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The
Pharisees had a very great devotion to the Scriptures. They were so
dedicated to the Word of God that they lost the God of the Word. Jesus told
them, Ye have not his word abiding in you:
for whom he hath sent, him ye believe not. Search the scriptures; for in
them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify
of me. He told them the Word of God points to Him. As they
reject Him, they prove they have not his
word abiding in them.
Jesus is even referred to as the
Word. In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The
same was in the beginning with God. And
the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. If anyone
rejects Jesus, they reject the Scriptures because He said, Then
said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me,)
to do thy will, O God.
Over and over again Jesus said
things like, And have ye not read this
scripture And he began to
say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
- He that believeth on me, as the
scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
The scripture cannot be broken.
Very often as Jesus would do something He would say, that
the scripture may be fulfilled. That
the scripture may be fulfilled could be given as the reason
Jesus stedfastly set his face to go to
Jerusalem and endured the cross.
Often Jesus would begin His
statements with It is written.
He would register in the mind of His hearers the authority of the
Scripture. His hearers are described as hungry to hear the Scripture when
we are told, The people pressed upon him
to hear the word of God. (See
THE WORD OF GOD in Systematic Theology section of our website.)
Jesus quoted Scripture all the
time. From the beginning of His ministry after His baptism when He was
tempted of the Devil (who also quoted Scripture), Jesus would reply with
Scripture. And when the tempter came to
him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made
bread. But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live
by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of
God. Jesus quoted from the book of Deuteronomy more than any
other book in the Bible. He constantly made references to Isaiah, Elijah,
Jonah, Moses, David, and many others, giving validity to their writings and
experiences from Scripture.
For example, when John the Baptist
asked about Jesus, Now when John had heard
in the prison the works of Christ, he sent two of his disciples, and said
unto him, Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?
How would you answer that if you were Christ Jesus? A simple, Yes, I am
He would not prove anything. Anyone could say that. No, Jesus answered
with Scripture, Go and shew John again those
things which ye do hear and see: The blind receive their sight, and the lame
walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up,
and the poor have the gospel preached to them. Jesus is quoting
Isaiah, using the Scripture to direct the faith of John the Baptist.
Wouldnt it be a good thing if we could answer peoples questions by quoting
the Scripture as Jesus did?
Paul tells us that we
have the mind of Christ, and since the mind is the ONLY
thing we can control, we must set our mind
on things above, by the
renewing of your mind in the Holy Spirit and Let
this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. As we have
our human responses to things in our lives, it is a choice every
Christian must make over and over again throughout every day (See our
article on
THE FLESH). As Christians we are constantly needing to set our
minds as we deal with the issues of each day.
There is no better way of knowing
the mind of Christ than to Let the word of
Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom. This is not
necessarily memorizing the Scripture, but it is returning to the Scripture
daily. This daily pouring over the Word will have a sanctifying effect on
your life and your life choices. My precious wife, Lucy, told me just the
other day, Gene, I am amazed at what effect reading the Scripture on a
daily basis has had on my everyday life. She reads according to the
schedule presented in MCheynes Calendar for Daily Readings (Click here to
go to Bible Reading Calendar). This means she
reads through the Old Testament once a year, and the Psalms and the New
Testament twice a year. She reads a different version of the Scripture each
year. She has read the KJV, NKJV, NIV, NLT, ESV, CEV, Amplified Bible, and
she is presently reading the NASB. She plans to read the Holman Bible next
year.
I asked Lucy what she meant by her
statement and she told me: As I remain in the Word of God on a daily basis,
Father seems to provide an obvious protection for me each day.
What do you mean? I asked. She replied, Well, it is hard to explain.
There is more than just the wonderful sense of His presence throughout the
day. Being in His Word every day provides me with such a clear awareness
of truth that when anything artificial or superficial presents itself to me,
either from my flesh, another person, or Satan, I immediately can see it for
what it is. I can then set my mind correctly to the genuine and avoid the
counterfeit.
Nothing we read is as important as
the Scripture. Be aware that knowing Theology is a poor substitute for
knowing God. We must not substitute good books for our daily meditation of
Scripture. Dont get me wrong, on our website I recommend some very good
books that every Christian should have (See
Christian Tools).
