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Scripture Reading: John 6:27-36, 41-43, 47-58, 60-61, 63, 66-68; 12:50; Matt. 4:4; Jer. 15:16; 2 Tim. 3:16
We have considered how to enjoy God through prayer. In this chapter we will consider how to enjoy God through reading the Bible.
Those who enjoy God know that God is Spirit and that we contact Him with our spirit. There are, however, two ways or means for us to contact Him in our spirit. The first is prayer, and the second is reading the Word. A person who absorbs and enjoys God prays and reads the Word. A believer who does not pray or read the Word has stopped enjoying God. In order for us to absorb God, eat and drink Him, and enjoy Him continually, we need to pray and read the Word every day. Both praying and reading the Word are necessary. We cannot have one without the other.
Concerning breathing in God through prayer, we have pointed out that God dwells in our spirit through His Spirit. Hence, prayer is to turn to our spirit to breathe out, item by item, the things within us and to breathe in God. With the breathing out, there must be the breathing in. In this way we breathe in God Himself as well as everything related to Him. Such breathing out of ourselves and breathing in of God are genuine prayer. Genuine prayer does not depend on how many things we bring before the Lord. It depends on breathing out what is within us and breathing in what is within God. Breathing out and breathing in deliver us from everything related to us and fill us with everything related to God. Breathing in God, who is Spirit, through prayer affords us the most excellent way to enjoy God.
Prayer, however, is not the only way that God has ordained for us to enjoy Him. He has also ordained reading the Word. God created everything in this universe in pairs. In order for the human race to propagate, there is the need of both male and female. Neither male nor female alone is adequate. Transmission of electric waves requires both an antenna and a ground wire; either one alone is insufficient. In the universe there are two sides to everything. A man with only one leg can only jump and hop; he cannot walk. This is unpleasant and also awkward. Everything has a top and a bottom, an inside and an outside, a front and a back, a positive and a negative. Similarly, enjoying God has two tracks, not one. On one track our eyes are closed, but on the other track our eyes are open. One track does not require our thoughts, but the other requires our thoughts. One track begins in our spirit and is unrelated to physical things, but the other track begins with black and white letters and ends in the spirit. In order to enjoy God, we need these two parallel tracks.
When we walk, we need both left and right legs. Similarly, when we absorb God, we need to close our eyes to pray and to open our eyes to read the Word. Everyone who properly breathes in God prays and reads, and reads and prays. If we want to enjoy God, we must learn to use both feet. We must learn to take both tracks. We must learn to pray, and we must learn to read the Word.
If prayer is our spiritual breathing, what is reading the Word? This is a big subject. Different people receive different things when they read the same Bible. Every Bible is composed of sixty-six books, beginning with creation in Genesis and ending with an admonition that no one should add or delete from God’s Word in Revelation. The Bible we have in our hands is the same, but it seems as if we read different Bibles because we receive different things. You may receive one thing, and I may receive another. We receive different things from the same Bible. A brother with a deep knowledge of God and the Scriptures once said that the kind of person we are determines the kind of Bible we have. This is absolutely true.
A young person once asked, “Why do you say that we should not lie? In the book of Joshua God blessed Rahab the prostitute who lied. She hid the spies sent from Joshua, lied, and received a blessing.” I could not answer him.
An older brother who longed for his children and grandchildren to treat him well said, “The Bible is wonderful in its expounding of filial piety.” He admitted that he joined Christianity because the Christian Bible provides the clearest teaching on filial piety. He even asked me to come to his home once a week to teach his descendants the teachings of the Bible. When I asked what should be the topic of the meetings, he responded, “What else is there to speak about in the Bible except filial piety?” In his understanding, the Bible was a book on filial piety.
A sister once came to me and said that she had found an important point in the Bible: husbands should love their wives. Then she asked me to visit her husband since he needed this teaching. To an old man with many children and grandchildren, the Bible is a book on filial piety, but to a wife with a cold husband, the Bible is a book on husbands loving their wives.
I am not joking. Perhaps after the sister comes, the next day her husband may come and say, “I fully agree with Christianity, because its Bible teaches wives to be submissive to their husbands. This is a very good teaching. In order to have a good family, a person must accept the Christian Bible. I hope some sisters can come to my home and teach my wife the most important subject in the Bible. This is higher than the Chinese teaching on wives nagging their husbands. The Bible says that a wife must submit to her husband, just as the church submits to Christ and as Sarah submitted to Abraham, calling him lord. No other book speaks of submission as well as the Bible does.”
