How To Enjoy The Bible:

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Think this will help a lot of people

How to Enjoy the Bible
E. W. Bullinger
1916
Part I
I. The One Great Object of the Word

The first great and essential principle which must be ever present with us, when we study the Word of God, as a whole, is not to treat it as something which we have to interpret, but as being that which God has given in order to interpret Himself and His will to us.

i. This applies to Christ; as the Living Word.
When we speak of the “Word” we can never separate the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; and the written word, the Scriptures of Truth.

Each of these is called the “Word,” because the Greek word Logos is used of both.

Logos means the spoken or written word, because it makes manifest, and reveals to us the invisible thoughts.

It is used of Christ, the Living Word, because He reveals the invisible God. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, He being in the bosom of the Father, This one [hath] declared [Him]” (John 1:18).

(Edited)

This entire study can be read here

philologos.org/__eb-htetb/
 
Of course we can separate the living Word and the written word - it’s not like it’s the Bible that was with God and was God and through which everything was created after all.

If you believe that they’re inseparable then you’re guilty of making an idol out of a book. The greatest book in human history, God-breathed (but not actually God), but nonetheless a book.

And the Bible ITSELF warns against self-interpretation (and every reading is an interpretation, it’s impossible to do otherwise than interpret the written word, and if you think otherwise you’re deluded).
 
i have a difficulty understand all this and dissagre with some but then im not a pastor. first thing first where in scripture does it mention self interpretation. never seen it yet. i do no this history started off that way with the bible by only alowing pastors to have the bible. that has to be agreed its part of unanswered history. however church allows me a bible. jesus regularily spoke in parables which means to me hidden meaning. you could and some have written whole books on individual parables by jesus ect… i also disagree because nothing is written in stone after moses destroyed the ten commandments. about it being spiritual i believe its parables built on prayer and prayer as i understand it is the HOLY SPIRIT which some call the trinity. in the begininging was the word not words and that word was god plain and simple one word could be living word or spiritual in my eyes
 
The whole aproach of the writer is typically Protestant. Basically it boils down to:

**Scripture interprets Scripture through the Holy Spirit.

All true Christians have the Holy Spirit, so they should all be able the interpret the Scriptures. I am satisfied in my own estimation that I am a true Christian and that I posess the Holy Spirit, thus I am qualified, under this assured guidance of the Holy Spirit, to be an infallible interpreter of Scripture. You-- I’m not sure about, I’ll be the judge of that, based on whether you agree with my interpretations or not.

If my interpretation disagrees wih yours (or the Church’s), the default position is that I am right, and you (or the Church) are wrong. If you don’t like it, you can go to another church, or found your own. Better yet, I will start one myself where everyone agrees with me.**

33,000 protestant denominations later…:rolleyes:
 
I think the following excerpt from Pope Benedict’s 6/4/08 General Audience talk on Gregory the Great makes some very important points on how to read the Bible (bolding is mine) :

*He (Gregory the Great) was a passionate reader of the Bible, which he approached not simply with a speculative purpose: from Sacred Scripture, he thought, the Christian must draw not theoretical understanding so much as the daily nourishment for his soul, for his life as man in this world.

For example, in the Homilies on Ezekiel, he emphasized this function of the sacred text: **to approach the Scripture simply to satisfy one’s own desire for knowledge means to succumb to the temptation of pride **and thus to expose oneself to the risk of sliding into heresy. **Intellectual humility is the primary rule **for one who searches to penetrate the supernatural realities beginning from the sacred Book.

Obviously, humility dues not exclude serious study; but to ensure that the results are spiritually beneficial, facilitating true entry into the depth of the text, humility remains indispensable*.
 
n2thelight said:
Think this will help a lot of people

How to Enjoy the Bible …
Click to expand...
“Enjoy?” I don’t read the Bible for “enjoyment.” I read the Bible to strengthen my daily walk with Jesus Christ.

Perhaps a person might “enjoy” the Bible more if he got to personally decide what each verse meant. But if a person seeks to strengthen his relationship with Jesus, the best way to read the Bible is in the light of the teaching of Christ’s body, which subsists in the Catholic Church, and thereby see what Jesus meant.
 
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