Nor does the study of religion have
predominance in a Christians reading. All the how to books in Christian
bookstores cannot benefit you the same as reading the Scripture. Remember
Jesus words to the Pharisees? He told them that all their study of
religious practices was Making the word of
God of none effect through your tradition, which ye have delivered: and many
such like things do ye. They asked Him, Why
do thy disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? for they wash not
their hands when they eat bread. But he answered and said unto them, why do
ye also transgress the commandment of God by your tradition?
Then Jesus began rebuking them for their practices by quoting Scripture to
them. Some people are so devoted to their religion and what it teaches.
When Scripture contradicts their religion, they disregard the Scripture for
their religious practice. That was what the Pharisees did and still do.
Paul even warned, Beware lest any man spoil
you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men,
after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
We are admonished to be like skilled
craftsmen of the Word. Paul says, Study to
shew thyself approved unto God, a workman (craftsman)
that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
It takes time. Time in the Word is well spent. This year will pass. Next
year will pass. Wouldnt it be a desirable advantage for you to plan to
read your Bible through this coming year? Let me know and I will get you
the schedule my wife uses. It is so much better than just starting out with
Genesis and trying to read straight through. This schedule divides your
reading into four different sections of your Bible for each day. The Word
will wash you and sanctify your life. For
the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword,
it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges
the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
As a child Jesus was taught the
Scripture. And the child grew, and waxed
strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.
Remember when He was only twelve years of age He was in
the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and
asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his
understanding and answers. He was expressing His knowledge
of Scripture even as a child.
Jesus walked as the Son of Man. He
walked as you and I must walk, as Adam should have walked. He was a student
of the Scripture. Of Him it is said, And
Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.
Then as a man He spoke the truth of the Scripture in His ministry and they
said of Him, What wisdom is this which is
given unto him? Even His enemies said of Him, Never
man spake like this man.
As a Christian with the Mind of
Christ we are going to have the same respect for Scripture as Jesus
has. We are going to desire to grow in
grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
This cannot be apart from knowing the Scripture. Peter tells us, All
scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine,
for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the
man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.
You cannot be as Christ has called you to be without the benefit of knowing
the Scripture.
It is also important to know that a
mere intellectual pursuit of the Word of God will not equip you to be a
spiritual person. If He does not open our eyes we will not be able to
see. The knowledge of God is not a matter of mental exercise. The
knowledge of God is a matter of revelation. If God does not reveal Himself
to you, you cannot know Him. We should always pray the prayer Paul prayed
for the Ephesians, which I have adapted for us to pray every day:
Our Father, Grant us the Spirit of
Wisdom and Revelation in the deep and intimate knowledge of You. Grant that
the eyes of our heart may be flooded with light, so that we may know and
understand the hope to which You have called us and how rich is Your
glorious inheritance in the saints, so that we can understand what is the
immeasurable and unlimited and surpassing greatness of Your power toward us
who believe, which is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead and
seated Him at Your right hand.
(See PRAYER CLOSET)
Recently a man told me of his
conversion. I asked him how knew he was converted? He said that for years
while in religion he would study and search the Scriptures and never really
got anything out of them. Since his conversion, he told me, he could just
read a small part of a verse and a volume of information is conveyed to his
mind and spirit. He spoke with such a joy and eagerness to get into the
Scripture even more than ever now.
Often the disciples did not know
what Jesus meant when He shared the Scripture with them. But
they understood not this saying, and it was hid from them,
that they perceived it not: and they feared to ask him of that saying.
Unless your eyes are opened, unless He reveals Himself to you in His Word,
you will come up short with only an intellectual awareness of the words,
instead of a spiritual revelation of The
Word. For in the volume of the
book it is written of me. He is revealed throughout the
Scriptures, but it is by revelation that He will be seen.
Remember the experience of the
disciples on the road to Emmaus? And
beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in
all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Later it
says, And their eyes were opened, and
they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to
another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the
way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?
As they were telling the others of
their experience, it says, And he said unto
them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses,
and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.
Then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the
scriptures. When people who do not have the Spirit of
Christ in them become religious interpreters of Scripture, all kinds of
wrong teachings will emerge. Or, just as bad, truth will be taught without
the Spirit in them and it will become a weapon in their hands. While the
manner of a Christian, one who is in the Spirit will be speaking
the truth in love.
So, as Paul tells us We
have the mind of Christ and we will respect the Scripture as
Christ respected the Scripture. We will read and we will see as He reveals
Himself more and more to us by the Spirit through the Word.
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