Can We Study the Bible By Ourselves?

Can we study the Bible on our own? That may sound like a silly question to some, but I have found that it is not a silly question to those who hold positions of power in the church or hold degrees in theology. We need to take a look at history to see from where the idea that we cannot study the Bible on our own comes.

It is a truth that until the last half dozen centuries, the idea that women should be educated was not considered something that was necessary. And even going back that far, it was the rare and socially elevated woman who was educated at all. If a woman was taught the domestic skills to run a home, that was really all that was required of her. It might be that some were taught to read and do a little math to get by, especially if they were widowed, divorced, or single and had to make their own way, but for most of history, women have merely stayed at home and taken care of the house. Even a great many men were illiterate.

During the time of Christ, only men were taught to read the Scriptures or possibly read at all. Women were only to listen. Hence Paul telling women to keep silent in church. They did not have the ability to study the Word the way men could, so they were considered to be students only and not contest what was taught, nor ask questions that might interrupt the service and possibly show ignorance. They were to ask questions at home, or if they disagreed, to express it at home to their husbands, who were the ones who were able to read the Scriptures to find the answers and thereby teach the wives. Obviously today that situation of education has changed, however the rules of holding positions of authority in the church has not.

As the new church came under the control of the state during Constantine, he appointed men to be the bishops and leaders. This continued down through the years as those in power continued to put their chosen ones in power. These church leaders did not come about from the church congregation putting them into positions due to their godly walks with the Lord, nor their wisdom and knowledge of the Scriptures, but they were appointed mainly due to political reasons. Many did not even know the Lord on a personal level. They might be scholars, but as the Bible tells us, “..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.” 1 Corinthians 2:14. Those who do not know Christ and do not have the Holy Spirit cannot discern what the Word of God is truly saying, for the Scriptures are only spiritually discerned. As a result, those leaders taught the people, who were mostly illiterate, what they wanted them to believe the Bible said, rather than what it actually said. They were mainly the only ones who possessed Bibles anyhow, so nobody could question them. Many false beliefs and traditions from the Babylonian Mysteries were incorporated into the Christian faith as a result, changing how people believed they could have a relationship with God and get into heaven. They were taught the doctrines of men and demons, not the doctrines of the Bible.

Over the years that followed, there were those who split from the church and its erroneous doctrines, bringing new interpretations into the mix, as they studied the Word themselves. Often these new doctrines were at odds with each other as well as at odds with what was being taught in the main orthodoxy at the time. This brought about a persecution and purging through martyrdom of those considered heretics. As the years continued to go by the two major divisions of Christianity – Catholicism and Protestantism divided Christians. I use the words Catholicism and Protestantism in the broadest terms here, lumping the Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc. together and under Protestantism lumping together everything from the Anglican Church, Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, Reformed churches, and etc. From these groups we also have what are considered cult-like offshoots – the Mormons, the Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah Witnesses, etc., where the groups have self-proclaimed prophets who bring “new revelation” and thus create their own religion.

In all of these cases, regardless of the denomination, the adage holds that the leaders are the ones who are revered as understanding the Bible and having the truth, and everyone is to listen to them. This is due to either having attended seminary or having had a “special” word of revelation from God that has elevated them above the others. For the most part it is unusual to find among any of those leaders one who will allow themselves to be questioned as to their teachings. One simply does not question the authority of the teacher/leader. I have been in many churches in my life, and not in one of them did I find that the person in leadership think that they could possibly have misinterpreted the Scriptures. Since I have attended a number of differing Protestant denominations, who are often on opposite sides of a question doctrinally (giving me a wide spectrum of interpretations), I find it rather humorous that they all feel they are infallible in their doctrines. How is that possible, if they don’t agree on what the Scriptures say? Obviously someone is wrong somewhere. I have also found that without exception, they all accept the doctrines of their denomination without ever having questioned them or done research to see whether the opposing viewpoints have any merit. They are right, the others are wrong, end of story. That multi-viewed background made it much easier for me to break with preconceived beliefs when I searched out the truths, for I had many differing viewpoints to study and was not wedded to one more than the other.

As we all have the same Bible, for the most part (different versions will teach different things sometimes), it seems peculiar that they could all study the same Bible and get such opposing opinions. What I discovered is that they do not study the Bible as I would study it, just using the Bible, the Holy Spirit and taking things at face value. They study theology. More specifically, their own denomination’s theology. They do not study the Word of God in its entirety, as much as the reasons for why they believe the doctrines they espouse. They study theology, not actually the Bible. They are taught that they should read every commentary that has been written by theologically acceptable authors for their denomination. Once when talking with a seminary professor, he told me that he advocates that before they finish seminary, a student read a commentary on every book of the Bible. I thought it odd that this was the goal for the student rather than study every book of the Bible directly from the Bible without the bias of some other man’s opinions forming his idea of what it said. Is this not the job of the Holy Spirit?

