I don’t want to get into a history lesson here but the
Reformation was a time when formerly Roman Catholic Europe saw men reject the
authority of their church hierarchy and the doctrines of their leadership. These
men magnified the words of God over the authority of the Pope in Rome and new
church organizations called Protestant were formed, many of them containing
similar errors to the church organization they rejected.
However, these men lived in a time when Catholic priests
often could not find the Ten Commandments or the letters of Paul in the Bible,
priests who knew nothing but the prepared sermons they were to give in their
assemblies. The words of God, the Bible, began to be uplifted. The true
Christians of the Vaudois, the valley men of the Alps, who had been evangelized
by missionaries from Antioch, Syria twelve hundred years before were able to
come out of the mountain strongholds, in some measure, although they were still
persecuted by not only the Roman Catholic Church but by Protestants like
Zwingli.
My point here is that while a rebirth of Christianity was
taking place where men would take a love for the words of God across every
ocean and into almost every land, that even though they may have had errors in
their hearts like the union of church and state, they more than overshadowed
those errors by their love of God’s words over all tradition and earthly
authority. After some extensive reading, and I want to particularly thank Gail
Riplinger for her marvelous works, I think this is a good start for us average
Christians to be able to use to understand the Bible better.
When William Tyndale was translating the Bible into English
from Greek in the early 1500’s the Roman Catholic Church was insisting that
unless you knew Hebrew and Greek you couldn’t understand the Bible and
therefore you shouldn’t have it in your own language just like Protestant
scholars are saying today. It doesn’t matter who says it, they’re just trying
to take away your Bible and make themselves your final authority. Only today,
they aren’t allowed yet to kill you for having one.
But a French Protestant reformer, Du Moulin, countered the
Catholic church of his day by saying, “Must one be skilled in Greek or Hebrew?
But the Popes themselves, who give these rules, are often unskillful! …Is not
Scripture rather to be read to get learning?”*
I can’t emphasize too much to you how important it is to
read your Bible daily if you want to have victory as a Christian. In fact,
here’s a statement by another figure of the Reformation, a Bishop Becke,
writing in the foreword of a 1551 reprint of the Matthews Bible;
“If people would spare an hour a day for reading it, they
would soon abandon blasphemy, swearing, carding, and dicing! They would put
away all pride, prodigality, riot, licentiousness, and dissolute living.” Prodigality is extravagant wastefulness.
Dean Burgon in a 19th century sermon on Biblical
inspiration says a half hour per day will do.
But, how do you understand it? The biggest killer of a
desire to read the Bible is that many people today say they just don’t
understand it, even when they read one of the modern versions. Well, to the
leaders of the Reformation there were seven keys to understanding the Bible
according to Dr. Riplinger;
Key 1. Fear God;
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” (Proverbs 1:7)
Thomas Cranmer said, “Flesh is a cloud before the soul’s
eye…” In a book about one of the early English versions of the Bible called The
Great Bible, about Cranmer’s forward it is written, “Therefore, says he, the
fear of God must be the first beginning and, as it were, an …introduction to
all them that shall enter to the very true and most faithful knowledge of the
scripture.” See Hebrews 12:28 for a Bible definition of the proper fear for
this context.
Key 2. Believe
the Bible is the very word of God; “Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I
might not sin against thee.” (Psalm 119:11) “For ever, O LORD, thy word is
settled in heaven.” (Psalm 119:89). Hold up your Bible. Do you believe you have the words of God in
your hand? Jesus said that every word was important for life in Luke 4:4 and
Matthew 4:4, quoting Deuteronomy 8:3. Do you believe that He
was telling you the truth? Translator and martyr, William Tyndale compared the
Bible to a “precious jewel,” whose “value” must be recognized and whose words
must be believed to benefit the reader; doubts cast upon the
words of God are as firebrands, melting men of straw, said he. William Thorpe,
when questioned during his imprisonment, said, “Men and women here in the
earth, touched Christ, and saw him, and knew his bodily person, which neither
touched, nor saw, nor knew his Godhead, right thus, Sir, many men now touch,
and see, and write, and read the Scriptures of God’s law, which neither see,
touch, nor read effectually, the gospel. For, as the Godhead of Christ (that
is, the virtue of God) is known by the virtue of belief, so (is) Christ’s
word..”
Key 3. Be Humble;
“The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.”
(Psalm 25:9) What does it mean to be meek? Do a word search. Meekness toward
God’s will and toward God is the meekness spoken of in the Bible.
Read Matthew 11:25. Philosopher Thomas Hobbes sourly wrote
about 16th and his part of 17th century England , “Every
boy and wench that could read English, thought they spoke with God Almighty and
understood what he said”. Tyndale
reminded us that, “remembering that as lowliness of heart shall make you high
with God, even so meekness of words shall make you sink into the hearts of men.
