READING
GOD
I
Corinthians 2:10-16; John 5:39-47
1.
Have you ever thought that when you read
the Bible, you are reading God?
2.
I Corinthians 2:10-16 shows that the
words spoken by the Apostles were taken from the depths of God and revealed so
as to present the mind of Christ—to read the words is to read the Mind.
3.
The words given by God convey God, but the words are not themselves God
(Jn. 4:26).
5.
The words imply more than they explicitly state about
God, and God expects people to live out those implications (Matt. 5:21-48).
6.
In other words, the words are intended to grow in our hearts
(Matt. 13:23; Lk. 8:15).
7.
When the words of God grow in our
hearts, God grows in our
hearts (Jn.14:23; Eph. 3:16-17; Gal 4:19; Col. 1:27).
8.
As God grows within us, we are transformed into the image of
Christ, the perfect representation of God (John 14:8-9; Rom.
8:9, 29; 12:1-2).
9.
This process of God entering through the
word and transforming us is also the process of building a strong faith (Rom. 10:17;
Eph. 3:17).
10.
Faith is to be personal, in the Person of God (Jn.
3:16-18).
11.
Faith relates to knowing God (Jn.
17:3; Heb. 11:1, 6, 27; II Cor. 5:7; Jn. 1:18).
12.
The faith by which we know God, allow Him in our heart, and find ourselves transformed into His
image, is the basis of a
confident, personal, biblical prayer life between us and the
Person of God (I Jn. 5:14-15).
13.
There is, therefore, much more to reading
the Bible than just the words
that move across the page—in the words we can read God!
14.
Such truths do not come from a casual, surface read of the Scriptures. The
things that tie together the great themes and truths come only with the discipline of diligence (II
Tim. 2:15).
"Owing
to the pressure of an ever-increasing number of subjects
introduced
into the curriculum of a school, it is only too possible
for
men to be held to be educated and intelligent without ever having
seriously
tested their intelligence upon, say, the Book of Job, or
upon
the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. No
doubt there are very good
excuses
for this lack of discipline. Many
forward-thinking men will
tell
you that the Bible is not worth serious attention, that it is
simple,
trivial, and out-of-date; and so, even though you may hear the
Bible
read, read it yourselves, or even study it, the tension of your
energy
may be relaxed -- subtly relaxed. But
it is quite certain that
a
widespread relaxation of the tension of Biblical interpretation has
disastrous
effects. For there is no corruption
that threatens a
country
so surely as the corruption or sentimentalizing of its
religion;
and there is no corruption of the Christian religion so
swift
as that which sets in when the Church loses its strict Biblical
discipline."
--E. C. Hoskyns (1884-1937)
15.
Let us spend much time reading God!
ESJ
3/26/00
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