Transcription
Every time you open your Bible, the author is in the room. Think about what that means. The one who inspired every line of Genesis, who breathed out the Psalms, who gave Paul the words of Ephesians, is not far away in heaven hoping you figure his book out on your own. He dwells within you. And he is present at every reading, willing and able to explain his own book to you. Line by line, morning by morning.
And yet most believers read the Bible completely alone. They open the book, push through a chapter with their natural understanding, close it, and wonder why so little happened. They have the greatest teacher in the universe seated beside them, the very author of the text, and they never once turn to him and ask.
But Jesus gave us a promise, and inside that promise is a method, a way of reading the scriptures in partnership with the Holy Spirit, that turns the Bible from a closed book into a living conversation. It is found in John 14:26. And this teaching is going to show you exactly how to use it. Starting with your very next time in the word. This teaching is going to give you what I'm calling the John 14:26 method. A simple, practical way of letting the Holy Spirit personally teach you the Bible every time you open it.
The promise itself comes from the lips of Jesus on the night before the cross. In John 14:26, he said, "But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Notice the two ministries in that single verse. He shall teach you all things, and he shall bring all things to your remembrance. The spirit is the teacher, and the spirit is the reminder. Jesus was telling his disciples and every believer after them that they would never be left to understand divine truth by natural intelligence alone. The author himself would take up residence within them and conduct the class.
E.W. Kenyon regarded this promise as the key to the whole Bible. He wrote, "The word of God is a spiritual book written by the spirit, and it yields its treasures only to those who read it with the spirit. The natural mind may master its history and its languages and remain a pauper as to its riches. But the humblest believer who opens the book in fellowship with its author will receive what the scholar without the spirit can never find. For the spirit wrote the book, the spirit dwells in the believer, and the spirit delights to teach his own word to his own children. The spirit wrote the book, and the spirit delights to teach it." That is the foundation of everything in this teaching. Stay with me through every step because by the end, you will know how to sit down with your Bible tomorrow morning and be taught by the author himself.
Let us first face the problem honestly because it explains the dryness that so many sincere believers experience in their Bible reading. The problem is this. Most believers read the Bible as a natural book using only their natural minds, and the Bible is not a natural book. It is a spiritual book, and spiritual truth cannot be fully received by natural faculties. 1 Corinthians 2:14 states it plainly, "but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. For they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned." Spiritually discerned.
The deep things of the word do not open to intelligence alone, to education alone, to effort alone. They open to the spirit. And the believer who reads with the mind alone, however sincere, is trying to receive spiritual treasure through a natural channel. And he comes away with information at best, and boredom at worst, while the treasure remains sealed. This explains an experience that has puzzled many believers for years. They read a chapter and retain almost nothing. They push through a reading plan and feel no more nourished at the end than at the beginning. They hear someone else describe a passage glowing with life, and they privately wonder why that same passage lies flat on the page for them. And some quietly conclude that the fault is in them, that they are not smart enough, not educated enough, not spiritual enough for the word to open.
But the fault is not a lack of intelligence, and the remedy is not a seminary degree. The fault is a missing teacher. They have been sitting in the classroom with the textbook open and the teacher unacknowledged, and no textbook, however divine, teaches itself to the natural mind. E.W. Kenyon diagnosed this condition in his own generation, and it has only grown more common since. He wrote, "We have multiplied helps and commentaries and courses, and the word remains closed to multitudes of believers because they have substituted the teaching of men for the teaching of the Spirit. The teaching of men has its place, but it was never meant to replace the teacher. A believer may sit under the finest preaching for 40 years and never once have the Spirit open the word to him directly because he never asked. The tragedy of the modern church is a Bible in every home and the teacher ignored in every reading. Let the believer turn to the one who wrote the book and the book will open for the author has never yet refused to explain his own writing to a child who asked. The author has never yet refused a child who asked. The problem is not the difficulty of the book. It is the neglected teacher."
There's a picture of the difference in Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus, and it may be the most beautiful Bible study ever recorded. Two discouraged disciples walked the road with the risen Jesus, whom they did not yet recognize, and the scripture says he opened the word to them. "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself." These were men who had heard these scriptures all their lives in the synagogue. The scrolls were not new to them. But this time the author was doing the teaching and everything changed. When they finally recognized him, they said to one another in Luke 24:32, "Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by the way? And while he opened to us the scriptures?" Did not our heart burn within us? That is the difference between reading alone and being taught by the Lord, the same familiar passages and a heart set on fire. And a few verses later, Luke 24:45 says of the gathered disciples, "Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures." He opened their understanding. That opening is not a one-time miracle reserved for the first disciples. It is the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit promised in John 14:26, available at your kitchen table tomorrow morning. The burning heart of Emmaus is the birthright of every believer who reads the word with the author.
