Studying and Understanding Bible

I.       The attitude of reading the bible.

A.     We shall believe that the bible is the word of God.

Someone does not believe all the miracles in the bible.

1.        They do not think the Daniel was written prior to the events occurs.

2.        They did not believe in the story of Jonah. Instead, they though it was a legend. However, we can see that the Jesus mentioned about the fact of the story of Jonah. They do not believe in the city of Sodom and Gomora, but Jesus said “remember Lot’s wife…”

B.     We shall believe that Bible can be only revealed through the power of Holy Spirit.

1.        No prophecy of bible shall be of any private interpretation. (2Pe1:20)

2.        If one does not know the bible and wrest/twist it meaning, then they are destructed themselves. (2Pe 3:16)

3.        Some parts of stuff is hidden to us. (1Co 13)

4.        It is a sealed book. (Is )

5.        Only the lambs of God was able to unsealed it. (Rev)

6.        Only the Lord open our mind, then we can understand the bible. (Lk24:45)

C.     What is the purpose of Bible?

1.        To prove Jesus Christ. (Act 18:28) (Therefore, we shall read the bible from the perspective of salvation.)

An elder gave me great inspiration concerning to look from the perspective of salvation when reading bible.

 a.      Cain and Able prefigure two kinds of believers.

 b.      Abraham and Lot prefigure two kinds of followers.

 c.      Isaac and Ishmael prefigure two kinds of churches.

 d.      The book of Genesis is talking about the beginning.

 e.      The book of Exodus d is talking about redemption.

 f.       The book of Leviticus is talking about sacrifice.

 g.      When one read it from the angles of salvation, the words of God becoming more alive.

2.        To teach us how to live in this world. The bible is benefited to us in teaching doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteous. (2ti 3:16)

 a.      Reading bible is to receive direction, rebuking, and knowing the directions of life.

 b.      Reading bible is not to find fault of the bible. Yes, you can find some faults.

(a)     The date and the figure could be a little different from the 4 gospels.

(b)     In Stephane’s testimony, it could be some figure difference.

(c)     I may used different figure in my sermon.

3.        To provide base of our faith. (Act 17:2)(Act 17:11)

 a.      Without the bible, there is no reference of the truth.

 b.      Truth can be views from different angles, but truth cannot contradict itself.

If Sabbath is the 1^st day of the week, then one should have rest on the 1^st day and laboring until the end of the days.

D.     What are the benefits in reading bible?

1.        Our hearts can be have zeal/fire. (Lk 24:32)

A story of a senior believer who said that he wanted to give up on his faith at the beginning of conversation. Later on, his eye sight changed after reciting the verses of the Lord’s Prayer and Ps23. We can see the words of God are really powerful to a sick person.

2.        The bible hides the truth of internal life. (Jn 5: 39)

3.        Bible is written for our learning. (Rm15:4)

II.    What are the ways to study bibles?

A.     To finish the whole books in a very quick way. – This is for the beginner.

You read three chapters a day, then you can read through it once in three years.

B.     To familiar with the bible, one need to do it slower and study in depth.

1.        Elder Chu study book of proverb a chapter a day. He finished the book in one month. And then he finished 12 times a year. He needed to teach this book to TTP, therefore, he read it over and over again.

2.        Pr. Chao said that he memorized the bible by the major points of each chapter. He will assign a topic of Gen to each chapter.

 a.      The 1st chapter: Creation.

 b.      The 2^nd chapter: Garden and marriage.

 c.      The 3^rd chapter：Falling of man.

 d.      The 4^th chapter ：Cain and Abel.

 e.      The 5^th chapter ：Descends of Adam.

 f.       The 6^th chapter: Noah made ark.

 g.      The 7^th chapter: Noah entered into ark.

 h.      The 8^th chapter: Noah went out of the ark.

 i.        The 9^th chapter: Blessing to Noah and cursing to Cannon .

 j.        The 10^th chapter: The descents of Noah.

 k.      The 11^th chapter: Tower Babel and changing of languages.

 l.        The 12^th to 50^th chapter: The story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph.

3.        Elder said that he would have read it out loud. It will help me in understanding bible. As if the Lord is reading to him. Later on, he can be recalled to what is reading in the bible. Then he will read the book of Tim for several times. He believe that this book is the handbook for a minister to care for the church.

C.     Read it in a very slow away, meditate what we had read.

1.        You put yourself in the shoes of the author. One concept of knowing the bible is in 2Ti2:7 “You shall think what I shared with you, the Lord will give you wisdom.” Ex. When Peter lost his faith to cried out to the Lord, he was lifted up. Then Jesus hold his hands to walk back to the boat. It is not recorded in the bible. But some sharp reader can pick it up. Then they learned about the truth concerning it: It is always good to cry unto God and you can experience the grace of even after the scolding of God.

2.        There is a thread concerning of a figure, or an event. You can always think about it by the help of Holy Spirit. Ex. One can see that Esaul’s life has to do with red color. He got red body, red things and red eyes. You can see that red is a color of attraction and it is a color of forbidden. It really make sense to think of bible from that angles.