Nature giveth age authority, but meekness is the glory of youth, and giveth
them honour.”
In one edition of the Great Bible we are advised to have the
Holy Spirit as our instructor.
“I think it necessary that thou play not the sluggard
following the example of the unprofitable drone bee, who liveth only by the
honey that the diligent bees gather. But contrary wise, be thou a good bee,
search for the sweet honey of the most wholesome flowers of God’s holy word. And
in all this give over thy self to the teaching of God’s holy spirit, who
instructeth none but the humble spirited and such as seek reformation of their
own mis-living and all such he instructeth to the full, making their hearts a
meet (worthy) temple for him to dwell in..”
Key 4. Pray; “If
any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally,
and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5)
When was the last time you prayed for wisdom? For God to
give you light from His word? What did Jesus promise about the Holy Spirit in
John 14:26?
In 1538 the Bishop of London felt that study without prayer
was like lungs without air-no life. “By devout prayer he shall attain, percase,
as much or more, as by study or learning, for without prayer the words will
little prevail. Look in Christ’s life, and thou shalt find in every thing he
went about, he prayed..”
Martyr Hugh Latimer said that worldly wise men are the least
likely sources of wisdom and knowledge. Prayer and a willing heart will
prevail;
“You shall prevail more with praying, than with studying, though mixture be best…For in the first
we must stand only to the Scriptures, which are able to make us all perfect and
instructed unto salvation, if they be well understood. And they offer
themselves to be well understood only to them, which have good wills, and give
themselves to study and
prayer: neither are there any men less apt to understand
them, than the prudent and wise men of the world.”
Key 5. Desire to
Obey: “I understand more than the ancients, because I keep thy precepts.”
(Psalm 119:100)
Tyndale said Christians are to “submit themselves unto the
word of God, to be corrected.”
“It is not enough therefore to read and talk of it only, but
we must also desire God day and night instantly to open our eyes, and to make
us understand and feel wherefore [for what reason] the scripture was given,
that we may apply the medicine of the scripture, every man to his own
sores…This comfort shalt thou evermore find in the plain text and literal
sense. As thou readest therefore think that every syllable pertaineth to thine own self.” Give example of Canaanites and Hebrews.
Key 6: Meditate
on Memorized Scripture: “I have more understanding than all my teachers: for
thy testimonies are my meditation.” Psalm 119:99
Thomas Cromwell, martyr and Henry VIII’s secretary of state,
had memorized the entire New Testament.
Adam Wallace, the night before he was burnt at the stake
sang the entire book of Psalms by heart to his jailers as they had taken away
his Bible.
Joan Waste, a blind girl, purchased a New Testament with
money she earned from knitting. She would pay people a penny or two to read the
Bible to her so she could memorize it. They burnt her at the stake at the age
of 22.
Nicholas Ridley, before he was burned, had his family
memorize a large part of the Bible.
Rather than television or your rap and rock CD’s Tyndale
would admonish parents;
“Thou shalt buy them wholesome books, as the holy gospel,
the epistles of the holy apostles, yea both the New Testament and Old
Testament, that they may understand and drink of the sweet fountain and waters
of life. Bring thy children to the church, to hear the sermon; and when thou
shalt come home, thou shalt ask them what they have kept in memory of the
sermon.”
Key 7: Read the
Bible again and again: “Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge
in the mystery of Christ)” Ephesians 3:4
Cranmer’s Prologue to the Great Bible says;
“Peradventure, they will say unto me” how and if we
understand not that we read, that is contained in the books. What then?
Suppose, thou understand not the deep and profound
mysteries of scripture, yet can it not be, but that much
fruit and holiness must come and grow unto thee by the reading: for it cannot
be that thou shouldest be ignorant in all things alike. For the Holy Ghost hath
so ordered and tempered the scriptures, that in them as well publicans,
fishers, and shepherds may find their edification. Who is there of so simple
wit and capacity, but he may be able to perceive and understand them? These be
but excuses and cloaks for the raiment, and coverings of their own idle
slothfulness, I cannot understand it. What marvel? How shouldest thou
understand, if thou wilt not read, nor look upon it? Take the books into thine
hands, read the whole story, and that thou understandest keep it well in
memory; that thou understandest not, read it again and again. And I doubt not,
but God seeing thy diligence and readiness will himself vouchsafe with his Holy
Spirit to illuminate thee, and to open unto thee that which was locked from
thee….Every man should read by himself at home in the mean days and time,
between sermon and sermon. Take the book in hand, read, weigh, and perceive.
When ye be at home in your houses, ye apply yourselves from time to time to the
reading of the Holy Scriptures. Let no man make excuse and say: ‘I am busy. It
is not for me to read the scriptures.”
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