So, let us walk through the John 14:26 method step by step so that your next time in the word can be a lesson taught by the spirit himself.
The first step is to begin by acknowledging and inviting the teacher. Before you read a single verse, you turn to the spirit within and enroll in his class. You might pray simply and sincerely, "Holy Spirit, you wrote this book and you dwell in me. Jesus promised that you would teach me all things, so I ask you now, be my teacher this morning. Open the word to me and open me to the word." This is the prayer of Psalm 119:18, "Open thou mine eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law." Open my eyes. The psalmist understood that beholding wondrous things is not a function of better eyesight or harder squinting, but of opened eyes, and only God opens them. This first step takes less than a minute, but it changes the entire nature of what follows. You are no longer a solitary reader decoding an ancient text. You are a student seated with the author, and the class has begun.
The second step is to read slowly in small portions, listening as you read. Reading with the spirit is unhurried by nature, because it is a conversation, and conversations cannot be rushed. This means the John 14:26 method will often mean fewer chapters and more nourishment. Do not measure the success of your reading by the ground covered. A single Psalm, a single paragraph of an epistle, even a single verse read slowly in fellowship with the teacher, will feed you more than five chapters raced through alone. As you read, keep part of your attention turned inward toward the teacher, the way a student keeps an ear toward the front of the classroom. You are not merely processing words. You are listening for the teacher's voice as your eyes move along his words. This posture of simultaneous reading and listening is the heart of spirit-taught study, and it grows more natural with practice.
The third step is to pause wherever the teacher highlights. As you read slowly and listen, you will begin to notice something that believers through the centuries have described in different ways. A verse seems to lift off the page. A phrase arrests you. A line you have read a hundred times suddenly stands up and looks back at you, carrying a weight and a freshness it never carried before. That is not your imagination. That is the teacher tapping the desk and saying, "Right here. This one. Today, this is for you." Jesus said in John 6:63, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." And when the spirit breathes on a particular word, it comes alive with that spirit and life in a way you can actually perceive. The old writers called this the quickening of the word, the moment when a written word becomes a living word to your heart. The John 14:26 method treats these quickened moments as the whole point of the reading. When the teacher highlights, you stop. You do not press on to finish the chapter as though the schedule were the assignment. The highlighted word is the assignment.
E.W. Kenyon described this quickening as the meeting point of the word and the spirit. He wrote, "There is a difference between the word on the page and the word made alive to your spirit. And every believer who has experienced it knows the difference instantly. The page gives you the words of God. The spirit gives you the voice of God in the words. When a scripture is quickened to you, God is speaking that scripture to you personally, presently, as truly as if he spoke it aloud in the room. Treasure the quickened word. Stop for it. Feed on it. Write it down and carry it with you. For one verse made alive by the spirit will do more in you than a hundred read in the energy of the flesh. One verse made alive will do more than a hundred read in the flesh." That is why the method pauses at the highlight. The quickened word is the teacher's lesson for the day.
The fourth step is to ask the teacher questions. This is where reading becomes dialogue, and it is the step most believers have never even considered. When the Spirit highlights a word, do what any student does when the teacher emphasizes something. Raise your hand. Ask him right there in simple words, "Lord, what does this mean? Why did you stop me here? What are you showing me about yourself? What are you saying about my situation? How do you want me to walk in this today?" And then give him room to answer in the quiet, in the way you have learned to recognize. The quiet knowing rising from your spirit. The connecting thought that arrives with peace. The gentle unfolding of the verse from the inside. James 1:5 promises, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally and abraideth not." He gives liberally and does not scold you for asking. The teacher welcomes questions. In fact, the question is often the very door through which the teaching comes. For the asking turns your reading from a monologue into the conversation it was always meant to be.
