Scripture is highly spiritual, even divine. One of the challenges that people have had in reading scriptures is reading by themselves. (Acts 8:30) Every one of us needs a guide, not just a scripture companion, but persons anointed into five-fold offices to establish the saints in truth. (Eph. 4:11-12)
God did not leave us all by ourselves. While we are encouraged to read scriptures by ourselves, we must realize God gave us a guide for our perfection. We can’t find the knowledge of the Son of God without the help of the guides God has given. These men and women in the five fold offices are ascension gifts, given by God so we can also come to the knowledge of Him and we can’t do it without them. We have the Bible but we will always need these ministry gifts. God ordained ministers to open up the Bible. The major reason we are brought into church is to be guided. (Eph. 4:11-12) However, this provision also is not a replacement for every individual search of the scriptures.
There is an error in our community where because of the abundance of messages and revelation in our midst, we don’t go back to the Bible and do our own personal discipline of going back to the word to study instead we just listen to messages. Listening to messages is only the start of the race. It is good, necessary and foundational but it should not end there. Some of us also just listen to messages with the aim of ticking it done. Our attitude to listening to messages ought to require a pause to evaluate our lives through the words we are hearing, pausing to go back to hear it again, opening the scriptures referred to and praying as we listen.
Also the reason we are dividing the Bible is not to understand history, it’s to find a person. If we get this wrong, we can master the Bible and miss Jesus. It is not the knowledge of the Bible they want to give us, it is the knowledge of the Son of God. We need the Bible to come to it. We need the light of scripture to find Him. John 5:39
(Prov. 2:3-4) – “Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; 4 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures;” – Crying after knowledge is conditional, IF in this verse signifies that we can choose not to do it. There are certain things that God will not do for anybody, that is solely our responsibility. Heaven will stir people to inspire us but the performance is on us. (Isa. 30:20) One of the things God will not do is take away teachers who will stir us up and show us the way to God. What He would not do is study for us. We have to take the responsibility to look into the word by ourselves.
(1 Cor. 2:7) The mystery of God is hidden, this is what God called us to search out. The compass to this hidden mystery is the Bible.
The writing of the Bible spanned over 4,000 years by several authors/different men, yet, its message and its central theme is the same. The Bible was written by more than 10 authors who were inspired to write. They were different people with different nationalities, generations, languages etc. yet the theme of the Scriptures did not change. This did not occur in the internet age, meaning the writers did not know themselves and did not live in the same era but they bore witness that God was speaking the same thing to them. The Old Testament was written in Aramaic and Hebrew primarily while the New Testament was written in Greek. All these witnessing the same prophecy and revelation of God. God ensured that the integrity of what is necessary was preserved.The Bible has been through different civilizations and global powers. It has assisted men through all those civilizations and attests that the problem of man is not civilization but sin.
If we study without a guide and without the Holy Spirit, spirits can lead men astray in understanding what scriptures are saying.
Tongues and Interpretation
For every man is a pattern of their thinking
Scripture also has its thinking
We are opening you to the thinking of the scripture, even the thinking of the beginning, even the thinking of the heart of Jesus
Every scripture is from a thinking, its from the way the Father thinks
The opening of scripture is even to change your thought pattern, to change the way you think about life
The reason why you’re taking that thought is because of the pattern of life you have been exposed to
Scripture is a thinking and a rewinder of the way you think
We are opening you to the thought of the beginning, to the realm of the scripture
Spirits maneuver through thinking, they are maneuvering you through thinking
I open grace to bring thinking
To bring thinking of life
To bring thinking of Eden
The reason you are ravaged by thoughts is because you have not hit the thought of the beginning
The scripture is an opening of thinking and a realm of thinking
Many thinkings are reordering your way because you’ve not seen the thoughts of the beginning
I open a gusher to rewire thinking of men
Spirits stay on thinking
I open a line of thinking
I open a fountain for you to think through and bring them to the beginning
Man was lost by thinking and many will be gained back by thinking in the realm of the scripture
Search the scripture and you’ll find the right thinking of life
Restoration! Restoration! Restoration!
Even where your thoughts have been open to wrong spirits by thinking, I will bring restoration
I’m bringing a grace to search to think
You search the way you think about me, you search by your imagination and they are not of the Lord
I bring scripture to think you back to Jesus, I bring scripture to think you back to the Father.
Message continues..
