Do You Come to the Bible With Eagerness?

Read the Bible With Purpose and Persistence

The Bible is not a book of texts, it is a story. It is a revelation, to be begun and ended as we would start and continue other books. Don’t trifle with the Bible. Don’t divide it into short devotional paragraphs and think you have understood its messages. Don’t trifle with it.

It may be excusable for some poor soul who can hardly read to open the Bible and take whatever his eye lights upon as the message from God. Many people do that, but the Bible isn’t meant to be misused in such manner. We must come to it in a common sense fashion. Believe that every book in it is about something and read and re-read until you find that something. We have been reading the Bible piecemeal. Now we must turn to reading the books as wholes and not tinkering with the texts. No mere part of any book of the Bible will give you the whole message of the book.

The Bible Speaks For Itself

First we read the book, not books about the Book, nor turn to commentaries. They will come in good time, perhaps. Give the Book a chance to speak for itself, and make its own impression, to bear its own testimony. The text of the Bible throws a lot of light on the commentaries. Commentaries often get us on the wrong track. Looking first at man’s opinion is like putting on colored glasses and then reading through them the interpretation of a human mind. First find out “What saith the scriptures”.  Read the Bible seeking illumination, and He will flash light upon the page as you study humbly. The Bible  is a revelation.

No scripture is of any private interpretation.  II Peter 1:20

The Word of God is Alive

The word of God is alive, and every part is necessary to the perfection of the whole. Not that every part is equally important. (I would rather part with one of my fingers than one of my eyes, but I would rather keep them both.) So it is with the word of God. All of it is necessary to make a perfect whole, but some portions are more precious than others.  You can’t take away the Song of Solomon and still have a perfect revelation. The Song of Solomon needs John’s gospel, and John’s gospel needs the song.  Both are parts of an organism, and that organism is not complete if one part is missing.

The Bible is a Whole

The Bible is a whole, and can’t be tampered with. To add anything to it or take anything from it would mar its absolute perfection.  (Rev. 22:18-19) The canon of scripture is closed. Other works may throw valuable light on it, but this stands unique, alone, and complete. These parts all partake of the perfection of the whole.