God's character, His attributes, His wants, what pleases Him and what He dislikes ... What's the point of knowing the "what" if we never come to know the "Who".
Number 4: Ask the Holy Spirit if there's an instruction for us to obey.
The goal of Bible reading is not about gaining information - but rather allowing that information to become revelation, so that by His grace and Holy Spirit, it can bring transformation to our lives and those around us, all to the glory of God. Therefore at the end of the reading, pray and ask God to help you to apply what you've just learnt and give you the grace, boldness and courage to do whatever He may be instructing you to do.
Number 5: Ask the Holy Spirit if there's anyone that needs to be encouraged by the passage you just read and trust Him for the courage to send it onto them.
Amen
Next time we'll take a look at how often we should be reading