Well, I am sure you have seen clips of non-Christians discussing the Bible. It might be atheists like Sam Harris or Alex O’Connor, or it could be sincere, even right-wing, non-Christian people like Ben Shapiro or Dennis Prager or Jordan Peterson. While I think they can provide some good literary and historical insights that can be valuable, I believe they are missing something that is key to Bible study. Please do not get me wrong. In today’s video I am not being dismissive, or saying we are unwilling to engage with the latest and greatest arguments out there. The Apostle Paul was willing to go toe-to-toe with the intellects of his day. He was an intellect himself. But even the Apostle Paul said, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” So in today’s video we are going to look at what you have to be before expecting to benefit from the study of the Bible. Hello, church. Today’s video is lesson six of a 20-part video series. Today we are going to be teaching through the book Understanding the Bible for Yourself. If you are new here, my name is Ryan Rench. I am the pastor of Calvary Baptist Church in Temecula, California. I recorded this video series over a year ago for an extension ministry of a Bible college, and I just hope it is a help to you. I hope it helps you grow in knowing Jesus better. After this lesson, be sure to get into God’s Word. With that, let’s enjoy this week’s video.
A Spiritual Work
Well, this is class number six, and I have just loved the first five classes. Before even diving into word definitions and figuring out what books to use and all that goes into Bible study, we have been looking at why we are studying the Bible, how important it is, and how passionate men like the Apostle Paul were about standing on the Scriptures and allowing this to be the thing that rules and guides our lives. So we have looked at what the Scriptures are. Now I want to look at what we are when we are approaching the Scriptures. I want to have the right kind of focus, the right kind of mindset, the right kind of reverence for the Bible, so that when we come to the Bible, we are not approaching it like any other book, but we love the Scriptures, and we read them with a sense of respect and honor and awe, because what we are doing is really a spiritual work. It is not just an academic work. It really is a spiritual work. We need to understand that before approaching Bible study. We are not just going to flip it open and think, “I can bring my thoughts to the Scriptures,” but, “I am allowing the Scriptures to change my thoughts.” It only works one direction, from God to us. We cannot bring our thoughts into the Scriptures. So in approaching Bible study, I want to use this whole lesson today to go through the book Understanding the Bible for Yourself. There is a chapter in here that just says you have to meet the spiritual requirements for Bible study. Because it is a unique book, because it is a spiritual book, we want to approach it spiritually. So I am going to go through about ten or twelve of these topics today, the spiritual requirements for Bible study, and we will see how long they take. We might have to split this one into two lessons.
The Natural Man
The very first one is that understanding the Bible requires a spiritual life. It requires a spiritual life. There is something we have to bring to the table, in that since it is a spiritual book, we are talking about the Holy Spirit moving through this book. We have to just believe that this is God’s Word. In a sense, anybody can read it, but the Holy Spirit gives a Christian spiritual insight. Not that He is a dictionary that helps you understand things better, but He helps you believe that this is God’s Word. The Holy Spirit illuminates Scripture. He illumines Scripture. The Bible says, “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.” He is spiritually dead. So when somebody is not a Christian, he cannot come to the Bible with the same kind of understanding as you can. Now, obviously the Holy Spirit can convict the unbeliever. He is drawing all men to Himself, and we understand from the Scriptures that the Holy Spirit is working on the unsaved mind and trying to convince it that they need to turn their lives over to Jesus Christ. But beyond that, in a sense, the natural man, the Bible says, the unsaved person, will approach the Bible in a completely different way. We have a man and his wife in our church who just got saved maybe about a year ago, but they have just been coming to our church within the past five or six months. He said, “I was raised to be a pretty decent human. I was a good guy, a good husband. I ran a little sandwich shop, and we had a good family. I raised my girls to be hard workers.” But he said, “I never even knew what I was missing. Nobody had ever shown me what the Bible was, and what God meant when He wrote this Bible. Nobody had ever talked to me about the Bible before.” So he thought he was doing okay as a person until he was confronted with the gospel, and when he accepted the gospel by faith and was saved, he said things are completely different now. “I just see everything differently.” That is the difference between the natural man and the new man, the Christian, the spiritual man. The natural man is blinded, according to 2 Corinthians 4:4: “In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.” He