Scripture Reading: Eph. 4:22-24; 6:17-18
Ephesians 4:22-24 tells us clearly that a believer in Christ has two men — the old man and the new man. The old man is of Adam through our natural birth, and the new man is of Christ by a new birth, regeneration.
According to my observation, very few believers in Christ and lovers of Christ live a life of continually putting off the old man and putting on the new man. In our daily life we mainly live an ethical life, spontaneously caring for matters of right and wrong. Those who live such an ethical life try their best to do what is right and to avoid doing what is wrong.
What kind of life do you live day by day? Is your daily life a life of the new man? In your daily living do you put off the old man and put on the new man? In your married life is it your practice to love your wife or husband by the new man or by the old man? We should not think that loving in the old man is justified by God. That kind of love is according to the law, according to the old dispensation, not according to God's New Testament economy and not according to the new creation. A brother may love his wife very much, but his love may be of the old creation, not of the new creation.
Among us in the Lord's recovery today, who is living a daily life not ethically according to right and wrong but according to the new man through putting off the old man and putting on the new man? When we say that a particular brother is a good brother, we usually mean that he is an ethical brother, that he is not wrong in any way with his wife and family, with the brothers and sisters in the church, and with the elders. Our basis for saying that he is a good brother is that he seems to be right with others. This evaluation is according to the old creation. On the other hand, we may criticize a certain brother because of his temper or his lack of patience. This criticism is based on the old creation. To evaluate and criticize others in this way indicates that we are living an ethical life according to the old man and that our daily life is not based on the new creation. Where can we find a person who is living according to the new creation?
The book of Ecclesiastes tells us that everything under the sun is vanity. Only the new creation is above the sun and thus is not vanity. No matter how good, how excellent, how marvelous, and how wonderful something may be, as long as it is of the old creation, it is part of the vanity of vanities under the sun.
We need to have this realization when we come to the Bible. We may study the Bible either by the old man or by the new man. Many Christians study the Word in a natural way, according to their old man. When you read the Word of God, do you read it by the old man or by the new man? If we merely exercise our mind to get knowledge from the Word, we are reading it by the old man.
To read the Bible by the new man is very different. Even before coming to the Bible, a person in the new man exercises his spirit to contact the Lord. He may confess, saying, "Lord, I am sorry that I live so much in my old man, not exercising my spirit to contact You, to live by my new man, as one of Your new creation. Lord, forgive this sin." When we approach the Bible in this way, exercising our spirit, we have the deep feeling and sense that we are approaching, touching, and contacting God. By this I do not mean that the Bible is God but that in coming to the Bible we are coming to contact God.
When we come to the Bible to contact God, we should not only read but pray-read the Word. No matter who we are, as long as we read the Bible without praying, we are reading by the old man. To read the Bible without praying is to contact the Word by the old man. The genuine reading of the Bible by the new man can never be separated from praying.
The term pray-reading has been in use for less than thirty years. This does not mean, however, that before we invented this term, there was no such thing as pray-reading. Many saints have practiced the pray-reading of the Word without using this expression to describe what they were doing. A number of seeking Christians have pointed out that the best way to read the Bible is to read it prayerfully. I have read certain books which said that we should read the Bible in a prayerful way. To read the Word prayerfully actually is to pray-read the Word.
I can testify that long before we began to speak of pray-reading, it was my practice to read the Word with prayer. For example, I remember reading John 3:16 and praying, "O God, thank You. You loved the world so much. O God my Father, You loved me so much that You gave Your Son, the Only Begotten, to me." I had the feeling that I had touched God and that He had touched me. Through my prayer John 3:16 became Spirit and life to me.
My burden in these messages on Proverbs is to help you touch the Word of God by your new man, by exercising your spirit to pray-read. Pray-reading changes the Bible from letters to Spirit and life. Apart from pray-reading, the book of Proverbs is merely a collection of proverbs. But when we pray-read Proverbs, our pray-reading causes all the proverbs to become words of Spirit and life to us.
Ephesians 6:17-18 unveils the matter of pray-reading, and our invention of the term pray-reading was based on these verses. Ephesians 6:17-18 tells us to "receive the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition, praying at every time in spirit." Here we see that we should receive the word of God not merely by exercising our mind to understand but by means of all prayer and petition, praying by exercising our spirit. Prayer is general; petition particular.
We receive the word by reading. However, to receive (read) without praying is altogether a matter in the mind. Along with our reading we must pray. When we pray-read the Word by exercising our spirit, the word in black and white immediately becomes the Spirit. In this way the Spirit and the word are one. When we read, it is a word. When we pray with the exercise of our spirit, the word becomes Spirit and life. Whenever we come to the Word we must pray, and we should pray not merely with the mind but with the spirit.
The Bible is God's breathing. God is breathing out Himself as the word (2 Tim. 3:16a). This means that the Bible is God's exhaling. The exhaling of God in the Bible is waiting for us to inhale. When we read any verse and pray, this praying becomes our inhaling of God's breath. By this the Word becomes Spirit and life to us in our experience. If this is not our situation, then even in our reading of the Bible we are not in the new man but are still in the old man.
We have pointed out that in Proverbs there are many detailed precepts for man to live a proper human life and that every precept is a gem. Even if a person accepts all these gems and is successful in keeping them, he will only build up himself to be a perfect man by cultivating the self. But the Lord Jesus said that whoever would follow Him must deny himself (Matt. 16:24).
In their reading of the Proverbs and even of the entire Bible, many Christians receive only teachings, admonitions, exhortations, proverbs, and precepts to cultivate their self and to build up the natural man, who has been fully condemned by God. We must learn to come to the Word of God as those who are approaching God, not to receive proverbs and teachings but to receive nourishment and enlightenment, so that we may know that, according to God, we should always be conformed to the death of Christ by the power of His resurrection (Phil. 3:10), which is the consummated Spirit, who is the reality of the resurrection of Christ.
A certain teaching in the Bible may be very good, but we should not take it as something to cultivate our self and build up our natural man. We must reject self-cultivation and condemn the building up of the natural man. We need to turn the Bible from a book that teaches us to cultivate the self and to build up the natural man to a book that is full of life, spirit, spiritual nourishment, and spiritual enlightenment. This will tear down our self, break our natural man, and supply us with the consummated Spirit of the Triune God. Then we will live a life not by our natural man, by our old man, and by our self but by the Lord Jesus, who is our life and person living in our spirit.
We need to learn to exercise our spirit every day in our daily life, especially in our Bible study. We need to turn ourselves from the mind to the spirit by praying in our spirit. If we come to the Bible in this way, we will be touching the Word by the new man and it will become to us a book of Spirit and life.