A thoughtful scientist once said, “When I was young, I despised the Bible, considering it to be a book of fairy tales with no scientific basis. But now I can see that the Bible contains the highest science.” His word puzzled me since I am not aware of the science he was referring to. When I asked him if he was referring to John 3:16 or to 1 Timothy 1:15, he did not even know where these verses were. In his eyes the Bible was a book of science.
A lawyer once said to me, “When I was young, I was a student of law, and I opposed Christianity. I despised the Bible, thinking that it was a simple book. But after so many years, I regret not having studied the Bible. Had I read the Bible fifteen years ago, my strength of argument as a lawyer would be much better today. I have studied many books on law, but no book surpasses the book of Romans in its arguments. This book shows Paul not only as a man of eloquence but also of argument. His arguments subdue and silence men.” However, he did not even know the topic of Paul’s arguments.
Another man who studied literature said, “I have read many famous writings, but nothing matches the Bible in its form, structure, and literary style. The Bible contains prose, poems, historical stories, and many other things. It is like an encyclopedia.” However, he did not know the content of the prose, poems, stories, and histories.
This point should now be clear. The same Bible can be a different book in the hands of different people. To a certain kind of person the Bible is a certain kind of book. Those who are full of hatred find hatred in the Bible. Those who are full of love find love in the Bible. Those who lie find lies in the Bible. Those who are honest find honesty in the Bible. The kind of person one is determines the kind of Bible he reads.
What kind of Bible do we wish to have in our hands? Do we want a book on literature, science, arguments, filial piety, love for husbands, submission for wives, honesty, or lies? The kind of Bible we have depends on the kind of person we are. Different kinds of people have different kinds of Bibles. No one can change this principle.
Since we desire to be persons who eat, drink, absorb, and breathe in God, we need a drastic change in our concept concerning the Bible. We need to see that the Bible is the food God has given us. We read the Bible with the purpose of eating, drinking, absorbing, and breathing in God, because we know that the Bible is the Word of God. John 1 says that the Word of God is God Himself. God’s Word is God’s coming forth. When God is expressed and presented to us, we have the Word, the Bible. Since God wants to be our food, His expression and manifestation to man as the Word means that the Word is man’s food.
Some people think that God’s words are only precepts and commandments, but in John 12:50 the Lord Jesus said that God’s commandment is eternal life. God’s commandment is life because it is food. When we receive God’s commandments, we receive them in the way of eating. When these commandments enter into us as food, we spontaneously receive life and nourishment from them. Those who have experienced this can testify that when we read the Bible with a heart to absorb God, it becomes food to us. Even a commandment such as husbands loving their wives can become food to us when we receive it in the way of absorbing God. When we do this, we are filled with God’s supply and His presence as we love our wives. While we are loving our wives, God is life to us. The commandment — love your wife — becomes eternal life to us. The more we receive this commandment to love our wives, the more we sense God’s presence, supply, and life.
In the same principle, if we read the portions of the Bible that command children to honor their parents, with a heart to absorb God, we will receive this commandment as our food. Then when we obey this commandment to obey our parents, we will sense the moving of the Holy Spirit; we will experience the Holy Spirit as life to us. The more we honor our parents, the more we will be filled and satisfied, and the more we will eat and drink God and be saturated with His life. This is what it means for God’s commandment to be eternal life to us.
The entire Bible, from the first word to the last, is God’s word. It is God’s expression and His breathing out. God’s word is God Himself. John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” This Word is our Lord Jesus. This is wonderful. The Lord Jesus is God’s Word because He is God’s expression and explanation. He manifests God; hence, He is the embodiment of God. When man receives Him, man receives God Himself. With the Word is life, nourishment, and supply. God is contained in the Word; hence, when a man receives the Word, he receives everything that God is.
When the Word came to the earth, He was received in the way of food. He said that He is the bread that came down out of heaven to be eaten by men. The hearers, however, were confused. The Lord sympathized with their weakness and explained to them, using the type of the offerings. When the Jews celebrated the Feast of the Passover, they slaughtered a lamb, shed its blood for the remission of their sins, and ate the meat of the lamb. Every Jew was familiar with this. The Lord said that His flesh is true meat and that His blood is true drink. This means that they were to eat Him in the same way that they slaughtered and ate the passover lamb. The lamb was slaughtered to meet the need of man’s sinfulness and emptiness. When the lamb was killed, its blood was shed for the remission of sins, and its flesh was eaten for the satisfaction of man. Since the Jews understood the type, they should have also understood that the Lord was the Lamb prepared by God for them. He was killed, His blood was shed, and His body was broken. His shed blood redeemed man from his sins, and His broken body released His life to enter into man for man’s satisfaction. His flesh is true food, and His blood is true drink. Those who eat His flesh and drink His blood eat Him, and those who eat Him will live because of Him (6:55-57).
