Regeneration

The first condition is indispensable and fundamental; indeed it is not so much a condition as a prerequisite, and that is regeneration. You must
be born again before you can understand the Bible. It is absolutely necessary.(Matt. 13:11.) What Daniel says of prophecy is true of all Scriptures
"The wise shall understand, the wicked shall not." He means that character rather than culture is the condition of understanding prophecy. If you would understand the prophecies of God's Word correctly, it is not necessary to graduate at a University or Seminary, and read Greek and Hebrew, but it is necessary to be good, to be pure, to be holy. The heart makes the theologian.

The heart is the organ of spiritual vision, and character rather than culture becomes the key to unlock the mysteries of prophecy. That is true of all Scripture. (1 Cor. 2:14.) Suppose a man is sitting beside you on yonder mountain top, and you are describing to him the glories of a sunset. The west is brilliant with prismatic hues of iridescent rainbow beauty. The man is indifferent, and unconcerned. You grow indignant until you discover that the man is blind. What cares he about the sunset? What knows he about your words? You do not scold him, you do not blame him, you pity him. No unregenerated man can know anything about the mysteries of God and the meaning of the Bible.

A man must be a Christian before he can open the Bible with any possibility of arriving at its meaning. It is spiritually discerned.Suppose I say to you that on the back of your hand there are scales like those of a fish, and you look at your white hand and laugh in scorn, and say that is nonsense. Suppose I take you out in yonder street and look up into the sky and say there are four moons revolving around the planet Jupiter, and you look up at that great white planet in the evening sky, and you say the man is crazy, it is no such thing. Suppose I take your razor and say it has a corrugated edge like cross cut saw, and you hold the razor up to the light, and you say it is not so. Put your hand under a microscope; it looks like the back of an alligator. Put the sharpest razor you ever saw under a microscopic lens; it looks like a circular saw. Put the telescope on Jupiter, and you see the four satellites in their appointed order.

That former statement was foolishness to your natural eye, because it was miscroscopically discerned. That latter statement was foolishness to your natural eye, because it was telescopically discerned. The axioms of the Bible are foolishness to the natural mind because they are spiritually discerned.

A man must be born of the Spirit beforehe knows what the Bible teaches.

Filled With the Holy Spirit

Second: A man must be baptized with the Holy Spirit as well as bornof the Spirit to study the Bible successfully. Every Christian has the HolySpirit. "If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of His," and "by oneSpirit we are all baptized into one body." But there is something beyond.
There is a reception and an appropriation of the Holy Spirit as a teacher anda guide and a helper that confers a marvelous benefit upon the believer.


Excerpt from the Book Complete Summary of the New Testament by KEITH L. BROOKS

A Ravenous Appetite

In the third place, there must be a ravenous appetite for Bible study."Thy words were found, and I did eat them." "I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food." If you don't love to study the Bible,you'd better postpone this course of study, but the appetite grows by what it feeds on, and if you haven't any appetite, you need praying for.

Sometimes aperson is run down, and goes to a doctor. Before the doctor makes a diagnosis,he begins to quiz you. The first question is, how is your appetite? If you have no appetite, you need medicine. When a Christian has no appetite for God's Word, it is a dangerous symptom. Remember what the Israelites said in the wilderness, "Our soul loatheth this light bread." Light bread, indeed. It was angels' food. If it was good enough for the angels, it ought to have been good enough for the Israelites. We remember the food of the Egyptians cucumbers, melons, garlic, etc. Many people prefer novels or newspapers to the Bible members of the church too. They have no appetite.

To make any progress in Bible study, you must love the Bible. Unless you put your heart into the work, it is drudgery, and it never succeeds. The highest success is the spirit in which you do your work. God never says, "Well done, thou good and successful servant," but "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."[/b]Cultivate your appetite. A strong spiritual appetite is the greatest spiritual safeguard. [b]"How sweet are Thy words unto my mouth, yea sweeter than honey to my lips."