As I was driving down a quiet country road the other day, I was listening to a priest speaking on the necessity of knowing the Holy Scripture. Lately, Bob has been speaking about the importance of our thinking being influenced by the Word rather than the world. The influence of the world around us is a constant pressure. From our phones, to media, to interactions with coworkers, it is easy to get sucked into agreeing with wrong opinions and erroneous beliefs based on feelings or thoughtless reactions. The reality is that if I am not grounded in a consistent [daily] study of Scripture, I will make up my God. I will come up with my own ideas of who God is based on all these external pressures and influences and most of the time, these ideas will be out of sync with the reality of God as revealed through His holy Word. This is why it is so critical that we KNOW the Word; that we are deeply rooted like a strong oak tree. When we know the Word, we can be confident in who God REALLY is.
In Matthew 22, the religious leaders of the day – who, incidentally, KNEW the scriptures forward and backwards – tried to trap Jesus in a theological debate. Instead, he ignored their question and simply stated, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you also don’t know the power of God.” St. Jerome said, “For if, as Paul says, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God, and if the man who does not know Scripture does not know the power and wisdom of God, then ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.” Those leaders knew the words of the Scriptures, but their understanding was missing the power of God. Catholic catechism says, “Since Scripture is inspired, there is an important principle of correct interpretation, without which Scripture would remain a dead letter. Scripture must be read and interpreted in the light of the same Spirit by whom it was written.”
The Holy Spirit is a gift to us. It is by the power of the Spirit that we are able to read the words of the Bible and receive illumination, understanding, and wisdom. The Bible is like our instruction manual. Other religions have their sacred writings, but as John Piper says, “Only the Bible contains the writings taught not by human wisdom but by the Spirit of God (1 Corinthians 2:13). Only the Bible reveals “what no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9). The Christian manual of operation is unique because it reveals “the things of the Spirit of God”—things from God that man can’t find out on his own, things that are often very foreign to our way of thinking.” Piper goes on to say that the Bible “contains the truth needed to win us over from the enemy to Christ, to deprogram our old thought patterns, to train us in strategies of righteousness, and to equip us with armor and weapons to defeat Satan and liberate his captives. But we have a natural aversion to this truth. Therefore, the work of the Holy Spirit is utterly indispensable.” The job of the Holy Spirit is not to spoon feed us and tell us what everything in the Bible means. That is why we must discipline ourselves to study. Piper says, “The Spirit inspired these writings and he does not short-circuit them by whispering in our ear what they mean. When we pray for his help, we do not pray that he will spare us the hard work of rigorous reading and reflection. What we pray is that he would make us humble enough to welcome the truth…. We must soak all of our study in prayer that his Spirit would humble us to submit to every truth and commandment in it. The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us say from the heart as we take up the manual, “Far be it from me that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world was crucified to me, and I to the world.” If our pride has not been crucified by the Holy Spirit, the Bible will be a wax nose and we will call it foolish or mold it to fit our own natural desires.”
My desire to be rooted and grounded in the Word of God is coupled with my desire to know Christ and the wonder working power of the Holy Spirit. Disciplining myself to stay in His word on a consistent basis is critical and necessary for me to recognize the hollow and shallow facades of the world’s offerings. The treasure of eternity is the prize worth pursuing that St. Paul speaks of that will never burn or be destroyed. It is in that pursuit that I begin to really understand who God is and glimpse the depths of His love for me.
Quotes from John Piper — How The Spirit Helps Us Understand