Some people spend much of their lives trying to understand the Bible, the Scriptures. Others, seeing little value in the Scriptures, have spent little or no time reading them, much less trying to understand them. So, how important is it to understand Scripture? What difference does it make whether I understand the Scriptures or not?

In Matthew 13:18-23, Jesus spoke to His disciples saying, “Hear then the parable of the sower.  When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is the one on whom seed was sown beside the road. The one on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, this is the man who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no firm root in himself, but is only temporary, and when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he falls away.  And the one on whom seed was sown among the thorns, this is the man who hears the word, and the worry of the world and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful. And the one on whom seed was sown on the good soil, this is the man who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and brings forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, and some thirty.”

In this passage, Jesus makes it very clear that understanding plays a vital role in both salvation and in being fruitful and growing unto maturity. Notice the evil one snatches away the seed that has been sown in the heart of the one that does not understand. However, the good soil is the heart of the man who not only hears the word, but also understands it. The man who hears and understands bears fruit and brings forth fruit in abundance.

Paul writes in Romans 9:13, “Just as it is written, ‘Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.’” Jacob and Esau were brothers. Esau was the oldest and therefore had the birthright of inheritance.

Many people have wondered why God would have displayed such apparent favoritism, loving one and hating the other. Genesis 25:29-34 gives us some insight as to why God had this attitude toward Jacob and Esau. It says, “Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, ‘Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I’m famished!’ … Jacob replied, ‘First sell me your birthright.’ ‘Look, I am about to die,’ Esau said. ‘What good is the birthright to me?’ But Jacob said, ‘Swear to me first.’ So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright” (NIV).

God favored Jacob because Jacob understood the birthright. Because Jacob understood the birthright, he realized its significance. This enabled Jacob to value the birthright. Esau, however, did not understand the birthright or its value and sold it for a bowl of stew and some bread. Lacking understanding, Esau despised his birthright. Because of his lack of understanding, Esau was deceived into despising and selling his birthright.

In Matthew 22:29, Jesus told the religious leaders that they were deceived. “Jesus answered and said to them, ‘You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.’” There are some people today who know the Scriptures very well, including religious leaders, yet they also may be deceived.

In John 5:38-40, Jesus again confronted the religious leaders and revealed how badly deceived they were. He said to them, “You don’t have His word living in you, because you don’t believe the One He sent. You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, yet they testify about Me. And you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (HCSB).

I remember seeing a quotation engraved on the archway over the entrance to a chapel at a Bible college. It was taken from 2 Timothy 2:15. It said, “Study to show thyself approved unto God.” The implication of course is that the harder you study, the more God will approve of you. However, the word translated “study” in this passage does not really mean to study. It literally means to be diligent, to be eager, to act promptly, as in when God speaks, be quick to obey.

The context here is that Paul is encouraging Timothy that he must be diligent to accurately teach the word of truth. The verse actually says, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.”

Paul gave this warning because some had deviated from the truth and had become false teachers. It is good, whenever you hear someone share something, to search the Scriptures to verify whether their teaching is correct or not. If their teaching is not accurate, they should be corrected.

Paul continues in verse 21, referring to the false teachings, “Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work.” Paul continues in verses 24 and 25, “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged, with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth.”

Paul is telling Timothy not to get caught up in foolish disputes that cause arguments and divisions. He wants him to correctly handle the word of truth and stay focused on the basics of obedience, living a holy life, loving the brothers and maintaining the unity of the Spirit. We must understand that we cannot argue anyone into believing the truth. It is the Holy Spirit that reveals truth.

In 2 Timothy 3:1-5, Paul warns that in the last days people will be “lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.” Because they will not come to Jesus and trust Him completely, they do not know the power of God and cannot really know the Scriptures. Therefore, they are deceived, holding to a form of religion, but denying its power.

I Corinthians 2:6-14 says, “Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory; the wisdom which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory; but just as it is written, ‘Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, And which have not entered the heart of man, All that God has prepared for those who love Him.’

“For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.”

The term “it is written” is used to refer to something in the Scriptures, especially the Old Testament. The Scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments, were written by men as they were directed by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Therefore, the Scriptures are spiritual and must be spiritually understood. 