The fifth step is to meditate on what he has highlighted, turning it over until it goes deep. Meditation is the step where the taught word takes root. Psalm 1:2-3 describes the blessed man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. "And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water." To meditate is to turn the quickened word over and over in your heart, the way you would turn a gem in the light to see each face of it, murmuring it to yourself, personalizing it, praying it back to God, asking what each phrase holds. This is not emptying the mind as the world teaches meditation. It is filling the mind with one living word until that word saturates you. Take the verse the teacher highlighted and sit with it. Say it slowly. Emphasize a different word each time. Ask the Spirit to unfold it further. Five minutes of this meditation under the teacher's guidance will plant the word so deep that no trouble of the day can uproot it.
And the sixth step is to receive it personally. Confess it with your mouth and carry it into your day for the teacher's ministry of remembrance. The lesson is not finished until the word taught has become the word spoken and the word walked. Receive the highlighted verse as God's personal word to you because by the Spirit's quickening, that is exactly what it is. Then confess it aloud, putting it in your own mouth. For as Romans 10:17 says, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." And your own ears hearing your own voice speak the quickened word builds faith like nothing else. Write it on a card if it helps and take it with you. And then watch the second half of John 14:26 go to work through the day. For Jesus promised not only that the Spirit would teach, but that he would bring all things to your remembrance. The teacher who gave you the morning lesson is the reminder who recalls it at the very moment you need it. The verse he taught you at the kitchen table at 7:00 in the morning, he will whisper back to you in the doctor's office at 2:00 in the afternoon. This is the remembrance ministry, and it turns your morning reading into all day equipment. What you deposit with the teacher in the morning, the reminder withdraws for you in the moment of need.
E. W. Kenyon marveled at this ministry of remembrance. He wrote, "The Spirit is the perfect reminder. He never brings the word to your remembrance a day early or a moment late, but exactly when the need arises, the verse arises with it, quickened afresh for the situation at hand. This is why the believer must keep depositing the word, for the Spirit can only bring to your remembrance what has first been placed in your heart. Fill the treasury in the morning, and the reminder will make the withdrawals all day long, handing you the right word at the right moment, a sword in the hour of temptation, a comfort in the hour of sorrow, a wisdom in the hour of decision. The believer who reads with the teacher and walks with the reminder is never without the word he needs. The Spirit can only bring to remembrance what has been deposited. That is the partnership. You sit with the teacher and make the deposits. He serves as the reminder and supplies each moment's need."
There is a particular word here for those in their later years. And it addresses two quiet discouragements that many seasoned believers carry. The first is the feeling of over-familiarity. You may have read this Bible for 50 or 60 years. You have been through Genesis to Revelation more times than you can count. And a quiet voice suggests that there is nothing left in it for you, that you have seen it all. But hear this, familiarity is a condition of the reader alone, never of the teacher. The spirit who quickened a verse to you in 1975 has fresh quickenings in that same verse for this coming Tuesday. For his word is living, as Hebrews 4:12 declares. "For the word of God is quick and powerful, and a living thing is never exhausted by acquaintance." Many long-time believers testify that their richest discoveries in scripture came not in the early years, but in the latest ones, when the teacher opened depths in familiar pages that decades of reading had walked right past. The pages have not changed. The teacher simply keeps a lifetime of lessons in reserve, and he saves some of the best for the students who stay longest in his class.
The second discouragement touches the body. Perhaps the eyes tire quickly now, or reading print has become a labor. Take heart, for the teacher is not confined to print. Romans 10:17 says, "Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God." And the spirit quickens the heard word, exactly as he quickens the read word. Listen to the scriptures being read aloud on a recording or from the lips of a loved one. With the same method, invite the teacher, listen slowly, notice what he highlights, ask your questions, and meditate on his lesson. The classroom is your heart, not your eyesight, and no dimming of the natural eyes can close a school that meets in the spirit.
And there is one more treasure in this method for the seasoned believer, and it concerns the ministry of remembrance. Some in their later years worry about memory, about names that slip and details that blur, and they fear that the word they have stored over a lifetime is fading with everything else. But the second half of John 14:26 is a promise that does not age: "and bring all things to your remembrance." The reminder has access to every deposit you have ever made, every verse memorized in Sunday school 70 years ago, every scripture underlined in worn Bibles long since retired, every word quickened across the decades, and he brings them back not by the strength of your natural memory, but by his own ministry at the moment they are needed. Ask any believer who has sat at the bedside of a saint in their final season, and they will tell you of scriptures rising whole and radiant from hearts whose natural memories had grown frail. The spirit was making withdrawals from a lifetime of deposits. Your treasury is safe with the reminder. Nothing given to him is ever lost.