3.        In your age, I really encourage you to study bible for a paragraph over and over again. You can see that the Lord will give you new understanding every time you read. You will find that something is hidden and got dig out. So Manna is a hidden food.

 a.      In Gen 22:5: Do you think Abraham will lie to his two young servants when he said that he and Isaac will be back? (There is only two possibilities. Either Abraham lied to them or Abraham had strong faith concerning burning his son to death.

 b.      In Gen, when reading the story of Jacob in the Abel Ford, I comes out with a topic: Limping under the raising sun. It gives a me a very good picture. A new man, limping man, coming out from the sun. A new name was given. A new attitude was found in Jacob. A new beginning of Jacob’s life. The shadow is at his back.

4.        When you read story slower, sometimes you are able to combine two stories together and it makes a lot of sense.

 a.      A minister combine that story of the heavenly ladder and the words of Jesus: you will see angels descending and ascending on the son of man. There are many similarities to those words. (Jn 1:51vs Ge28:12)

(a)     In Jacob’s dream: The ladder is from heaven to earth. So it is heavenly ladder. In Jesus words: He was the ladder. Jesus was from heaven to earth.

(b)     In Jacob’s dream: the ladder has angles ascending and descending on it. In Jesus words: Jesus’ life, we can see angels work on Jesus’ life.

(c)     Ladder is the way. Jesus is the way and the only way to heavenly father.

(d)     The ladder is setup on earth. Jesus was setup on earth. On the top of the ladder reached to heaven. In Jesus, we can see the father.

(e)     The Lord stood above the ladder. The Lord stood above Jesus Christ.

 b.      A minister combines the story of the river of life in the bible. (Home work.)

(a)     Both of the rivers are from the throne of the lamb.

(b)     Both of the rivers have trees that bear new fruits.

(c)     Both of the leaves can heal.

(d)     Both of the rivers flow in city of Jerusalem.

(e)     Both of the rivers give new life.

(f)      I assume that these two rivers are the same river. It has the same source of flowing, the same functions of healing, and the same location of the city.

D.     You can use tools to read bible.

1.        Many bible software packages give you 8 versions of a verse, give you the original meaning. By reading the different version, you give you new insight concerning a verse.

 a.      Ge25:30 has the following translation.

(a)     And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red [pottage]; for I [am] faint: therefore was his name called Edom.

(b)     And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with the red -- the red thing there, for I am faint. Therefore was his name called Edom.

(c)     and Esau saith unto Jacob, `Let me eat, I pray thee, some of this red red thing, for I [am] weary;' therefore hath [one] called his name Edom [Red];

(d)     Just by looking the different translation, we see very interesting situation of Esau.

2.        Many words of the bible you can look into the original text. It gives us a lot of insight.

 a.      In Jn 2:15: Jesus made scourge to drive out sheep and oxen. In Jn19:1 Pilate took Jesus and scourged him. The two words are different words in the original text, even though the words is the same in English and in Chinese. But as you can see that it is different word in original text.

 b.      The words garments in the Chinese Bible has 4 different words in the book of revelation:

(a)     White clothing.(3022 2400): This is the clothing that is given to those who overcome. (Rev 3:5) When one wear this clothing, his name will not be erased from the book of life. (Rev 3:5) . God asked the believers in the church of Lodishia to buy this kind of clothing from him. God means that they shall be overcoming their shameful nature. (ref Rev 3:21). This white clothing was find on the 24 elders. (Rev 4:4) Those 24 elders must have lived a victorious life.

(b)     White rope. (3022 4749): The rope is long clothing. This rope is given after people’s sin was washed away by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Rev 7:13, 14) Those people that come from all nations, all kindred, all people, all tongues wearing white rope. (referring that they are washed by the blood of Jesus Christ. While white clothing (3020 2400) were to given to the overcome. The whilte rope (3020 4749) has to do the rope when one obtained the salvation. This white rope was given to the people. (Rev 6:11). This white rope need to be washed all the time by the believers. (Rev 22:14)

(c)     White linen : (1039) It is refers to the righteous of the saints. (Rev19:8) It is a clothing given at the wedding time of the wedding of the lamb. When we are ready to see Jesus, we are given this to wear. (Rev 18:7) The armies in heaven, I guess it is the angels, also wear white linen to ride on the white horses to follow Jesus. (Rev 19:14) Those armies in have has righteous deeds.

(d)     White linen: (3043) This clothing can only find in the 7 angels who have the seven plagues.

(e)     With this tool we can get a better picture when reading the book of rev.

E.     We shall learn to copy the bible into a structure.

1.        Pr. Yang copies song of songs for many times prior to his teaching. When I was a kid, my teacher teach me several tricks concerning studying. 1. mouth 2. heart 3. hands. Now a day, expert told us that some people can learn better by vision. Some can learn better by hearing. Other can learn better by writing.

2.        Pr. Ko taught us that we shall copied the book into structure. It is amazing that we can understand the test much better if we do have confusion of a verse. By copying the verses into structure, it is very easy to get the meaning of immediate contest. Then it is easier for us to check into the major points of the passage. Of course, this is helpful for advanced study.