How Are You Planning On Reading The Bible? (3)

 

How are you planning on reading the Bible in 2023? How are you planning on learning the Word of God? Be assured of this, that unless we actually read the Bible we won’t know the Bible. Also be assured that our dear Heavenly Father, and our Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, are waiting to meet us within the Bible so that God may reveal Himself to us and transform us into His image.

 

Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit will “teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:25). Jesus also says that the Holy Spirit will “testify about Me” (John 15:26). Then Jesus says, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you” (John 16:13 – 15).

 

What does the foregoing have to do with the Bible, the Scriptures, the Word of God? Everything.

 

Consider, that in the four Gospels we have a true representation of what Jesus Christ said and did. Also, the entire Bible is God’s image to us of His saying and doing. The Holy Spirit will help us learn and remember the sayings and doings of God – not in a piecemeal fashion, but in a comprehensive and holistic way.

 

How does the Holy Spirit “testify” about Jesus Christ? Let’s also ask, “How did the Risen Jesus testify about Himself?” Jesus revealed Himself through the Scriptures (Luke 24:27, 44 – 49). Therefore, it is reasonable that the Holy Spirit will reveal Jesus Christ just as Jesus Christ revealed Himself in Luke Chapter 24 – through the entire body of Scripture.

 

But not only this, consider that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John referenced the Scriptures throughout their Gospels in order to demonstrate that Jesus is the Messiah. Also consider that the other New Testament books are filled with Old Testament quotations, allusions, understandings, and backdrops – and that all of these books are centered in Jesus Christ.

 

Furthermore, when we consider Jesus’ appearances in Luke 24 and His revealing Himself through Scripture, consider the setting. Here is the Risen Jesus Christ with His people, He is walking with them, He is standing with them. In the case of the two people on the road to Emmaus, they could see Him, and yet they couldn’t see Him. That is, Jesus was with them but they didn’t recognize Him.

 

Instead of Jesus saying, “Don’t you know who I am?” He points them to the written Word of God that they have learned over the course of their lives. And even as their hearts were “burning” within them, they still could not yet see Jesus…not yet. In other words, rather than Jesus pointing to Himself and saying, “Look, it’s Me!” He pointed to the Scriptures and said, “Look, it’s Me!”

 

As these disciples learned to see Him in His Word, they would be able, by the Holy Spirit and the grace of God, to help others see Him in His Word. That is, as we learn to see Jesus Christ in the Bible we can, in turn, say to others, “Look, it’s Jesus!”

 

This is what we see in the New Testament, for it is built upon the testimony of the Messiah in the Old Testament. Furthermore, when we come to the book of Revelation, we see Jesus Christ speaking to the Church once again, and once again He reveals Himself through the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings – for what John sees and hears in Revelation is against the backdrop of the Old Testament.

 

So when Jesus says that that Holy Spirit will bring to our remembrance all that Jesus has said to us, the scope of what He is saying can be found in Luke Chapter 24, the Old Testament, as well as in what He gives in in the New Testament – the two together, Genesis – Malachi, and Matthew – Revelation, give us the living and abiding and eternal Word of God, that very Word which “was in the beginning with God” (John 1:1 – 5).

 

The Bible is a never-ending treasure house whose height and depth and breath is beyond our comprehension, but it is not beyond our experience – which should be always unfolding…for we ought to always be seeing and knowing more and more of Jesus Christ.

 

Christ will meet us in His Word, and He will meet us where we are in our comprehension and understanding, and He will take it from there if we will trust Him. If we have difficultly reading and understanding that is actually fine, because if we will trust Him He will bring us along…this is about knowing Him, about relationship with Him, and about sharing the Good News of Him with others. In and through His Word we are called to have koinonia with Him and in Him, and with one another. This is not about driving a sports car, it is not about speed, it is not about impressing others; this is about taking a walk with Jesus, about sitting with Him on a park bench, about listening to Him, about paying attention to Him in His Word, about allowing Him to teach us and reveal Himself to us as we submit ourselves to Him as our Lord.

 

One of the joys of my seminary experience was to know some of my professors beyond the classroom. To spend time with them in other settings, to have coffee with them, to engage in ministry with them off – campus, to have them into our home for a meal. In the classroom there may have been two kinds of students, those there for the data in order to pass their exams and receive their diplomas, and those who wanted to go beyond the data to see what couldn’t be seen at first glance, as well as to get to know, as they were graciously permitted, their professors. Perhaps who I got to know during seminary influenced me more than what I got to know. Certainly the professors I got to know enabled me, by God’s grace, to better understand what I was learning.

 

Ought not our experience with Jesus Christ to be similar? If reading the Bible is simply a classroom exercise, if it is assimilating data, then are we not missing the mark? Christ calls us into the Bible because He calls us into intimate union with Himself – He calls us into His Word that we might be “partakers of the Divine Nature” (2 Peter 1:4).

 

How exciting to know that as we enter the Bible we meet Jesus Christ, and that He speaks to us, listens to us, and that we share life together with Him…and with one another.