There exists online a course in theology from an evangelical fundamentalist Christian college. I thought that I should listen to it to try and understand better why these scholars who throw around words like “hermaneutics,” “systematic theology,” “prolegamena,” “soteriology,” “ecclesiology,” “pneumatology,” and countless other terms that most people do not understand, feel that they have an edge in understanding God’s Word over the regular Christian.

One of the first statements that was made was the following: “If you think theology can be done with you, the Holy Spirit and the Bible, then you are wrong, for theology can’t be done that way. God never intended it to be done that way. God intended for it to be done in a community. It is shaped by many different perspectives and many different experiences.”

I have to question the validity of that statement. First of all, let’s take the first sentence that says that theology (the study of God) cannot be done with just you, the Holy Spirit, and the Bible. That’s what a scholar says. What does the Word of God say?

The Word of God says:

John 14:26 “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.”

1 John 2:27 “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.”

1 Corinthians 2:9-11 “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”

1 Cor. 2:16 “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

John 16:13 “Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.”

Now a scholar might tell you that you could not understand the verses above, for you do not understand the syntax and therefore could not analyze the verse. Or you can’t know the particular tense in Greek of a particular verb. Or some other random reason as to why you could not understand what God is saying in these verses above. I have a word that I love that addresses these concerns. It is “BALDERDASH.” Nonsense. The first lie in the Bible is when Satan questions Eve as to whether God really means what He says. That is the lie he has been using ever since. “Yea, hath God said?” The implication is that God does not mean what He literally says, and we cannot possibly understand what He does mean. What a load of rubbish. Yes, there are difficult passages in the Scripture, but what I have discovered not only through my own studies, but through teaching others is that if someone reads and studies God’s Word regularly, knowledge and understanding grow, for the Holy Spirit is the one who is leading us into truth.

What do these verses above tell us? Anybody can understand what they say. They tell us that 1) the Holy Spirit teaches us all things, 2) we do not need any man to teach us, for we receive the anointing from the Holy Spirit who indwells us and it is He who is truth and teaches us everything, 3) man cannot know the things of God, but the Holy Spirit does, 4) one has to have the mind of Christ to instruct others, and we have the mind of Christ through the Holy Spirit, so we can be instructed of ourselves through the Holy Spirit, 5) the Holy Spirit will guide us into the truth. Is that not the objective? Is any man infallible when it comes to the Word of God? I know I am not. I have had many corrections in my understanding of the Word over the years, as I have matured and the Holy Spirit has taught and guided me. I have many times had to let go of man’s teachings that were taught to me when I was young to replace it with God’s truth.

So obviously God does not agree with this scholar that we cannot possibly study and understand the Word of God by ourselves with only the Holy Spirit as our guide. The second statement that is made is that God never intended us to do so – in other words, study the Bible by ourselves. Is that true? What does God say?

2 Timothy 2:15 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”

1 Peter 3:15 “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:”

Now it is true that these verses do not say that you have to study alone, but they also do not say that you cannot. In fact, we are given some indications that we are supposed to study ourselves, for how can we discern what we are being taught by others, if we do not know the truth ourselves. We cannot stand before God and say, “So and so said this guy was okay, so I believed what he said.” God expects each one of us to be responsible ourselves.

Hebrews 5:12-14 “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.”

It is through our own diligent study that we can develop our discernment. Nobody can give it to us. We have to work at it and earn it, so to speak. You cannot make another person mature, they have to work at it themselves. And so it is with the Bible. If it is still not clear that we are expected to test everything we are taught, we only need to look at the Bereans.

Acts 17:11 “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”

The Bereans did not accept what the apostles themselves were teaching without questioning it. And they were called noble for doing so. They double checked everything the apostles said against the Scriptures. How can one do that, if one is not totally familiar with the Scriptures so that one knows where to go to check what is said? How can a normal Christian dare pit himself against a scholar? It is called discernment through the teachings of the Holy Spirit and every born again Christian can have it if they study.

The next statement was that God intended for the learning of the Word to be done in a community. Certainly He did. He expected that believers would gather together to worship and study, but does that negate personal responsibility and study? Of course not. Proverbs 27:17 says, “Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.” Studying with others and getting knowledge and wisdom from others as to how they view a passage will always help. Especially in understanding difficult passages. It is good to do so, but it is not necessary in order to study. And if I might say, the problem I have come against is not in studying with others, but that in the churches there really is no studying with others per se in my experience, but usually just a teacher who uses a manual, (written by someone of whom you have no idea of their qualifications to teach the Bible) or if they use the Bible and just go through a book, chapter or topic, teaches on it and people are to listen and write down what the person says, and accept it without question. It is again the scholar/layman disparity.

