The Word and the Spirit

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.”  1 Corinthians 2:12

How is it that some people can read a biblical passage and find it either tedious, confusing, or even foolish, whereas others will receive great understanding and blessing from the very same passage? The answer is that the first group is animated only by the spirit of the world, “the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience” (Eph. 2:2), whereas the others are indwelled by the Spirit of God, having received the Holy Spirit when they trusted Christ for forgiveness and salvation.

It was, after all, the Holy Spirit who inspired the Scriptures to begin with. “...men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God” (2 Pet. 1:21). “All Scripture is inspired by God” (2 Tim. 3:16), that is “God-breathed,” where the “breath of God” is none other than the “Spirit of God.” Concerning his own divinely inspired writings, Paul said, “we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit” (1 Cor. 2:13).

Likewise it is the same Spirit indwelling each believer who illumines, and confirms, and applies His own Scriptures to the individual Christian who reads or hears them. “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised” (1 Cor. 2:14). On the other hand, Jesus promised His disciples that “when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth” (John 16:13). This He does through the Scriptures He inspired with blessings abundant as we study them prayerfully and with believing and obedient hearts.