The Jews, however, were confused when they heard these words. They wondered how this man’s flesh could be their food. This word was too hard for them, and they could not receive it. Brothers and sisters, the Jews were confused, and we are often confused when we read John 6. For this reason the Lord Jesus also said, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (v. 63). He was not giving them His visible flesh as food. If they ate His physical flesh, they would still die; they would not have lived. It is the Spirit who gives life. This proves that the Lord did not intend for them to eat His visible flesh but to eat the invisible Spirit. His desire is to enter into man’s spirit as Spirit, to be man’s food and man’s life, and to cause man to live by Him. Here the subject of the Spirit is introduced. Prayer is to breathe in the Spirit with our spirit. It is to touch the Spirit with our spirit.
Because the Lord was concerned that the people would still not understand, He continued, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (v. 63). This shows that the Lord is food to us in two ways — first as the Spirit and second as the Word. In other words, the Lord today is first the Holy Spirit, and second the Holy Bible. He is the Spirit and the Word. Today we can breathe in the Spirit by prayer, and we can touch the Word by reading. The Lord is in the Spirit, and He is also in the Word. He is Spirit, the Word is the Spirit, and the Lord is the Word. Hence, the Lord, the Spirit, and the Word are three in one. The Lord is in the Spirit, and He is also the Spirit. The Lord is in the Word, and He is also the Word. The Word is also the Spirit. Let me repeat: Our Lord is in the Spirit, and He is the Spirit. He is in the Word, and He is the Word. Not only so, the Word is the Spirit. The three are one. He is the Spirit for us to breathe Him in; this is to pray. He is also the Word for us to read; this is to study the Bible.
Prayer is to breathe in the Lord’s Spirit, and reading is to receive the Lord as the Word. The Lord as the Word is our food. Man does not live by bread alone, because he is not composed of only a body; within man there is also a spirit. The physical body requires physical food, but man’s spirit requires a different type of food. Physical food is not enough to make man live. Hence, the Lord says that man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out through the mouth of God (Matt. 4:4). All the words that proceed out through the mouth of God are man’s spiritual food. For this reason the prophet Jeremiah says, “Your words were found and I ate them” (Jer. 15:16).
Our attitude should be that the Bible is our food. The Bible is a book of food. When we read the Bible, we should eat this food. Whenever we read the Word, we should have the attitude that we are coming to eat and drink God. If our motive is merely to study truths, analyze teachings, or understand doctrines, we are not eating and drinking God, and the Bible is a book of doctrines and teachings to us. We must have a change in concept to see that the Bible is not a book of God’s teaching or truth; it is God’s food for us.
I hope that we would thoughtfully receive this word. This does not mean that the Bible does not contain teachings and truths. The Bible is full of teachings and truths. However, when we receive this book merely as a book of teachings and truths, and we attempt to study it only with our mind, we are but a student of truths and a learner of teachings. The Bible will merely be teachings and truths to us; it will not be life and food to us. But if our view changes, and we consider the Bible to be God’s expression and His breathing out, the Bible will be a different book to us. We will realize that since God is food to man, the Bible as His breathed-out word must also be food to man. When we come to the Bible, we must eat and drink God as our food; we must breathe in God Himself and enjoy Him. If we read the Bible this way, it will no longer be a book of teachings, commandments, truths, or doctrines. Instead, it will be God’s embodiment, unveiling, expression, and exhaling. It will also be our rich food. We will receive nourishment, supply, and life from every word.
Brothers and sisters, this brings us back to the matter of our person. A person who studies the Bible, seeks after teachings and commandments, investigates truths, and searches doctrines may be better than those who do not read the Bible, but he can only be second best. Second best can often be an enemy to the best. This kind of reading can either damage a person or frustrate him from touching the Lord. Many brothers and sisters often read the Bible but seldom touch God, because they are not persons who seek after God. When they read the Bible, they do not absorb God, and they do not eat and drink Him. They are students of the Bible, seekers of truths, who want to find out the logic, commandments, and precepts of God. Because they are such persons, they find the Bible to be the kind of Bible they choose to hold.
