When you come to the Scriptures, you are not approaching a book of mere facts, nor are you seeking ammunition for your own arguments. You are coming to the living Word, the very Person of Christ, who alone can nourish and renew your inner man. If you treat the Bible as a fact-book or an intellectual puzzle, you will walk away dry and unchanged. But if you come hungry, open, and willing to set aside your own concepts, you will encounter the life of God Himself.
Getting Into the Thought of God
The greatest barrier to receiving life from the Word is your own mind—your concepts, your biases, your theological baggage. Most people, whether they realize it or not, come to the Word looking for confirmation of what they already think, or searching for solutions to their own problems. In doing so, they never actually encounter God’s thought; they only reinforce their own suspicions and fears. This is not a minor issue. If you persist in reading Scripture through the lens of your own understanding, you will miss the very Christ who is its substance.
This is why I urge you: before you take notes, before you analyze, before you try to “figure it out,” read an epistle all the way through—three times, if possible. Let the text speak for itself. Don’t get bogged down in isolated verses. Ask instead: What is the flow of thought in this chapter? What is the argument of this book? What is God actually saying here, apart from what I want to see? If you do this, you will begin to transcend your own concepts and encounter the mind of God in Scripture. This is not an academic exercise; it is the difference between contacting yourself and contacting the Lord.
Building a Reservoir of Recognition
You do not need to be a scholar to receive from the Word. What you need is hunger and a willingness to let the Word shape you. As you immerse yourself in the context and flow of Scripture, you begin to build what I call a “reservoir of recognition.” This is not about rote memorization or collecting proof texts. It is about broad familiarity—a storehouse that the Holy Spirit can draw from.
Why is this essential? Because the Spirit’s ministry is to bring to your remembrance all that Christ has spoken. If you have never seen a passage before, how can He remind you of it? When you are familiar with the context of Scripture, the Spirit will bring related passages to mind, confirming truth and exposing error. When someone tries to twist a verse out of context, your reservoir will alert you: “That doesn’t fit with the flow of the chapter, or the argument of the book.” This discernment is not optional. Without it, you are at the mercy of every wind of doctrine and every manipulator of the text.
Receiving the Word as Life
But even this is not the goal. The Word is not given merely for your information or even for your discernment. It is given as food for your inner man. Peter commands us to desire the sincere milk of the Word as newborn babes, that we may grow thereby. This is not a stage to outgrow; it is a posture to maintain. Every day, you must come to the Word as one who knows nothing, who brings nothing, who is hungry for Christ Himself.
If you approach the Bible with a full, “rich” mind—armed with your own facts and opinions—you will leave empty. But if you come poor and hungry, God will fill you with good things. This is a spiritual law. The Word becomes Spirit and life only to those who receive it as such. If you handle only the letter, you will remain dry and untouched. But if you seek the living Christ in the Word, praying for the Spirit’s illumination, you will be nourished, renewed, and transformed.
This requires more than reading; it requires meditation. The clean beasts in the Old Testament “chewed the cud”—they digested and redigested their food. So also, you must slow down, pray the Word, and let it sink deep. Speak the truth of Christ’s finished work to your own soul: “He has delivered me from the authority of darkness. He has transferred me into the kingdom of the Son of His love.” Let these words become spirit and life to you. If the Word tastes no different to you than a newspaper or a novel, something is deeply wrong. The Word should produce awe, comfort, peace, and a living encounter with Christ.
What Is Lost If You Miss This
If you persist in an intellectual or superficial approach to Scripture, you lose far more than spiritual vitality. You lose the very ministry of the Spirit, the reality of fellowship, and the nourishment that produces true growth. Worse, you become susceptible to error, unable to discern when the text is being twisted—because you have no context, no reservoir, and no living encounter with Christ. This is not a secondary issue. To handle only the letter is to remain outside the life of the covenant, to miss the inheritance, and to forfeit the assurance and sonship that Christ has secured. The difference is not merely academic; it is salvific.
Pressing Into the Life of the Word
There is no shortcut, no formula. You must come to the Word hungry, open, and poor in spirit. Pray the Word. Slow down. Ask the Lord to take you beyond the letter into the Spirit. Refuse to settle for dryness or mere intellectualism. Seek Christ Himself, and do not rest until you have tasted the life that only He can give. This is the ministry that produces true fellowship and genuine ministry to others. Anything less is counterfeit.
Let the Word become your food, your joy, your life. Let the Spirit illuminate Christ to you in every page. This is what it means to approach the Word as life—and nothing less will do.