Being a studious person, I never go in and just blindly accept what is said and I must admit to doing what Paul said I shouldn’t (I open my mouth) and create havoc by raising questions which cannot be answered. (Obviously pastors do not care for me for this reason.) To date I have never found in all the churches I have attended that this is looked upon with favor. (I wonder why?) I have been treated as “the dumb little woman,” ignored, told I am wrong, told I do not understand, and the worst, I have been told that “Even though it appears that the Scripture is saying what you have said it says if we take it at face value, that is not how you should interpret it.” Excuse me? So God doesn’t mean what He has said? If it is clear at face value, I shouldn’t have to look for any other interpretation should I? In fact, ironically in some of the churches where that answer has been given, they actually teach that you should take the Bible as literally as possible. That is, until the verses disagree with their theology. Then only a scholar is able to discern the hidden and obtuse meaning behind what appears to be a crystal clear passage.

The last part of the statement that this theologian made was that theology is shaped by many different perspectives and many different experiences. So we should adapt our theology to our world view and personal experiences? I am reminded of the verse in Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” Is not one of the biggest problems we face today in doctrine, that people are adapting it to our culture and as a result much heresy is arising? God will never change. His Word is eternal. We do not adapt it to our culture, our experiences, our world view, the cultural biases or trends. It is truth and truth never changes. How it is applied to our lives may change from person to person as God deals directly with each one of us, but God’s truth does not change and therefore neither can a true theology. But maybe that is the problem. There doesn’t seem to be a true theology taught these days, merely denominational theologies. They pick and choose what they want and what they don’t like, they ignore or interpret to fit their theology.

One of the hardest things for a Christian is to set aside all the things they have been taught as doctrine and go with a clean slate to the Bible. We all have biases and the only thing, I repeat, the ONLY thing that can override that is the deepest, heartfelt desire for absolute truth. Only when truth is made the highest priority can one go on their knees to God, ask for the Holy Spirit to lead them into it, and find it. It will be the most painful journey a person can make in their spiritual life, for it requires having everything stripped away and rebuilt. I think of the scene in the Chronicles of Narnia when Eustace is turned from a dragon (which he became out of selfishness) back into a boy. Aslan tells him that he has to rip the dragon skin off of him, and it will be horribly painful. And it is horribly painful, but the learning process through that pain changes Eustace and he comes out a much different boy. So it is with us. Truth hurts. It hurts so badly that it can almost destroy you. When you come out the other side, you are different. Your relationship with God is different. You no longer want the soft soap of the lies that make you comfortable. You desire the painful truth no matter what, for it is true as Christ said, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John 8:32. Truth is painful, but it is also the most freeing thing in the world. And you cannot be sure that anybody can give you the truth, except for the Holy Spirit. We can listen to teachers and preachers, but always, always take what is said to the Scriptures and be a Berean. I have had people say to me that they appreciate my writings, but while they don’t want to offend me, they are going to check everything I say. My reply to them is, “Well done.” I encourage people to check my writings and challenge me, if they want. If my writings cannot withstand scrutiny, then I need to go back and do more study. However, what I do find a lot of times is that people merely spout rhetoric they have learned from their theologies back at me, but they can’t always defend what they say, nor deal with the discrepancies that I point out to them. They go into cognitive dissonance. Usually that is because, as is the unfortunate case with most Christians these days, they don’t really know their Scriptures.

While it is important to study theologically related things to the Bible, such as where we got the canon of the Scriptures, how they were chosen, the history of the church, the history of the world, archaeological finds, Greek and Hebrew if possible, and so many other things, the truth is, if we only have the Bible, it is still enough. The more knowledge you have, the deeper the understanding of some things, but I believe God decides and provides what is needed for each person to take them to the level of understanding that He wants them to have and they are willing to go. Not everybody is a scholar by nature or has the same intelligence level, nor unfortunately the desire to learn. However, everyone can understand at a basic level what God’s Word says, for God wrote it that way deliberately. The way of salvation is clear for everyone at any level. As for the rest and how deep one’s understanding goes, part of the problem is that most people are lazy and don’t study. And if they do, they will not start at the beginning and read (and study) through the Bible as God intended. They pick and choose. Everything that comes before lays the foundation for what comes after. If you skip to the last chapter of the book, you won’t understand the ending for you lack the knowledge of how you got there. And, as earlier mentioned, understanding comes through a spiritual relationship with God, not from a scholarly analysis. The latter without the former will only lead to a total misunderstanding of what the Bible teaches.