There is a heavy burden within me that God’s children would realize that different kinds of Bibles and different kinds of readings of the Bible are due to the differences in our person. Strictly speaking, there are not different Bibles. The same Bible is considered different because the people reading it are different. When a person is not proper, not eating and drinking God, the Bible in his hand becomes something improper. Instead of being a person who absorbs God, he is a person who studies doctrines.
Whenever we come to the Word, we must be strict to not research doctrines. Rather, we must eat and drink God; we must absorb Him. Some brothers and sisters may still not know the difference between researching doctrines and absorbing God. There are two ways to read the Bible. The first is the common, natural way of researching or studying. Everyone comes to the Bible with a heart to study it. But we can never fully understand the Bible even if we exhaust the mind of all the scholars. The Bible can never be exhausted in this way. We should not despise this little book. I have been reading this book almost every day for the past thirty-four years. I have spent much time studying it. Eventually, I had to confess that there is no way to fully know it. The more one studies this book, the more difficult it becomes, and the more confused he becomes.
For example, Matthew 1 is a huge obstacle to every student of the Bible. This chapter on the genealogy of Jesus is a high mountain, a big puzzle. Verse 1 says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Who is David and who is Abraham? What do the names Jesus and Christ mean? Verse 2 says that Abraham begot Isaac, and Isaac begot Jacob, and Jacob begot Judah and his brothers. Who is Isaac? Who is Jacob? Who is Judah? And who are his brothers? In verse 3 Judah begot children of Tamar. Who is Tamar? Following this, there are over forty names. The first seventeen verses of this chapter are impossible to study. Even after three months of studying, we will not be clear. On the contrary, we may end up with a headache, an ulcer, or we may lose our spiritual health. Many brothers and sisters are in this condition. The more they read, the hungrier they become. The more they study, the emptier and drier they are in their spirit. This is the result of merely studying the Bible.
Let us drop all these efforts. There is no need to exert much effort. I have suffered enough already; there is no need for you to suffer more. A “chicken” has been placed before us, but we insist on picking the “bones” and studying them even though they have no nutritional value. The more we study in this way, the hungrier we become. A chicken is for us to eat; it is not for us to study. A wise man will not study the mineral content of the bones; he will simply feast on the meat. He does not try to eat the whole chicken; he simply eats until he is full.
Although this may seem peculiar, many people read their Bible in this way and therefore do not derive any benefit. They study the “bone” of the word Abraham or the “beak” of the word Tamar. We need to let go of these things. We are here to eat the flesh of the “chicken,” not the “bones.” When reading the first seventeen verses of Matthew 1, we should let go of the many names. But when we read verse 21, which says, “She will bear a son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins,” we may understand that we are God’s people, so He must save us from our sins. We may then pray, “Lord, save me from my sins.” After this the Holy Spirit may speak to us and point out our sins of hitting our children and scolding our wife for many years and that our temper is too poor. Spontaneously, we should confess these sins, saying, “Lord, my temper is too poor. I cannot overcome it. I have been in sin. But You are Jesus. You will save Your people from their sins. I am Your people. Surely You will save me from my sins.” When we pray this way, we are eating the “meat.” Following this, we may read: “‘They shall call His name Emmanuel’ (which is translated, God with us)” (v. 23). Here is a bigger piece of “meat.” We may pray, “Emmanuel! God with man! Lord, You are God with man! You are God, and I am man; You are with me. You are in me, and You are in my presence.” These verses alone can fill us. During the day we will be praying that Jesus is saving His people from their sins and that God is with man. This kind of reading will make the Bible our food, supply, and nourishment. This kind of reading will bring the Bible into us as our life.
We are now clear that reading the Word is not for studying, in the same way that eating chicken is not the same as studying the chicken. Zoologists and biologists study the chicken. They spend all their lives studying, but still they may not understand everything about a chicken. We are not “zoologists” or “biologists” of the Word; we are not here to study but to eat. We do not read the Word in order to study it. Let the theologians study theology. Let the students of the Bible study the Bible. We are here to eat and drink God. We are the eaters, and we want to feast on the Word until we are filled.
In conclusion, God is Spirit for us to breathe Him in through prayer, and God is the Word for us to eat Him through reading the Word. The more we pray, the more we breathe in His Spirit, and the more we read, the more we eat His word. The Spirit is God, and the Word is also God. When we breathe and eat enough of God, we will be filled and satisfied with God. This is what it means to enjoy God through praying and reading.
