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The beginning of the Bible shows that God is a tree and a river in order for man to eat, to drink, and to enjoy. However, in order for man to eat and drink God, He must be the Word and the Spirit. God is too mysterious for us to fathom; hence, we cannot touch or enjoy Him directly. We can know Him through His speaking to us. He explains Himself to us so that we may know and understand Him.
The Word enables us to know God but not to contact Him. Hence, God is not only the Word but also the Spirit. He is the Word in order to explain Himself to us, and He is the Spirit so that we may contact Him with our spirit. When we read His Word and contact Him with our spirit, what we understand in His Word enters our spirit. We enjoy God through His Word and the Spirit. His word is in the Bible; and He is the Spirit. Therefore, in this chapter we will fellowship concerning the Bible and the Spirit.
Where can we find Christ? Christ is in the Bible. We must read the Bible in order to know Christ, and we must come to the Bible in order to touch Christ, for Christ is in the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, and Christ is also the Word of God. The Bible is the written word, and Christ is the living Word. Without Christ, the living Word, as the content and reality of the Bible, the written word is dead letter and empty. Conversely, without the Bible, the written word, that describes and explains Christ, the living Word is intangible and difficult to apprehend. The Bible needs Christ as its content, and Christ needs the Bible as His revelation, His utterance. The Bible and Christ are inseparable.
The Lord Jesus said that He is the vine (John 15:5). Without the Bible we would not know that He is the vine. We must read and know the Bible. Christ is the center, the content, the explanation, and the revelation of the Bible. Hence, if we do not read the Bible, we cannot know Christ. Some Christians have been saved for many years, but their knowledge of Christ is limited to the gospel that they heard at their salvation or to what their parents told them when they were young. Such a lack of knowledge concerning Christ is the result of not reading the Bible properly.
There are also Christians who spend a considerable amount of time reading the Bible, but they do not take Christ as its center. As a result, they see different things in the Bible. The kind of Bible a person has depends on the kind of person he is. For example, moralists see instructions and maxims in the Bible, men of letters see rhetoric, wives see a standard for their husbands to live by, and husbands see patterns for their wives to follow. Every person who reads the Bible has a pair of “tinted glasses”; thus, he sees things according to his concepts and does not see a revelation of Christ. May the Lord have mercy on us so that we would see that Christ is both the center and the content of the entire Bible. We need a change in concept. We should have only one intention when we read the Bible, which is to seek, find, and know Christ.
Christ is the content of the Bible, and we can contact the Spirit with the Bible. We must not separate the Bible from the Spirit. The Bible is empty if we read it without our spirit. Many people in the world read the Bible and even commend the Bible, but they do not understand its content, because they do not contact the Spirit with their spirit when they read the Bible. In contrast, some elderly sisters, who are nearly illiterate, read the Bible slowly with their spirit and receive much inspiration and light. This proves that reading the Bible is a matter of the Spirit and that those who are not in the Spirit cannot understand the Bible. This was the case with the Pharisees, the scribes, and the teachers of the law (John 5:39). They were familiar with the Bible, but they did not understand its spiritual significance, because they were not contacting the Spirit.
Whether or not a person reads the Bible in the Spirit depends on whether he prays with his spirit. A brother who prays often in his spirit will pray when he reads the Bible. A brother who does not pray with his spirit will read the Bible entirely with his mind, and the Bible becomes dead letters to him. In order to know Christ, we must read the Bible. We must also pray in order to read the Bible with our spirit because Christ is the Spirit. Reading the Bible and praying is the way to enjoy God.
According to Revelation 22:1 and 2, the tree of life grows on both sides of the river of water of life. The tree of life refers to Christ and also to the Bible with Christ as its content. The river of water of life refers to the Spirit. Therefore, the Bible is life to us in the Spirit. God is rich and available for us to enjoy Him. The Bible is in our hands, and the Spirit is in us. Just as the tree of life grows alongside the river of water of life, we must not separate the Bible from the Spirit. We should let the Spirit move within us when we read the Bible. We should not ignore the Spirit when we read the Bible, nor should we focus on the Spirit while neglecting the Bible. We should focus on both the Bible and the Spirit.
We must read the Bible because it explains Christ, and we must pray when we read the Bible because the Bible is a matter of the Spirit. Hence, the simplest and most convenient way to enjoy God is through reading the Bible and praying. Every saint needs to establish a Bible-reading and praying life. It is beneficial to establish such a life while we are young. Such a life has eternal value because it enables us to enjoy our inexhaustible Christ daily.
We should be persistent to read the Bible and to pray. We cannot accomplish anything if we are impulsive. Here are four practical and effective ways to read the Bible.
To browse is to speed-read. Browsing can be compared to sightseeing. This is a general way to read the Bible. The more often we read the Bible this way, the better. The brothers can put one book from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament in their pocket so that they can read even while they ride to work.
We should memorize the main points. When we read Genesis 1, we must remember that God restored the damaged universe and did a further work of creation in six days (1:2b—2:3). This is the main point. We should also have a general view of what He created on each day. Then we should select one or two important verses to memorize. For example, it would be beneficial to memorize Genesis 1:1, which says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” and verse 26, which says, “God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”
Studying is a way to read the Bible that is more time consuming and is not easy for students who are busy with schoolwork. The saints who can take the time should practice studying the Bible. There are many basic ways to study the Bible: by topics, words, prophecies, types, persons, or books.
To apply the Bible is to take it as our food. This way involves reading and praying. To read and to pray is to digest what we read with prayer. We read the Bible, and we pray in the Spirit.
The way of memorizing can be incorporated into the other three ways. Browsing, studying, and reading with prayer can be done sequentially.