cannot see or discern spiritual things. He is dead, according to Ephesians chapter 2. Like the song “Amazing Grace” says, “I once was blind, but now I see.” That is what salvation does. It brings us new eyes, in a sense. We can read the Bible in a new, fresh way. I love seeing real-life people right here in my own church, and maybe you have experienced this yourself, where the Bible just did not make sense. People will say, “I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand what it is trying to get at.” Well, that is why we as Christians, in a sense, have a leg up. We understand the Bible as a spiritual book, in a spiritual way. R. A. Torrey, an American pastor, said, “A person who understands the language of the Holy Spirit, but who does not understand a word of Greek or Hebrew or Aramaic, will get more out of the Bible than one who knows all about Greek and Hebrew but is not born again.” So he says you can know all the original languages and still not know the Bible like somebody who knows God knows the Bible. He says, “It is a well-demonstrated fact that many plain men and women who possess no knowledge of the original languages in which the Bible was written have a knowledge of the real contents of the Bible, an understanding of its actual teaching, and of its depth, fullness, and beauty, that far surpasses that of many learned professors and theological faculties. The deepest biblical scholar, if he fails to find Christ, knows less of the real meaning of the gospel than the humblest Christian who is living in the faith of the Son of God.” What a powerful quote that is. You and I do not have to attend fifty years of Bible school in order to understand the Bible. We can just pick it up, and there is an understanding there, because with the Holy Spirit of God, in a sense, we have God on our side. He is not trying to hide Himself. He is not trying to shroud His Bible in mystery. We can pick it up and understand it. The common man, he said, can understand it, and that goes for us. So the natural man cannot understand these things in the same way the spiritual man can.
The Spiritual Man
That is another person listed in 1 Corinthians chapter 2: the natural man, and then the spiritual man. The spiritual man is the one I hope you are, a person who is, in a sense, just being led by the Spirit. I am not talking about somebody who goes around with only holy things on his lips and never talks about sports or work or anything like that. That is a kind of hyper-spirituality that is not natural. It is not normal. A spiritual man is just somebody who is trying to be led by the Spirit, trying to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. We know the Scripture, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” That is just a constant awareness that the Spirit is with me, that He is guiding me, and that I need to be following Him. I need to give control of myself to Him. So the spiritual man is just you and I, those of us who are trying to live by the Spirit’s leadership, trying to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit, and trying to allow God to work in us. The spiritual man walks in the Spirit, according to Galatians 5:16: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” He is filled with the Spirit, according to Ephesians 5:18: “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” The spiritual man prays in the Spirit, according to Ephesians 6:18: “Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” So you need to approach the Scriptures and Bible study as a spiritual man, not as a natural man. If you have never been born again, then I encourage you to be saved. Find somebody who can show you from the Scripture what it means to be born again, to be saved. And if you are saved, then I encourage you to be a spiritual man, a spiritual woman, a spiritual person, being led by the Holy Spirit of God.
The Carnal Man
The third category of person is the carnal man. So there is the natural man, the spiritual man, and the carnal man. The carnal man in Scripture is somebody who is saved. He has been born again, but he is living after the flesh. He is choosing to live after the flesh. In 1 Corinthians chapter 3, the first couple of verses, “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able.” The Apostle Paul is charging the church at Corinth, saying that they are carnal. He said in the first chapter that they were saints, and God calls them a church. So we know they are saints. We know they are saved. We know they are a church, saved people gathering together in this church, but they are carnal, meaning that even though they are saved and church members, they are not living after the Spirit’s leadership. In other books the authors are saying, “Man, you should be teachers, but you are still drinking milk and not meat. You are just acting like babies. You are not advancing enough. You are not growing as a Christian.” In Luke 8, in the parable of sowing the seed, Jesus says, “And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.” There are some who are just so overwhelmed by the cares of this world that they have no room for spiritual things, and that is the carnal person. So as Christians, I need to be a spiritual man. I need to walk after the Spirit. That should show up in evidence of somebody who wants to study the Scriptures, somebody who wants to be in the Scriptures.