The natural man is not able, not having the Spirit of Christ within him, to understand the Scriptures, because, being spiritual, they are discerned only through the Spirit. They just don’t make sense to the natural man. It does not matter how well educated you are or how many degrees you may have. Without the Spirit, you do not have the ability to understand the Scriptures.

Many people today, however, are sold on the importance of studying the Scriptures, of poring over them, of analyzing them, because they think that in doing so they will find a deeper understanding of God and of His ways. But they are unwilling to come to and completely trust in the One of whom the Scriptures speak, the One that has the power to give them life and to give them understanding.

If we know the power of God, Jesus Christ as the Holy Spirit dwelling in our human spirit, God, by this power, will teach us all that is ours in Christ. He will reveal the truth in Scripture to us.

In 2 Corinthians 3:6, Paul says God “made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” When we come to the Scriptures, we should not come to study them, trying according to our own natural understanding to learn what they mean. If we do, we will indeed find that the letter kills. Solomon, in his great wisdom, warns in Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.” Then in Ecclesiastes 12:12, he exposes that the result of “much study is a weariness of the flesh” (WEB).

Instead of studying and analyzing, we should come to the Scriptures to be fed. In John 6:35 Jesus said, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

In John 6:47-51, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever.”

Jesus says in John 6:63, “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” When we come to the Scriptures, we must not come to understand by means of our natural intellect. If we do, we will experience death. We must come to the Scriptures, in spirit, to hear Christ speak to us, that we might receive more of His life and be filled with His Spirit.

When we come to the Scriptures, we must come with the desire and the expectation that God would breathe on the Scriptures and make them come alive to us. 2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “Every Scripture, when inspired [breathed upon] by God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction concerning righteousness so that the man of God may be completely prepared for accomplishing every good work” (TFLV).

We need to come to the Scriptures and allow them, through God’s breathing on them, and through the Spirit’s speaking, to lead us into a deeper knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we are feeding on the living Word and filled with His Spirit, we will find ourselves saying along with Jeremiah, “Your words were found, and I ate them. Your words were to me a joy and the rejoicing of my heart” (Jeremiah 15:16, WEB).

When our children were small and still at home, my wife would always tell them, “Eat slower, chew your food well.” This is how we should come to the Scriptures. We should come to them as those that are hungry, hungry for the “living bread of life.”

We should feed on them slowly, enjoying every bite, getting as much out of them as possible. We should ruminate on them, as a sheep chewing its cud. We should meditate on them, patiently waiting for God to breathe on them, and for His Spirit to break them open and make them a blessing to us.

We will discover that the Word of God is not dead letter. It is not just a written document. The Word of God is the living, breathing person of Jesus Christ. He is indwelling the heart of every true believer. He is also that germ of life embedded in every grain of Scripture. We must allow the Lord, as the Spirit, to break open that grain of Scripture and release the living Word embedded within it. When the Lord does this, we are richly fed.

In John 14:15-17, Jesus tells His disciples, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

In John 14:25, Jesus told His disciples, “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”

In Acts 19:1-4, Paul comes to Ephesus and meets some disciples, about 12 in number. He asks them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” And they said to him, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said, “Into what then were you baptized?” And they said, “Into John’s baptism.” Paul said, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus.”

I have met many people who claim to be Christians who know nothing of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:9 says, “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” In John 3:5-6 Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

When you are born again, your spirit is made alive when the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, comes to dwell in you, and you become a new creation. Your life and your desires begin to be totally changed, transformed. You become a new creation that delights to feed on the living bread, the Word of God, Jesus Christ our Lord! Being born again is a life changing, earth shattering experience.

It is impossible to understand the Scriptures or to know the power of God without being born again. We must have the Spirit of Christ. Only then will this indwelling Holy Spirit open the Scriptures and reveal the deep, hidden things of God to us. Truly, the Holy Spirit will teach us all things and empower us to be victorious Christians!

Writings By Jon von Ernst

The Lord of All Things Series - A Trilogy of Truth 
Books in this series:
Book 1 - The Gospel of the Kingdom
Book 2- The Victorious Christian
Book 3 - Walking in the Light  -  Following in His Steps

*- Audio of these books are available free of charge at thepureword.net.