Our attitude when reading the Bible should be similar to the attitude one has when eating breakfast. When we eat breakfast, we do not first analyze which food contains a lot of vitamin A, which food has much vitamin B, how many carbohydrates are in the rice and in the buns, and then determine what to eat first and what to eat next. We do not do this. We have an empty stomach, so we just eat, not paying attention to what contains vitamins or carbohydrates. We simply eat. We do not use our mind; rather, we use our mouth and stomach. Since we know that the Bible is the word of God, the expression of God Himself, and our spiritual food, what should our attitude be when we come to the Bible? Jeremiah 15:16 says, “Your words were found and I ate them.” Hence, our attitude toward coming to the Bible should be that we are eating.
Since we should have the attitude that we are eating when we read the Bible, one might ask, “How can we ‘eat’ the Bible?” Many people have this question. We have to see that the word of God is God Himself and that when God’s words come forth, they are spirit and life. Hence, in order to deal with God’s word in a proper way and to eat God’s word, we must exercise our spirit. We must deal with the word of God by our spirit, not by our mind. We have to read the Bible, contact the word of God, and eat the word of God with our spirit, not merely with our mind. However, what does it mean to read the Bible with our spirit? This is not easy to comprehend. Some people say that to read with our spirit is to read with our inner man, but what does it mean to read with our inner man? Some people may say that this means not to analyze with our mind. We have to spend some time to look into this matter.
When I was young, I studied in a Christian school that promoted the practice of memorizing the Scriptures. At that time I did not know anything except to memorize. This is to read the Bible with the mind. Later when I was around twenty years old, I opened Matthew chapter one and read it again. When I came to Abraham, I studied to find out who Abraham was. Whereas formerly I had used my mind to memorize when reading the Bible, now I used my mind to reason when reading it. However, what does it really mean to read the Bible with our spirit? We all know that the Bible is the word of God and that the word of God represents God Himself. Every time we come to the word of God, we should sense that we are touching God. Since we know that God is Spirit (John 4:24) and that we cannot contact Him with our mind, when we come to God, we should say, “O God, I love You. I come to read the Bible; I come to read Your word.” Then perhaps when we open the Gospel of Matthew and come to Abraham, we may ask the Lord, “Who is Abraham?” We may come across many things that we do not understand, but it does not matter if our mind does not understand. Inwardly we will still have the feeling that we have taken a sun bath or that we have been washed with water. Our entire inner being will be refreshed and soothed.
Perhaps some people have had this kind of experience while others have not. As for myself, I have had many experiences like this. In the past when I read the Old Testament, in my mind I often could not understand, but the feeling in my spirit was that I had been washed in the word of God. These experiences were very fresh and soothing. Although I may not have understood the word, still after I read it, my inner being was refreshed. For example, one time I read Daniel 11 and was puzzled concerning the king of the south and the king of the north. Nevertheless, since I had the right attitude-that the word I was reading was the speaking of my beloved Lord-my whole being was brought into the shining of His face, and I felt washed once again. Such a feeling was very fresh, very soothing, and very much a result of fellowship with the Lord. I did not know anything about the king of the south or the king of the north, but deep within my being I felt like I was bathing in God Himself. If we read the Bible in this way, we will sense God’s “flavor.”
Normally, every saved one should have this kind of experience. Reading the Bible in this way does not mean that we will not retain anything in our memory. For example, when we read Matthew 1, although we may not understand verses 1 through 17, later when we read verse 21, “And you shall call His name Jesus, for it is He who will save His people from their sins,” we will understand. We do not read merely with our spirit, but we read with our entire being. We also pray and meditate. After we read the Bible, we will be very much strengthened and refreshed. This may be likened to washing our face with water every morning. When we Christians rise up early in the morning, we should “wash our face” once again in the spirit. With what do we wash our face? We wash our face with the word. The word is the “water,” and prayer is the “wash cloth.” Normally we wash our face every morning; it would be hard to do this without soap or a wash cloth, but it would be even more difficult to do it without any water.
Many times when a person reads the Word, he may not remember very much, but his spirit is still refreshed by the washing of the Word. Some people say with regret, “After reading the Bible, I forget what I read. What shall I do?” Actually, this is not a problem. Every morning we wash our face, but who can remember the water that we washed our face with? We definitely cannot remember. But it does not matter. Although we may forget the water that we washed our face with, our face was nevertheless washed. Moreover, we do not necessarily forget everything we read. There are two kinds of forgetting. In one kind of forgetting you read the Bible without exercising your spirit, and afterward you forget what you read. This is very poor. Another kind of forgetting is that you read it with your spirit, and afterward you forget. This is not a problem. Every day we should simply exercise our spirit to read the Bible before God and bathe in the shining of His face.
Regrettably, among God’s children it is rare to find one out of ten who reads the Bible in such a way. This kind of reading is the wise way. Regardless of how much you understand or comprehend, the most important thing is that you touch God in His word. Although we do not know how to describe what has happened, our spirit truly touches God and the Spirit of God. This is the meaning of taking the word of God as food. It does not matter if we forget what we read. Of course, the things that we learned in our youth are not easy to forget, but when we grow older, we become more forgetful. Twenty years ago when I first began to serve the Lord, two weeks after I released a message, I was still able to recite the entire message to people. But now I cannot even remember the title of the message that I shared on the last Lord’s Day. Therefore, we have to study the Bible while we are young.
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