Day: March 13, 2022

NEEDING TO GIVE UP OUR CONCEPTS 
WHEN WE READ THE WORD

When I come to the Bible, I have learned to ask myself whether I am coming with my concepts or whether I am setting them aside. This is a very severe question. I pray, “Lord, I want to read Your Word in an uncluttered way and receive the true meaning in Your Word. I want to receive the unadulterated Word without my concepts as a veil and a covering. I do not want to subject Your Word to my views or my concepts. I want to place myself under Your Word and set aside my concepts and views.”

Brothers and sisters, this is a difficult lesson to learn. It is easy to read the Word, but it is difficult to drop our concepts. Let me repeat: it is difficult to find a child of God who receives the Bible as the pure, unadulterated Word of God. Every child of God has a Bible that is somewhat altered by his concepts and views. Hence, when he comes to the Word, he is covering and limiting the Bible. He brings his feelings, concepts, opinions, and views into his reading. As a result, the Bible is changed, and its true meaning is missed. Even though he can still find superficial things, he has no way to find the basic and central items of the Bible.

THE CENTER OF THE BIBLE 
BEING GOD BECOMING MAN’S LIFE IN THE SON

What is the basic and central thought in the Bible? The basic and central thought in the Bible is God becoming life to man in the Son. This means that God has come to us as our food. God becomes life to us in the form of food. The entire Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, has only one center. There may be many other items in the Bible, but the basic, foundational, and central thought is that God desires to be life to man. God becomes life to man in the person of the Son through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He enters into man and is received by man through eating. In this way He is digested by man and fully mingled with man. This is the very center of the entire Bible.

Whenever we come to the Word, we must lay hold of this principle. We come to the Bible because God wants to be life to us in His Son. He wants to become our food in the Son and feed us until we are full. God wants us to receive Him through the Bible and digest Him. Therefore, whenever we read the Word, we must drop all our concepts and grasp this one unique concept, asking the Lord to control our entire being with this unique concept. If we come to the Word for any other reason, our attitude is incorrect. We should have only one consideration: we come to the Word because God is food to us through the Bible. God is life to us in His Son, and He is received and eaten by us through the words of the Bible. If we read the Bible with this unique concept, we will have the proper concept, and we will find the crucial items in the Bible.

EXAMPLES OF MAN’S CONCEPTS VEILING GOD’S WORD

A brother may be touched by Psalm 51:4: “Against You and You alone have I sinned.” He may realize that sin is not only before men but also before God; his sins offend men and God. Although we cannot deny that the Holy Spirit is speaking to him through that verse, he has only touched something on the surface; he has not touched a central item. We can say that he has tasted the feathers or the skin of a chicken. He has not tasted the meat. He has tasted something, but he is not satisfied. He has merely touched the skin of Psalm 51. He has not touched the spirit of the psalm, because he has not dropped his concepts. Before reading Psalm 51, he may have had a concept about living before God rather than before men and about being spiritual before God rather than before men. Since he had this preconceived concept, he was not impressed with the first three verses. Instead, he responded only to verse 4. Thinking that this word has touched and inspired him, he prays, “Yes, Lord, I have been living before men for too long. I am concerned only about others’ knowing of my sins. If others do not know, I am satisfied.” This response is produced in him because he has read only the words that match his concept. The crucial words in Psalm 51, however, do not affect him; he feels no response toward those words, thinking that they lack the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Dear brothers and sisters, although reading the Word is a simple matter, our person poses a real challenge.

Another brother may read Psalm 57 and be touched by the first verse: “Be gracious to me, O God, be gracious to me; / For my soul takes refuge in You; / Indeed in the shadow of Your wings I will take refuge.” Although these words are in the Bible, trusting God, taking refuge in Him, and trusting in His Word are common expressions among Christians. Every Christian uses these expressions. Even before a person becomes a Christian, he can use these expressions. These are natural concepts, and they are not part of the central and crucial things in the Bible.

According to the same principle, it is easy to pick up matters such as loving one another in the Gospel of John, because this thought is in us even before we come to the Word. Hence, when we read such passages, there is an echo and a response within us. However, we miss the other precious words in the Gospel of John, such as, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (1:4); “I am the light of the world; he who follows Me shall by no means walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life” (8:12); and “in that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you” (14:20). It is difficult to find one Christian who responds to these words, but we are easily touched by the portion concerning the Lord’s new commandment to love one another even as He loved us. Immediately, there is an echo within us because this concept is already within us.

I hope this word will render some help. We must not only read the Word with our spirit in a calm way, but we must also learn to set our concepts aside. We must place ourselves before the Lord like a piece of blank paper and pray: “Lord, speak to me and write on me through the words of the Scriptures. I do not want to have any concepts of my own. I do not want to have any views of my own.”

Preconceived concepts within man are a strong veil, preventing him from seeing the true meaning and color of the Bible. About fifteen years ago a very intelligent sister spoke with me about head covering. To her understanding head covering was an ancient custom from the Mediterranean area; hence, the apostle wrote the passage in 1 Corinthians to tell the believers not to go against the local customs. I opened the Bible to 1 Corinthians 11:3-6 and began to read to her: “I want you to know that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of the woman, and God is the head of Christ. Every man praying or prophesying with his head covered disgraces his head. But every woman praying or prophesying with her head uncovered disgraces her head…For if a woman is not covered, let her hair also be cut off.” After reading, I asked her how she could think that head covering pertained to customs since the passage begins with great things like Christ being the head of every man and God being the head of Christ. She responded that even though the passage speaks of Christ being the head and God being the head, to her observation head covering was still a matter of custom. When I heard this, I closed my Bible and said to her, “You have continually used the words to my observation. If you continue in this way, there is no need to go to the Bible. You should wait until you finish your observations before reading the Bible.” She did not understand what I meant, so she asked how long she should wait. I answered, “Perhaps fifty years. But I am afraid that you will not finish your observations before you die. Perhaps you will understand this passage only when you enter into glory. At any rate, by that time you will no longer be saying, ‘To my observation,’ but you will not find the true meaning of the Bible until then.”

This story shows that it is difficult to find a child of God who comes to the Bible without relying on his personal observation. It is difficult to find a child of God who is free from his personal views. For this reason it is difficult to discover the great things spoken of in the Bible. About twenty years ago, as I read 1 Corinthians 11, I noted the repeated references to the word head. Christ is the head of every man, God is the head of Christ, and man is the head of the woman. This is the reason there is head covering. Immediately, I knelt down and worshipped God, saying, “You are the Head in this universe. Besides You, Your Son is the Head. I thank and praise You because You have also ordained man to represent You as the head. I want to cover my head before You as the Head.” From that day on, I knew authority, and I began to understand submission to authority.

ASKING GOD FOR NEW THINGS

If we drop our concepts and come to the Bible for its original meaning and color, we will see the central and crucial things. But if we come full of our concepts, we will only find what is already in our concept. The Bible may be full of weighty words, but they will not touch us, because there will not be an echo or a response within us.

For this reason we must learn not to quickly accept our feelings when we come to the Word. We must test whether these feelings were already within us or whether they are revelation from the Bible. Is it something from us or something given to us by God? If it is something that is already within us, we will lose nothing by rejecting this so-called inspiration. There is no need to even pray about it. We can simply let it go and continue with our reading. If we do this, God will give us something new, deep, weighty, and great. He will give us something that belongs to the trunk, the center. These will be the eternal, precious things that are according to God’s view. Only these things can feed us and fill us. May we learn the lesson of dropping what we already have when we come to the Word and ask Him for new things.