Evidences of Salvation
If there is no desire for the Scriptures, it might mean, and I am not trying to make you doubt your salvation, but it could be an indicator that you may not even have the Spirit in you, because there are evidences of salvation. If you are saved, or if you are trying to analyze the life of somebody who claims to be a Christian, according to the Scriptures there should be some desire, some spiritual thirst there. Number one, a conversion experience. Being saved should produce a conversion experience, a new spiritual life and direction. Biblical salvation is not a process; it is a conversion experience. It is changing from what you used to be to what you are now. The woman at the well was immediately converted. She was different. She was changed from what she used to be, and she went around telling people. Those who were converted at Pentecost no longer lived the same, and they started banding together and joining the church, and they were converts. We call them converts in the Scriptures because they were converted. They were changed. So there should be a conversion experience. If you are a spiritual person, a spiritual man, there should be a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Bible says, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” There is a knowing of God there, and of Jesus Christ. Matthew 7 says, “Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” So they thought they had what religious people have. They thought they were doing religious things, but Jesus said, “Well, no. I never had a relationship with you.” Being saved means you have a relationship with Jesus. Being saved means you know God as “Abba, Father,” as He is called in Romans chapter 8. Being saved means you have the witness of the Holy Spirit, in Romans chapter 8. Being saved means you have a love of God’s Word. We read Matthew 7, but here is John chapter 8: “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” I love that. Verse 47 says, “He that is of God heareth God’s words: ye therefore hear them not, because ye are not of God.” So apparently the love of God’s Word is an indicator of knowing God. John chapter 10 says, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.” So there is an indicator that they love God’s Word. They hear His voice. We as Christians should have that kind of love for God. We hear His voice. We love what God is doing through the Scriptures, and we love to study the Bible. In John chapter 8, which we read, they should continue in God’s Word. They should keep going forward in God’s Word. In John chapter 10, we read the verses there too: they continue. “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me.” That is what John chapter 10 says. So there should be a continuing in God’s Word, a following of Jesus Christ. And for somebody who is saved, number eight, there should be a love of righteousness. A love of righteousness. Look at this next verse: “And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments. He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.” Well, that is a pretty strong indictment of somebody who says, “Well, I know God.” The Bible says if you do not love keeping His commandments, maybe that is a lie. He says it is a lie. So there should be something in us that loves the Scriptures and loves to obey the Scriptures and loves God: “I want to obey God, and I want to be pleasing to God.” That is a sign of true conversion. Another sign of being a Christian is divine chastisement. Hebrews chapter 12 talks all about that. If you go and study Hebrews 12, it says that God will chasten His sons, His children. You will be in trouble with God if you are sinning and not repenting of that sin. There will be some chastisements that come into your life, and there is a problem there, an issue there. But there is a beauty there, in that a child of God can know he is one of God’s children if he experiences that divine chastisement, if he understands that these things are from Him. Okay. So in approaching the Scriptures, we need to understand first that it is a spiritual book, so I must have a spiritual life. That is probably the most important of all, that I am approaching the Bible knowing that I am a Christian, knowing that I am a follower of Jesus Christ, and that means I have a love for the Bible and a reverence for the Bible. But number one comes from that spiritual life.
Reverence
Number two, understanding the Bible requires reverence. It requires reverence. There is sometimes a kind of lackadaisical attitude when some people approach the Bible. They will just flip it open and read one verse: “Yeah, I’m done with that for the day. Big deal. No big deal. I don’t really care about it.” What a shame to have that kind of attitude toward the holy Word of God. This is the Holy Bible. This is God’s Word to us, and I never want to approach the Bible as though it is just a checklist: “I read my little section today, and I am doing my little spiritual thing today.” I never want to have that kind of attitude with the Bible. I want to love the Scriptures. The Bible says that these are the words of the Almighty God. Romans 11 talks about God: “For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.” That includes His Word. The Bible calls God “holy, holy, holy” in Isaiah chapter 6, and His Word reflects His holiness. This is the infallible Word of God. This is the perfect Bible, and I want to study it as though these are God’s thoughts to me. I do not want to treat it disdainfully. I do not want to treat it like any other book. I even want to be careful with the Bible itself. I do not want to spill things on it. I am trying to train my kids to have a reverence for the Bible. I do not want them just throwing the Bible in the back seat of the car on our way to church. I do not want them to treat the Bible like it is just another library book or something like that. I try to train them: if it even has a bunch of bent-up pages, then try to smooth out those pages, and let’s treat our Bibles with respect and be very careful. This is God’s Word. I hate to see a Bible that is falling apart because of misuse. I like to see a Bible that is falling apart because of use. That is okay. That means you are in the Bible, and that means you are studying it. That is good. But a Bible that is falling apart because of misuse, meaning you are just throwing it around, treating it like it is no big deal? Well, let’s approach the Bible with reverence. It is not just a common book. It is not just an ordinary book. This is a special book, and let’s show reverence to the Bible. So, secondly, it really helps in understanding the Bible to have an attitude of reverence.
