Andrew is pastor of Union Baptist Church in our little town of Hawesville, KY. Dave is Pastor of Worship and Discipleship at Hawesville Baptist Church in the same town. We’ve been friends since our seminary years.

Just like learning a foreign language, an instrument, or a new job, you have to saturate yourself in the Bible to grasp it. If it seems confusing at first, keep at it!

The Holy Spirit’s role in our Bible reading:

Christians have an advantage in interpreting the Bible: the God who wrote it is working in us (Doriani, 7)

The Holy Spirit helps us understand the Bible:

John 14:25–26- These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 26But 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 that I have said to you.
Psalm 19:7- the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple;”
Psalm 119:18- Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

The Holy Spirit helps us trust The Bible:

1 Corinthians 2:14- The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

The Holy Spirit Helps us obey the Bible:

Ezekiel 11:19–20 And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God.

Mark 8:18 Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?

Luke 24:25″ And he said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! 26 Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?” 27 And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

Our role in our Bible reading:

Pray (for help understanding, trusting, obeying)
Faith (truth and submission)
John 5:44- How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?
- Pharisees missed the point because they were reading for themselves (Piper 207-208)

Three obstacles: (Doriani, 8-10)

Immaturity- once you gain fundamental principles, you can build on them more easily. Give it time!
Insensitivity- laziness or a stubborn trust in false ideas.
- Ex: the disciples never got it when Jesus foretold his crucifixion because they had false ideas about what a Messiah was
- Resist shaping your observations about a passage based on what you already believe, even if it’s right! (17)
Rebellion- sometimes we don’t come wanting to obey God in the first place
- Piper’s example: Luke 16, Jesus teaches you can’t love God and money, and the Pharisees, who love money, ridiculed him. (Piper, 208-209)
- “You can’t see as beautiful what you see as ugly. You can’t embrace the glory of God as most valuable when you feel yourself to be more valuable.” (Piper, 187)

Bibliography:

Doriani, Daniel M. Getting the Message: A Plan for Interpreting and Applying the Bible. Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 1996.

Piper, John. Reading the Bible Supernaturally: Seeing and Savoring the Glory of God in Scripture. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2017.

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