One of the second statements that this theologian made in this course study was that he was going to break down everybody’s preconceived ideas, so that they could rebuild them and find the truth. What was again ironic and somewhat humorous was that I listened to his study on a subject that is hotly debated between schools of thought. He made the statement that he had approached it from this tenet he was teaching, to abandon all preconceived notions, and rebuild from scratch and that in so doing, he found that there was not “one single Scripture” that disputed the interpretation he was espousing. I could easily off the top of my head think of a dozen Scriptures that said the exact opposite of what he was teaching. He merely did not want to accept these Scriptures. He either ignored them or reinterpreted them from the face value meaning to something entirely different from what was said, replacing the clear meaning of words with meanings that did not exist. So even when they say they prove their positions on their doctrines, the truth is, they are blind to the things which dispute them. It is called cognitive dissonance, and I have written elsewhere on that problem.

So the answer to the question that was asked at first, “Can we study the Bible on our own?” should be clear. God says we can, and we should. Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit (which only comes when one has a relationship with Him) we can understand God’s Word and possibly understand it far better than the teacher (whom you really don’t know whose guidance they are under) who has many degrees after their name. There are many wolves out there, which is easy to see when one looks at the state of the Christian church as a whole. The apostles warned the very first churches about them. Satan lost no time in infiltrating and leading people astray. Do we really want to leave our salvation and understanding of God’s Word to someone who may be a wolf in sheep’s clothing, or do we want to be responsible for our own understanding?

Now the argument comes in, but what about all those people who have tried to study the Bible on their own and have gone way off into all kinds of heretical teachings. The Holy Spirit didn’t guide them into truth. Yes, there are pastors out there who are online teaching all kinds of heresy. If you look closely you will find that there are many similarities between all these people. Many use so-called visions and dreams that they say have given them new revelations. I am not saying that God won’t give visions and dreams, for His Word says that in the end days He will be giving them. What I am saying is that God is not giving new revelations. He said in the book of Revelation that that was the end of the story. Nothing was to be added to the book, so I wouldn’t put much stock in new revelations, especially through visions and dreams. I have found that nobody ever seems to question the source of these visions and dreams. That is the first rule. Satan will give visions and dreams to people seeking them, whether they are Christians or not. And God lets him do it to test these people. Do they test the source of the dream or vision? Do they check to see if it lines up with Scripture, for that is the number one rule. Do they even know enough of Scripture to be able to check to see if it lines up? Unfortunately the answer to that is… probably not. Now this is assuming that the person truly is a born again Christian with an unhindered relationship with God. Do you know for certain what anyone’s relationship with God is? Do you know for certain that they even have the Holy Spirit to guide them? Many people can walk the walk and talk the talk in public without having an internal change of heart. Remember that Satan is going to use the people with the biggest platform to be the biggest deceiver. A person may start out fine in their doctrine and as they grow in fame and popularity, Satan leads them into error. I have seen it happen over and over again. They get high-minded and pride is their downfall. They quench the Holy Spirit and open the door to Satan leading them down a path of total error.

A second problem is that many teachers are now getting their teachings not from the Bible, but from extra-biblical sources that they have elevated to the same level as the Bible. One online preacher seems to spend all of his time in the books of Freemasonry talking about what they teach rather than what the Bible teaches. I realize that it is important to know what Satan is up to and to expose people to the lies out there, I do it myself to an extent, but this man seems to be obsessed with things that should not have become an obsession. It has led him astray in his understanding of the Bible’s teachings. It is fine, once you have a deep-rooted knowledge of the Bible (which must come first) and a lot of discernment to then see what these Satanic sources such as the New Age movement, Extraterrestrials, the occult, fringe Christian cult groups, alternative health practices and such are teaching, for forearmed is forewarned and you can then catch where the demonic sources might be leading people astray and warn them, but one should not become obsessed to the point where it is all that they read and study. Scripture first, other things second. And the balance should always weigh heavily on the side of Scripture to ground you when you read this other information, for it can easily make you doubt or be led astray, if you are not careful. Christ warned us numerous times about being deceived. If any Christian thinks they are above being deceived, they already are deceived.

So the next time someone tells you that you can’t study the Bible alone (and I have been told that by several churches that I am unqualified to study alone and should not attend a Bible study that is led by someone other than a trained, qualified, and approved by the church teacher - much less teach a study myself), just say, “Balderdash.”