Your Question: Why do I still need to read the Bible if I am already a Christian? Cant the Holy Spirit teach me all things? The Bible and the Holy Spirit are on the same team – working together to help us to know and love God and our neighbour more and more. Our example is Jesus. He was a man totally full of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 3:16) but he felt it was very important to know Scripture to understand the things of God and discern the best way to live (Matthew 4:1-11). The first thing to remember is that the Holy Spirit and the Bible are not to be separated. This is because the Holy Spirit is the author of the Bible (1 Peter 1:10-12) and the illuminator of God’s Word in our hearts. Secondly, we must remember that God’s Word will last forever (Isaiah 40:8) and points us to Jesus (Luke 24:27). We also read that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” (2 Timothy 3:16). In other words, the Bible is an amazing, authoritative, God-given resource which is useful and necessary after we become Christians and not just before. When we accept Christ we receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit conforms us to Jesus, assures us of salvation and equips us for work in the church. However, this does not mean we can become “solo” Christians and just 100% rely on what we believe the Spirit tells us in our thoughts. The Bible never recommends this. The Bible teaches us that our sinful hearts mean we continue to think and behave in ways that displease God. Until heaven, we are still sinful in our hearts even though we are forgiven in Jesus’ name. We have to carefully discern the conflicting spirits in us and test our views by what the Bible says about Jesus (1 John 1:1-4). The first disciples and apostles were aware that they were inspired to write Scripture (2 Peter 3:16). For us, we learn together in community (not just individually) under their authoritative teaching but the Bible never says that it is our job today to write new information about God. However, it is true that the Holy Spirit can speak directly to people with words from God – for example, through dreams or visions. This is wonderful when it happens but this is generally not the experience of all Christians all the time. The goal of these revelations is love which builds up the church (1 Corinthians 13). In any case, if we ignore the Bible and think we have new and better ideas about who God is, the history of the church shows us that people’s sinful thoughts take us away from what the Holy Spirit has already said in the Bible. The Holy Spirit and the Bible both work together in the hearts of believers to point us to Jesus.
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 06:30:00 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015