THE ART OF READING THE BIBLE

When we are going to read and interpret the Word of God, we have to remember that it is like coming close to fire. It works like radiant beams, and if we’re receptive, we can easily lose our balance when we glimpse the divinity in what God is saying to us. The truth about our nature, our history, and the tragedies in our society, about our delusions, dangers and temptations on the one side and our possibilities and opportunities on the other side, can effect us so strongly, when God’s spirit talks to us that we need to be self-controlled and mentally balanced to comprehend only a small part of it. (See the story of God speaking to Moses in the burning bush, Exodus 3:2 – 5, etc.). "Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." I’m quoting this because in my long life I have seen how difficult it is for a common mortal to receive light from God. I don’t know if others have had the same experience as me, but I have met people who lost control of themselves and their thoughts when they became conscious of the holy fire, and then tried to describe what they see, suspect, feel and experience.

Therefore, my prayer is: "Holy Spirit of Truth, be patient with me. Why do You flame up in me so much so that I can hardly write legibly and hold my pen securely? I am not a hysterical person, and I hate and struggle with all of my eccentricities that will disturb me when You come with Your powerful Light of Life to me. Please be gentle with me, Your vessel who will receive You and is trying to find words and phrases that are worthy of You. I see You, feel You, and experience You as the living Light of life within me. As opposed to the big black and confused world outside of me, Your light is so overwhelmingly powerful for me that its difficult for me to stay calm. (For further information, please read Psalms 42).

I often feel like a water conduit through which pure water shall pass and I would like nothing better than to convey pure spring water to the spiritually thirsty and suffering world. However, there is so much unclean and dirty in my ‘conduits’, so it is a little difficult for me to serve as a conveyor for You. Because of this, I request, now as always, please be gentle and patient with me, and clean my ‘conduits’ of all sediment.

I see the world outside of me as a big, dark void and You seem to be a sun on sleepy eyes in a dark room. The new light makes me feel like I want to explode and I often feel like a tree just before its buds open and the green leaves unfold.

Your new wine ferments in me, so please be patient with me so I can gather my thoughts, and my language can become as a noble and clear wine. When I try to write for You and describe You and what You enlighten me about, it’s like describing the effect the sun has when it shines in a dark room. Everything is illumined immediately. The floor, the ceiling, all the walls, and everything else in the room are illumined at the same time.

I don’t know what to write first and what I should tell last. My friends who will read this will have one thing at a time described – each thing by itself. They will react when they see how everything is connected. Since I’m going to be Your secretary, it’s the same thing for me as it was for John, when he was going to write about his visions for the future of the whole world. It wasn’t easy to understand what he wrote. Many think that he ‘lost it’. What he wrote doesn’t follow what people call order and style, or the ‘academic scientific method’.

I have the same problem of trying to put all the visions I have in order, as well as all of the many details that are part of the big scheme of life that You – Light Itself – show me.

Even though my name will be on the book as the ‘author’, I’m not the author. I’m just the ‘secretary’ or ‘the guy who’s writing’, it’s the Light of Life who’s showing me. It is about You, the Light of Life, that I’ll be writing about, and how The Light from You makes it possible for me to see myself and the whole world in a new way. ‘I am not the life myself, but I shall witness about the light.’ (John 1:8) I am not writing myself or by myself, but I am writing about myself after Your Light has polished me so that I understand myself.

Holy Light of Truth - I am not the first one to write about You. The whole Bible writes about You and about me. The whole Bible witnesses on Your glory and the meaning for us poor children who continually make mistakes because we haven’t understood or dared believe what really is in us.

When Your true holy light came to me, the whole Bible was like a new book for me. Then I understood that it is this holy book with all of its testimonies about You, that have been misinterpreted or misunderstood, because people are proud and think they understand when they don’t, and think too little about their own nature and possibilities. The Bible witnesses not only about God, and law and order, but it also bears witness to human inadequacy, and clearly shows our own origin and creation both before Christ and during His guidance and after His involvement in our salvation. The Bible is filled with rich spiritual symbolism that comes from the most inspired people God had in His vineyard. Only those who are born in the spirit and are children of the Light can understand something of what The Bible teaches us about our own nature.

‘Use me God

don’t push me out

from feeling Thy call and strength.

Then you will find

in a desolate mind

the frightened anxious thoughts

giving the night depth and length.’

Please always give me Your light that lights my mind so that it glows and makes it possible for me to glimpse what the God and Lord of all life intends for the whole human race.

When I, as a child, went to the minister, it was then called ‘going to my father’s confirmation’. My own Father wrote (in a triumphant way?) in my Bible: ‘You know from childhood the holy verse that can help you be wise toward salvation by faith in Jesus Christ’. (II Timothy 3:15). This is true, but with modifications. It is true that my Father, the minister, gave me knowledge about Christianity and The Holy Bible, and without the wisdom from The Bible and the good guidance from my Father, I wouldn’t have learned to open up for You, Who are Light and Life.

However, I certainly didn’t know about the Holy Writings from my childhood. I misinterpreted and misunderstood quite a bit until You came and made it known that You were the almighty creative power inside me. You lit up my own darkened interior and ‘opened up the books’ for me and allowed The Mental Savior of the World, Jesus Christ, to step out of the theological clouds, that until that time had hidden Him from my eyes.

I want to think you, the Holy Light of Truth, because You wanted to come to me, and take my ‘vessel’ and my fragile ‘conduits’ in your service.

I will dedicate all my strength, interests, capacity and ability for work in Your service. I request that You make me capable, so that what I write really can further You – the Holy Light of Truth – into the hearts, so that the world can get well. Please help me to explain and uncover the theological mentality and the academic attitude, so that the world can comprehend, forever, among all groups of people, the reliable rule that lack of good will is not the problem in the world, what is lacking is the Light of truth over human nature. Then will appear the Kingdom of God with Jesus Christ, Our Savior."

Amen.

 Chapter 4