I heard a man of God say at one time that he didn’t know his bible very good, but he knew the Author real well. How can you really know the Author of the bible without knowing what He had written. The bible tells us the history of how God created the World in the beginning. It tells us that He created man in His own image and set man over His creation to keep it. The bible tells us how God interacted with mankind down through the ages and gave them certain laws to live by. It tells us about the first covenant He made with man, that man was not able to comply with. The bible tells us how He made a second covenant with man and sent His only begotten Son to introduce that covenant. God tells us how He made Himself known to man through the supernatural works that He performed through His Son.
Without the bible and you knowing the bible and what it says to mankind, there is no way that you can really know God who authored it.
A man once said: ‘You might not know one word of the bible, but if you know Him, the author, you can have eternal life”. Does that sound reasonable? Absolutely not! Because there is no way for you to learn of and know God without learning of Him from the bible. This person went on to say: “If you know the author, He will reveal the bible to you”.
In this case you need to be careful who is revealing what to you. The scriptures themselves tell us that our belief comes by understanding the Word of God and the understanding comes as the Holy Spirit reveals to us that the scriptures are the truth. Any revelation that speaks of the scriptures not meaning exactly what they are saying is not a revelation from God. If a person has a revelation that they believe is from God, the scripture tells us to prove the validity of the revelation that it agrees with the written word. “Prove all things” is what the scripture tells us, for the Holy Spirit was given to us for our learning, as our teacher and the Holy Spirit will not give us anything that goes against scripture.
There are those who quote the scripture out of context which says that the “letter killeth, but the Spirit gives life”. They use this quote that “in context” was speaking of the Mosaic Law, but use it to mean that the scriptures are not dependable unless the real truth is revealed to you. Doesn’t that sound like something the devil would do by instilling doubt in your heart about the meaning of scripture?
A true God sent teacher of the bible will use the scriptures as they are written as the basis for teaching and not depend on some revelation that says you must get a revelation to understand the true meaning of scripture. If you are looking for a revelation, then let the Holy Spirit, if He is in you, to reveal to you that the scriptures need no other interpretation than what they say.
Now I would like to ask you a question. If you read or study the bible, which version of the bible do you have? Do you believe that all of the versions are the same? What I mean by this is do you believe that all versions of the bible are an accurate translation of the original scriptures? If you believe that the bible you use is an accurate translation, what do you base your belief on? Have you ever taken the time to investigate whether or not you have a legitimate accurate translation or not?
I know these are a lot of questions that the average person probably has never considered, but don’t you believe that is important to know that what you are reading and basing your belief on is actually the accurate, inspired word of God and not a version that man has misinterpreted?
There is only one way that you can be sure that your bible is an accurate translation of the original scriptures. First the bible you are using must be the Authorized King James Version. Only this version is a word for word translation of the original scriptures. Even if this version of the bible is used, you cannot depend upon the translators of this version to have been 100% accurate in their work. A second check of its accuracy must be made by using one other tool. This additional tool is the Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the bible. In this concordance every Greek and Hebrew word has been assigned a number which cross references to a particular word in the bible. Only by studying the bible while using this cross reference can you determine the accuracy of the translation into our English language.
Unlike other Biblical reference books, the purpose of Strong's Concordance is not to provide content or commentary about the Bible, but to provide an index to the Bible. In this way Strong's Notes provides an independent check against translations, and offers an opportunity for greater, and more technically accurate understanding of text.
Now what does all of this mean? Very simply it should be obvious that the laity, those who are not schooled in deep study of scripture must depend upon the teaching by those who the Lord has ordained to be Teachers. Those teachers of scripture then depend upon the Holy Spirit to be their teacher and the revealer to them of the truth and soundness of the accuracy they will hold to for the purpose of educating the masses in the church.
Jesus said that the Holy Spirit who was sent by the Father to dwell in the heart of the believer would teach us all things and guide us into all truth about what Jesus spoke while He walked the Earth. At one time Jesus told His disciples that they didn’t know what manner of spirit that they had. That is part of the problem that mankind has today, for if they had the Spirit of God dwelling in them it would teach them and testify to them by pointing to the truth of scripture and not the interpretation of man that claims of receiving a revelation adverse to what the scriptures say.
The bible tells us that it was not written because it was man’s will, but holy men of God spoke and wrote the scriptures as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. It goes on to state that if any person would add to or take away from the words written in the bible, God will take away their part out of the Book of Life.
Do you know your Bible? If not then don’t believe everything that you are taught without researching and studying the scriptures on your own. We have been warned that there will be false teachers in our pulpits teaching for doctrine the commandments of men and not the words of God.
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