Have You Understood All These Things?

A while back, I embarked on a Bible study starting from the New Testament to the Old Testament. Before this particular study, I always felt that reading the Bible was sufficient. If I read something that I didn’t understand and wasn’t particularly curious about, I would move on and hope to understand later. I wouldn’t go out of my way to seek understanding concerning matters that didn’t tickle my fancy. Although God in His mercy gave me understanding, I didn’t have the attitude of a diligent student.

My attitude changed when I was studying the Gospels and came to Matthew 13:51–52. After teaching His disciples, Jesus asked them, “Have you understood all these things?” to which they responded, “Yes, Lord.” Then He said to them, “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.”

This was it! Jesus taught with the aim that His disciples would understand His teaching. Whenever they did not understand, He patiently explained it to them, as we see earlier in Matthew 13:36 when the disciples asked Him to explain the parable of the tares. Even today, He would have us understand the Scriptures. That’s why God gave us the Holy Spirit to teach us all things. He also gave the church teachers, pastors, evangelists, apostles, and prophets to equip us for ministry and for the edification of His body. To what end? “till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. To a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine …” Ephesians 4:11–16.

God’s provision for our understanding is demonstrated in the account of Philip the Evangelist and the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8:26–39. The Holy Spirit led Philip to the eunuch who was reading from the book of Isaiah. Philip asked him, “Do you understand what you are reading?” The eunuch responded, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” Then Philip preached Jesus Christ to him from Isaiah 53. The eunuch believed on Jesus, was baptised, and he went on his way rejoicing. Tradition has it that it was through this eunuch that the church in Ethiopia was started.

Friends, we can’t be satisfied with just reading alone. We must graduate to studying the Word, meditating on it day and night, conversing much about it, and being careful to do it. I also recommend a systematic study of the Bible such that at the end of a cycle, a child of God has studied through the entire Text. Topical study is immensely profitable, but we also need a systematic approach so that we receive the full counsel of the Word rather than studying only the passages that interest us. And then, as the householders that our Lord speaks of in Matthew 13, we shall bring out of our storehouses treasures that are both old and new. Then we can commit these truths to other faithful men who are able to teach others.

Scriptures

And that from childhood you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:15–17 (NKJV)