In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:1
Many who come to faith find themselves holding a Bible and not quite knowing where to begin — or why. The Bible can feel like a deep and alien book at first. Starting at Genesis, stumbling somewhere around Numbers, being told to try the Gospels instead.
You may read John 1:1 and it makes no sense until someone says: replace “Word” with “Jesus” and suddenly it begins to make sense. Jesus is the Word of God.
God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,
whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds; who being the
brightness of His glory and the express image of His person,
and upholding all things by the word of His power, when He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high
Hebrews 1:1-3
Why Study the Word?
Jesus Christ is the revelation of God and Jesus is the Word.
And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. – John 17:3
To have relationship with God, we need to know Him. Not just know about Him, but to really know Him in a personal way. Know His love for us, know His character, know His promises, know our authority in Christ, and so much more because whom we know, we can trust. Jesus is the express image of God, and knowing Jesus is knowing God. The most important thing in our life and the greatest need in our life is knowing God through His Word.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. – Hosea 4:6a
Many believers find themselves saved, but stuck. There is so much to discover about Jesus, yet the crux is less of knowing about Him but knowing Him. Discovering your identity in Christ can be akin to flipping a switch in you, that will allow light to stream into your life.
How to go about studying the Word?
First, we make time to study God’s Word. Every Netflix movie, Korean drama, YouTube shorts, Facebook post or tik tok video foregone is one more hour, one more minute and one more second available to study God’s word. Without making time for God, there is only so much we can know Him. “Everything in moderation, except God’s Word!” Consider the time you fell in love and started dating. Did you wish to spend time with that person and did you get to know him/her better after spending (prolonged) periods of time with him/her? So it is with knowing God. God is a gentleman. He is not going to force us to know Him but He promises that if we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him (Jeremiah 29:12). God is a loving Father. He is like the father in the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), who waits and pines for us and sees us when we are still a great way off and runs towards us.
How sweet are Your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! – Psalms 119:103
Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good; Blessed is the man who trusts in Him! – Psalms 34:8
Do you feel that sense of emptiness at the end of a long running drama series and the urge to chase after another post, another scroll or serial hoping to find some sense of fulfilment, yet finding none? There is nothing that satisfies like God’s word. There is no one who satisfies that God-shaped vacuum in our hearts like Jesus.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. – Matthew 5:6
There are four principles we need to maintain:
smith wigglesworth
First, read the Word of God.
Second, consume the Word of God until it consumes you.
Third, believe the word of God.
Fourth, act on the Word.
Knowing God through His Word is not about information, but revelation. We can read the Bible like any other novel and it will not profit us. That is why the baptism of the Holy Spirit is so important. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will teach us all things (John 14:26). Paul exhorts that the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us (2 Corinthians 13:15). God promises that as His children, we are led by the Spirit (Romans 8:14). After receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, something in you will shift. Reading the Bible moves from duty to desire. Hearing God becomes a reality when we allow the Holy Spirit to speak through the word. The Holy Spirit bears witness and you can experience the tangible love of God through meditating on His Word. Words in the Bible become quickened in our spirit and those are such priceless, precious encounter with the living Word.
Ultimately everything points back to relationship with God. While knowledge of the Word is great, we need to realise that we need not try to figure out how to understand everything but to come to a place in our heart that we would believe everything and then act on the Word. When you drive your car, you do not need to understand all the mechanics that power the car and make it run. You simply press a button or turn the key to start the car. If it breaks down, you send it back to the manufacturer to fix it. We should be hearer and doer of the Word. We should not just try to learn what the Word says but believe it and also practise and act out the Word. So when we read in Mark 16:18 that “they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover”, we will hear it, believe it and act it out. If anything does not align with what the Word says, one goes back to God and ask where we are missing God on this matter? God is good and He is Love and loves us and Love never fails. Any failure in life in this fallen world, is not because of God, but because of our inability to believe the Word. God will show us through His Word what we need, to be aligned with His Word if keep looking at Jesus.
More Out there
Resources that can be your God Positioning Steps (GPS) in your journey there
BlueLetterBible.org
A wonderful word study resource
Sometimes when you read the Bible, you may wonder what the word n the original language meant. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew and Aramaic and the New Testament in Greek. The blueletterbible.org desktop site (also can be viewed on mobile and tablet) is a wonderful resource to do word search. Below are some simple steps to access the basic resources. Feel free to explore the site for more!
2. Go to the search bar to type the verse number of the word you are thinking of. For eg. type in “Matthew 11:12”.
7. Shows the other verse in the Bible that this same word appears. In this case, this word only appears once in the Bible. If there are more than one verse, clicking on the verse highlighted will bring you to to direct explanation in Step 6.
8. Shows all the times and verses that this word appears in the Bible.
While access to the site is free, do support the ministry if you have been blessed so that it can continue to be free and available to bless others! #Stewardship
Number in Scripture by E.W. Bullinger
Book on the Supernatural Design and Spiritual Significance of Numbers
There is no insignificant detail in the Bible. When I first read this book, I was captivated by the presentation of the order in creation and the significance of numbers as they relate both to the works of God in the natural world around us and in the Bible.
This site has links to the explanation of each biblically mentioned number from one to six hundred and sixty-six.
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth.”
– 2 Timothy 2:15
“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God;
because many false prophets have gone out into the world.”
– I John 4:1