There are two Greek words in the New Testament that have to do with trying to figure things out. One of them leads to less knowledge, and one opens the way for greater learning. Not surprisingly, Jesus never used the first way, but He confronts people who try to.
The first Greek word is defined as learning through self-calculation. In other words, I try to get at the right answer by either teaching myself, or by talking with people who don’t know any more than I do. This way leaves me in the dark.
For example, notice the phrase “discussed among themselves” in Matthew 16:7 and Mark 11:31. These are people who wanted to try to get answers without going to someone who could teach them. So that leads to four terrible ways to study your Bible—
- Approach your Bible with a know-it-all attitude.
- Try to figure out what the Bible is saying all on your own.
- Try to be your own Bible teacher.
- Grade your own tests as to your answers being right or wrong.
These are not only terrible ways to learn, but they are the exact opposite of what God desires. God says things like, “Come, let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18), and “Call to Me and I will tell you things you do not know” (Jeremiah 33:3).
There is another Greek word which means to learn by having a conversation with someone more knowledgable than myself. So that means four great ways to study your Bible are—
- Ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate Scripture to you (John 16:13).
- Study the Bible in a daily systematic way (Acts 19:9).
- Don’t take anyone else’s word for what the Word says (Acts 17:11).
- If you’re confused, ask God to make it clear to you (Jeremiah 33:3).
Luke records an important story for us that took place on the day Jesus was raised from the dead. Two men were walking along “discussing these things with each other,” but not consulting the Scriptures. The result: they were sad and confused. Jesus join them on their journey (although they didn’t recognize Him at first), and took them to the Scriptures that showed them the answers for which they were yearning. They even said, “When He talked to us from the Scriptures, that’s when our hearts burned within us!” (see Luke 24:13-32).
You can try to figure life out on your own, and you will probably end up stymied like the religious leaders in Mark 11, or downcast like the disciples in Luke 24. Or you can ask the Holy Spirit to show you truths from the Scriptures, and have your eyes opened, like the two disciples after Jesus met with them. I think the choice is obvious!
Join me next week as we continue our series How To Study Your Bible.
![Light & Truth [Acts]](https://craigtowens.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/light-truth-acts.jpg)
Craig T. Owens 
8 Quotes From “Light & Truth—Acts and the Larger Epistles”
February 10, 2016 — Craig T. Owens“Our Bible is of God; yet it is also of man. It is both divine and human. It comes to us from God’s Spirit; it comes also from man’s spirit. It is written in the language of the earth, yet its words are the words of him ‘Who speaketh it from heaven.’ Natural, yet supernatural; simple, yet profound; undogmatical, yet authoritative; very like a common book, yet very unlike also; dealing often with seeming incredibilities and contradictions, yet never assuming any need for apology, or explanation, or retraction; a book for humanity at large, yet minutely special in its fitnesses for every case of every soul; throughout its pages, from first to last, one unchanging estimate of sin as an infinite evil, get always bringing out God’s gracious mind toward the sinner, even in his condemnation of the guilt; such is the great Book with which man has to do, which man has to study, out of which man has to gather wisdom for eternity.” [Acts 1:1]
“One of the great characteristics of the whole interval between Christ’s first and second coming is the world’s rage, secret and open, against the Father and the Son. … It is very useless anger. It accomplishes nothing. It is like an angry child striking a huge rock with its fist. It is the mere display of impotent hatred, or the temporary gratification of their dislike of God, and their rejection of His purpose regarding His Son. … It calls light darkness, and darkness light; good evil, and evil good; but the light and the darkness, the good and evil, still remain as they were. All the enlightenment of the age, all the appliances of modern progress, are impotent against God and His Christ, against His truth, and His church, and His Word.” [Acts 4:25]
“This is one of the many repetitions of the Pentecostal scene which occurred in early days. Most unscriptural is the statement of some that the giving of the Spirit at Pentecost was a thing done once for all, not to be repeated, and that we are not to pray for or expect such things again. The whole of the ‘Acts of the Apostles’ is a direct refutation of this piece of human fancy. Wherever the apostles went there was a repetition of Pentecost, whether at Jerusalem, or Samaria, or Antioch, or Corinth. Every conversion is the repetition of Pentecost; it is doing the same thing for an individual soul as was done for three thousand then, by a similar process, and by the same power—the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Ghost is the heritage of the church. The Old Testament saints possessed Him; and still more the New. This is our heritage, the heritage of every believing man.” [Acts 11:15]
“Beware of seeking anything less than the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Our whole life is to be a reception of the Spirit. He is to be continually coming down on us, and filling us. Let us open our mouth wide that He may fill it. Let us beware of anything that would present itself as a substitute for the living Spirit. Many such things may we expect in these last days from satan as an angel of light.” [Acts 11:15]
“We are tempted in our day to be ashamed of the gospel. It is thought to be bare, unintellectual, almost childish by many. Hence, they would overlay it with argument and eloquence, to make it more respectable and more attractive. Every such attempt to add to it is being ashamed of it.” [Romans 1:16]
“We must have a righteousness, else we cannot stand before God; we cannot have merely a religion.” [Romans 4:6-8]
“The prodigal did not work for the ‘best robe,’ but got it all ready-made from his father’s hands; Joseph did not work for his coat of many colors, but received it as the gift of his father’s love; Adam did not work for the skins with which the Lord God clothed him: so it is with the sinner in his approach to God, and in God’s approaches to him. ‘Righteousness without works’ is given him; nay, put upon him as a raiment, a divine raiment, to fit him for drawing near to God.” [Romans 4:6-8]
“When the night is darkest, and the stars are hidden, and the clouds are black, then we think most of the clear fair day, and long for its dawn. When the storm is roughest, with the waves and wind roaring around the laboring vessel, then we are troubled, and look eagerly out for the glad and sunny calm. When winter binds the earth in its chain of frost, and wraps it in snow and ice, then we begin to ask for spring, with its flowers, and songs, and verdure. So with the saint, as represented by the apostle here. This is night, and storm, and winter to him; he is ever thinking of the day, and the calm, and the spring.” [Romans 8:19-23]
More quotes are here.
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