Let me also add a word of grace about the ordinary days because they will come. Some mornings you will use this method and a verse will blaze from the page and mark you for life. Other mornings you will invite the teacher, read slowly, listen carefully, and the reading will feel simply quiet, pleasant, and unremarkable. Do not conclude on those mornings that the teacher was absent or that you did the method wrong. Not every class contains fireworks and the teacher is often doing his deepest work in the quiet lessons, laying foundations you will not see until a later season reveals what was built. Judge the method by months, not by mornings. The tree planted by the rivers of water does not feel itself growing on any given day. Yet season by season the fruit appears and the leaf does not wither. Stay in the class. The quiet mornings are still lessons and the teacher wastes none of them.
And here is the climactic truth that should change your Bible reading for the rest of your life. You were never meant to read this book alone and you never have to again. The Christian who struggles through the scriptures unaided is living below his privileges in the most unnecessary way imaginable. Like a student who sits in an empty room straining over a textbook while the author of the textbook waits in the next chair longing to be asked. The author is in you. The teacher is present at every reading. The promise of Jesus stands in full force this very morning. He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance and the method is now in your hands. Invite the teacher, read slowly, and listen. Stop where he highlights. Ask him your questions. Meditate on his lesson. Confess it and carry it, and let the reminder hand it back to you all day long. Do this tomorrow morning and the morning after, and the burning heart of the Emmaus road, which you may have thought belonged only to two disciples on one ancient afternoon, will become the familiar warmth of your own table, your own chair, your own open Bible, taught to you page by page by the one who wrote it.
Kenyon expressed this destiny of the spirit-taught believer with words that should stir every heart. He wrote, "There is no privilege in this life greater than to be taught the word of God by the spirit of God. Scholars may envy such a believer, for he has what no library can give. He sits daily under the author of the book, and the book opens to him from the inside. His heart burns on ordinary mornings. His understanding is opened over familiar pages, and he grows in the knowledge of God, not the knowledge that puffs up, but the knowledge that transforms. For the teacher never merely informs his student. He conforms him lesson by lesson to the image of Christ. Enroll in that school and never graduate from it, for its lessons are new every morning, and its teacher is never at a loss. Enroll in that school and never graduate."
That is the invitation of John 14:26, and the class convenes the next time you open your Bible. So, let this teaching send you back to your Bible with a new expectation and a new companionship. The word of God is a spiritual book and it opens fully only to those who read it with its author. And its author dwells in you. Never again accept the dry solitary reading as though it were all that is available. Use the John 14:26 method. Begin by inviting the teacher and praying, "Open now my eyes." Read slowly in small portions, listening as you go. Stop wherever he quickens a word, for the highlighted verse is the day's lesson. Ask him your questions like a student with a raised hand and receive his unfolding answers. Meditate on the lesson until it goes deep like the tree planted by rivers of water. And then confess the word with your mouth and carry it into your day where the reminder will bring it back to you at the exact moment of need. This is not a method for scholars. It is a method for children of God. As available to the believer who never finished high school as to the one with a wall of degrees because the qualification is not intelligence but relationship. The teacher lives in you. The book is on your table. The class is offered every single morning. Take your seat.
E.W. Kenyon left a charge concerning the spirit and the word that makes a fitting close. He wrote, "Let no day pass without sitting under the spirit's teaching in the word. The believer who is taught by men alone will know about God. The believer who is taught by the spirit will know God. Make the book and the teacher your daily appointment. And over the years you will build a treasury of quickened words, a storehouse of spirit-taught scripture that will make you rich in the things of God beyond anything this world counts as wealth. And when your last morning comes, you will step into the presence of the author you have known so long across his pages. And the conversation begun at your table will simply continue face-to-face. The conversation begun at your table will continue face-to-face." That is where the John 14:26 method leads. Begin it tomorrow morning and let the author teach you his book for the rest of your days.
If this truth has given you a new way to open your Bible, then declare it. In the comment section below, type these words. The Holy Spirit is my teacher. That is not a formula. That is a believer taking his seat in the school of the spirit under the promise of Jesus in John 14:26. Leave it in the comments now. And as the teacher fills your heart with the living word, that word will begin to fill your mouth. And here is what most believers have never realized. The words you speak, especially the words you speak over your life as each day closes, are quietly building the very tomorrow you will wake up to. And in the next teaching, I will show you how that construction works and how to make sure your words are building what you actually want.