The Right Objective
Understanding the Bible, thirdly, means that we need to approach it with the right objective. We need to approach Bible study with the right objective, because there are a lot of wrong reasons to study the Bible. I have heard people say they are studying the Bible just because they are curious, just because they want to find something new, and that is not the right way to study the Bible. I mean, we do learn new things about the Bible all the time, but I do not want to just come at it like I am trying to learn something new. Some people might study it to be entertained, as though they are looking for interesting stories, and the Scriptures speak to that. Oh, I do not have my verses here. Ezekiel 33:31-32 talks about coming to the Scriptures, or coming to God, with an attitude of just looking to be entertained: “And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their mouth they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness. And, lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely song of one that hath a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument: for they hear thy words, but they do them not.” We do not want to have that kind of approach to the Scriptures. Some will approach the Bible with the objective of just finding errors. They come at it like they are the experts, approaching the Bible like the scribes and the Pharisees and the lawyers, who were trying to nitpick every part of it. We do not want to approach the Bible looking for errors, looking for disagreements, looking for disputes. We do not believe that God made any mistakes. We do not believe Jesus Christ made any mistakes. Again, that was the spirit of the Pharisees and the enemies of Jesus Christ. They only listened to Him in order to trip Him up and find some error in His words, so they could legally bring Him to court. We do not want to put the Bible under our judgment. We want to approach it saying, “God, I want You to speak to me.” Some, fourthly, would approach the Bible looking for some kind of worldly advantage. There are some who would teach that you need to follow God so you will get rich, that you need to follow God so God will take away all your problems. Well, listen, Jesus never taught that. He said you might actually have extra problems if you start following Him. He said, “The foxes have holes,” but I do not even have anywhere to lay My head. So Jesus Himself lived a life that was actually full of poverty and misery, and the Apostle Paul lived a life that was full of misery and poverty and living hand to mouth. Nowhere in Scripture is it promised that you will have some kind of prosperous, successful, rich life. But some people approach the Bible like they are looking for some kind of riches and some kind of prosperity, and that is not why we study the Bible. Sometimes it is quite the opposite. Here is the verse I was trying to get to earlier: “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him.” There were some who were approaching Jesus like they just wanted something out of Him, and when they realized they could not get any more free meals from Him, and He was calling for commitment, they said, “Oh, well, we were not really interested in that kind of commitment to follow Jesus. We just wanted the free stuff out of Him.” That is not the reason to study the Scriptures or to follow Jesus Christ. That goes with number five. Number four was that they want a worldly advantage. Number five is that they want something from Jesus. They want some problem fixed. They want some issue taken away. They want some fix to some problem in their life. And listen, the Bible does fix a lot of problems. When we obey the Scriptures, it makes for a much better life. But that is not why we study the Scriptures. We need to understand that studying the Scriptures should come from a heart that wants to know the Lord. I mean, that is why we study the Scriptures. We want to know God. We can know God through the Scriptures, and that is our motivation, not Him being some magic genie who fixes all our problems and gives us some wishes. It is not about that at all. It is that we get to know God, and we get to spend time with the Creator, and we get to hear His voice. That is the wonderful part about studying the Scriptures, and it is about walking with God like Enoch did. Another goal is to know God’s will. So to know God is why we study the Scriptures, and to know God’s will. Romans 12, verses 1 and 2, talks about knowing God and following God’s will: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Another reason we study the Scriptures is to help other people. We want to be helpers of others. We want to bless other people and use our lives to become, as Hebrews says, teachers of the Scriptures. In Hebrews 5:12, “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat.” we should be teachers. That is what the Scriptures teach us. So we should want to grow to the point where, “You know what? I am studying the Bible so that I can help people, and I want to be a blessing to other people.” So we study the Scriptures to use our lives to edify other people, and you can study the Scriptures in that way as well. Well, that about wraps it up. I am going to stop right there. The spiritual requirements for Bible study, we said, were to have a spiritual life, approaching the Bible first of all as a spiritual person; second, with an attitude of reverence; and third, with the right objective. Next time we will continue with many, many more requirements for studying the Scriptures, but I am going to wrap that up today. God bless you, and we will see you in the next class. Well, thank you for watching this video from our 20-part series on Bible study. I realize this kind of content, or our Baptist perspective, might not be for everyone, and I do not want to waste your time, but if you did find it helpful or enjoyable, would you subscribe to our channel? We are releasing videos every Monday at noon Pacific Standard Time, and I just want to help you bring the Bible home. So we will see you maybe in person this Sunday at our church. That is it for now. God bless you, church. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
