Some Christians have a problem when they study the bible, they depend to much on what men say. Please understand, when the scriptures were written over thousands of years and by many writers it was not their words that was written, but God’s words. We sometimes accredit the written word to the person that penned it, but it is not, it was all God’s word. Without error and impeccable in its original context, inspired of God Himself, breathed into the spiritual hearts of these writes by the Holy Spirit. As ministers, teachers, and authors, we are only men and we are not inspired of God as the writers of the scriptures were. As writers we are not infallible, and certainly not in our belief of God’s written word. No commentary written is infallible, and therefore, when we study them, we must not take every word as though it is infallible. It is our responsibility as Christians to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” Now, please understand that I am not critical of the people who have worked very long hours and spent much of their life studying to write these books, I also use many commentaries to study. However, if we believe doctrine because some man teaches it, then we are subject to be wrong, all doctrine must be underlined by the scriptures only, “…rightly dividing the word of truth.” We can only be accomplished if the final understanding is in context of the bible. The Truth, that is the Truth without the possibility of error is only in the bible’s context. As a young minster many years ago, my mentors all told me that the context of the bible is not negotiable, because if you have problems making the bible fit together then you are in error somewhere. Do not just brush it off as an inability to understand it. God said in 1 Cor. 2:14 “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.” The natural man is people that are not spiritually taught, mostly referring to lost souls. However, as Christians we are only spiritually when the Holy Spirit teaches us. Because our teachings are not infallible, “Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” Only the Holy Spirit can teach the bible in an infallible way. The truth is, as Christian people we are all going to disagree on bible doctrine somewhere, but the Holy Spirit never disagrees with the bible because He is the Author. The words “spiritually discerned.” Means – people are not spiritually able to put the puzzle of the bible together on their own – but only by the teachings of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, as Christians and bible students we should never mistake the word of any man as the true context until we are satisfied that it is without question God’s true context. The lazy way, and biggest mistake is to believe what a person has taught you without study time, the right way is to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God…”. Our education level does not affect our understanding of biblical truth and the true context of it. There are untold numbers of PhD educated people who know very little, to no bible truth, and there are many low to moderate educated people that know much biblical truth. Listen very closely to God as He put this thought into His words. “But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:10 – 12
Please never forget, the bible is our blessing and God is our teacher. God uses many wonderful teachers to teach us, but our true teacher is the Holy Spirit. We all need to take the time to learn God’s word in Truth, and to do that you will need much study time, much prayer time, and good dictionaries and commentaries, but the Bible is your only infallible truth. If it’s not in total context then there is an error somewhere, find the error, correct it, and you will find the truth in context. The puzzle must be perfectly fitted together, and when we find that Truth, we have found our greatest blessing. I call it diamonds buried in words.