Scriptures have outlived scientific breakthroughs, many pioneered by God Himself. For instance, the Lord taught Jacob genetic modification when he was with Laban. We also see inventions of machines by King Uzziah who sought the Lord at a time (2 Chron. 26:15). Heaven could give those breakthroughs, yet, it was not the inheritance. We should not think that the world is passing us by and neglect the Truth of scriptures pursuing after that which is fleeting. Scriptures themselves have outlived civilizations, empires and technological discoveries but what it seeks to give man is that which was before the world began and its theme has been consistent. God has committed to a project for more than 6,000 years and he has been unrelenting. He is only saying that to come into that which I want to give man, look into the scriptures and satan fights us from looking into it.
(Luke 10:25-26) – “And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?” – How we read the Bible matters. It determines whether we will find the mind of the writer. The same way how we hear matters (Luke 8:18) is the same way how we read matters. Scripture specifies how we ought to search in Prov2:4 If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures’. Most treasures are hidden and buried.
Before we study, we must be given to reading. You must love reading scriptures. If you’re lazy at reading, you’ll be lazy at studying. One of the practices to stir us to read is reading large portions of scriptures. Sometimes read aloud. You can also play audio. Read scriptures to yourself.
Reading is different from studying. In studying you have to be systematic, if not you’ll be worn out and exhausted. Studying is not a sprint, finding the knowledge of God is a marathon. You can read and study countless times yet there are still more things to know.
(Hos. 6:3) – “Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord:” – Sometimes if you are not exercised in pursuing God, the joy of discovery can stop your journey of studying. Finding some knowledge should not stop us, we should be more mindful to find His person.
Consistency matters more than speed in studying. There are different approaches or systems to studying and changing your system all too frequently can affect you.
Systems of Bible Study
Following up on teachings taught in church is a form of study. You sit down with what has been taught, meditate on them, cross reference scriptures to see they are true and sit to digest it with the hope of embodying what has been taught. If you follow this consistently, hearing what is being taught in the house and applying yourself to them, you will grow.
The meal of the house is one thing, there’s also the place of your personal devotion. If you’re a person that has personal communion, you’ll discover that even after you have fed on the message of the house, the Lord still calls you to fellowship with Him more.
The leading of the Spirit is also very important in calling us to deeper understanding.
It is good to be systematic with studying, this is different from being sensual. To be systematic is to have order, have principles you are working with so that you’ll be easily guided. Some people, in being systematic, box the Holy Ghost out and reduce studying to purely an academic affair.
Different forms/systems of studying are Topical Study, Character Study, Book Study, Chapter Study, Verse by Verse Study and Historical Study. The Lord can also lead you in a mix of everything by the Spirit.
Topical study is a study based on topics like studying righteousness, justification etc. where the Lord takes you journey by journey, linking every idea on the specific topic. The essence of this type of study is to give you a holistic view of the topic, not necessarily a total understanding but a macro perspective on the topic. In getting a holistic understanding, the Lord can lighten you and help you to search what the scripture says about a topic throughout the scripture. Knowing scriptures and knowing it accurately can be the difference in finding out what God wants to point out to you. Topical studies can be done for a long stretch of time.
When doing a book study, you need to know when it was written, to whom and why it was written.You can go chapter to chapter or verse by verse. It is to understand the context of which God is speaking so that you can understand God accurately. Context is important in Bible Study because many times once you remove context it becomes vague and you can end up missing God. We need to judge all we read through context to know what God is trying to pass across.
With character study, you can choose to study about a person, e.g., the heart of David, the meekness of Moses, the obedience of Isaac etc. It can begin with the meaning of their names, family background, understanding the realities of the struggles of their life, their oppositions, sacrifices and the challenges they faced etc. The essence is to be instructed in a way to see how God is dealing with you.
There are different administrations or ways that the Lord can draw us in to seeing things that we have not previously seen before. Part of being systematic is starting from the basics/rudiments. It is unwise to start from revelation if you are new to Bible study.
(1 Cor. 10:1-6, 1 Cor. 10:11-12) Every single thing that will happen to us has happened to men before. If we are humble enough we can see this and learn wisdom so we can respond appropriately when they happen to us. Scripture is deliberately put down to advise us or keep us from falling. You can fall into the same things that some have fallen into before if we don’t see their mistakes and learn from them. God made some people ensamples so that we can escape and that we won’t be without instruction. This is part of the comfort and admonition of scriptures.
(Prov. 1:20) Wisdom lifts up her voice yet we fall into the same pitfalls that men have fallen into because we did not open scriptures.
Don’t hurry to study for study’s sake, build capacity. When you love the word, you naturally become a student of the word and our prayer is that the Lord will build in us great hunger and desire for his word. We also pray that the Lord will bring us breakthroughs in understanding.