Why Read the Bible? (Part 1)

Bibles for America Podcast

This is the first podcast in a special series on reading the Bible. These podcasts include helpful excerpts from books by Watchman Nee and Witness Lee that provide insight about reading the Bible.

The Bible is the foundation of Western civilization—morally, politically, literarily. Even the secular world recognizes the Bible as the most influential book in the world. It is the highest in its record of the origin of mankind, human history, and prophecies and in its wisdom, profoundness, ethics, and morality.

While these qualities are compelling enough reasons to read the Bible, they cannot compare with the amazing fact that God Himself is embodied and expressed in His Word. But God does not want His words to remain confined in a book, and He tells us so in the Word:

John 15:7 says, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you.”

And Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.”

God’s destination is our inward being, and He gets there through His Word. By reading the Bible with our spirit, we can touch God and allow Him to enter into us.

Hebrews 4:12 tells us that “the word of God is living and operative” within us. When we read the Bible in a consistent and prayerful way, the Bible becomes a subjective and practical part of our daily living. It reveals God’s person and fills us with life, truth, and light. Our spiritual life depends on the nourishment we receive from the supply of life in the Word. By contacting the Lord through our reading of the Bible, we are washed, filled in spirit, and infused with faith. Furthermore, as we receive more of the Word, the Lord Himself increases within us, and we mature to become full-grown, fully-equipped men of God.

Now we’ll take a look at what the Bible is.

First, the Word is God.

John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

This verse indicates that God and the Word are not separate, but one. Christ is the living Word of God, as indicated by John 1:14, and the Bible is the written Word of God. Although Christ is not physically with us, He is the Spirit, embodied and expressed in the written Word of God.

In his book The Full Knowledge of the Word of God, Witness Lee says, “Ultimately the word in the Bible is God Himself. It is the embodiment of God Himself. This does not mean that we consider the words in black and white as the living God. What we mean is that the words in black and white contain God Himself.”

In a series of messages titled The Conclusion of the New Testament, he adds: “God is mysterious. He needs the Word to express Him. Christ, as the Word, defines, explains, and expresses Him. Therefore, Christ as the Word, is the definition, explanation, and expression of God. This Word is actually God Himself, not God hidden, concealed, and mysterious, but God defined, explained, and expressed.”

Second, as 2 Timothy 3:16 tells us, the Scripture is God-breathed.

God’s Word, the Scripture, is the breathing out of God. When we touch the breath of God in the Bible, we touch the very essence and substance of the Bible, which is nothing less than the Spirit. In John 6:63 the Lord Jesus said that “it is the Spirit who gives life” and that the words He has spoken are “spirit and are life.” The Word of God is spirit, or breath. When we receive His Word with our spirit, we get God into us.

In another passage in The Full Knowledge of the Word of God, Witness Lee says, “God’s Word is God’s breathing out (2 Tim. 3:16). The Bible is God’s breathing out; that is, it is the breath breathed out by God. The Bible is God’s breathing. To God it is a matter of breathing out; to us it is a matter of breathing in. Through God’s breathing out and our breathing in, God’s word enters into us and becomes our life and life supply. Therefore, when we read the Bible, we must understand that the Bible is not merely black and white words on paper, but it is the breathing out of God. It is full of spiritual breath.”

In the series Truth Lessons he adds, “As Christians, our greatest joy, or shall we say, our greatest blessing, is to be able to contact God and taste Him daily through the word of His breath.”

Third, the Bible is the complete revelation of God to man.

We must read the Bible to know God’s revelation to man. In addition to revealing God’s Person to us, the Bible also reveals God’s plan to accomplish His heart’s desire. God’s heart’s desire can be seen in His economy, which is His plan to dispense Himself as life into us so that we can become His expression. The center of this plan is Christ, and the goal of this plan is the church. The Old Testament contains types, shadows, and figures that show us God’s economy. All these types, shadows, and figures are fulfilled and realized in the New Testament.

When we read the Bible, more of God’s economy is revealed to us, and this revelation becomes a controlling vision that guides our entire Christian life. Reading the Bible brings us into God’s economy.

Note 1 on Genesis 1:1 in the Holy Bible Recovery Version says, “The Bible, composed of two testaments, the Old Testament and the New Testament, is the complete written divine revelation of God to man. The major revelation in the entire Bible is the unique divine economy of the unique Triune God (Eph. 1:10; 3:9; 1 Tim. 1:4b). The centrality and universality of this divine economy is the all-inclusive and unsearchably rich Christ as the embodiment and expression of the Triune God (Col. 2:9; 1:15-19; John 1:18). The goal of the divine economy is the church as the Body, the fullness, the expression, of Christ (Eph. 1:22b-23; 3:8-11), which will consummate in the New Jerusalem as the union, mingling, and incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God and His redeemed, regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite people. The accomplishing of the divine economy is revealed in the Bible progressively in many steps, beginning with God’s creation in Gen. 1—2 and consummating with the new Jerusalem in Rev. 21—22.”

The fourth item of what the Bible is concerns its content; the content of the Bible is truth and life. John 17:17 says, “Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.”

By reading the Bible, we come to know the truth. The Lord Jesus said that God’s word is truth. Truth brings us the knowledge of all the realities in the universe, particularly the reality of Christ and the church, and reveals God in His Person and economy. This is God’s desire for us.

In 1 Timothy 2:3-4 we read, “Our Savior God, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the full knowledge of the truth.” God desires for us to know the truth, but as the phrase “come to the full knowledge of the truth” implies, fully knowing the truth is a progressive matter. The Bible always has more to speak to us concerning the truth. Therefore, we must regularly read the Word so that we can be filled more and more with truth and revelation.

In his book Life Lessons, Witness Lee writes, “The content of the Bible is both extensive and inclusive; the two main aspects of this content are truth and life. Truth brings us revelation and knowledge of all the realities in the universe, such as the reality of God, the reality of man, the reality of the universe, the reality of the things of the present age, the coming age, and the eternal age, and in particular, the reality of the Christ appointed by God and the church chosen by Him.”

Fifth, the Word of God is life.

When we read the Word with our spirit, we get life. In John 6:63 Jesus said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Life is God Himself coming to be our life. As we read the Bible, which is the embodiment of God, He comes into us as life. The more this divine life grows within us, the more we become His expression. Hence, we need to read the Bible so that we may continually receive God as life into us that we may express Him to fulfill His heart’s desire.

In the Life-study of Matthew, Witness Lee says, “The Bible is a book of life. This life is nothing less than the living Person of Christ.”

In Life Lessons he writes, “Life is God coming to be our life that we may be regenerated, grow, be transformed, and be conformed into the image of Christ, who expresses God, that we may become the expression of God.”

Tune in to the next podcast in this special series on reading the Bible to hear about some of the functions of the Bible in our experience.