Hindrances to Understanding the Bible CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO

The Bible is a book that we must all read.  Nevertheless, it is very hard to read a book that you don’t understand.  In order to remedy this problem, people initially try to find a Bible that is easier to understand.  However, before you go looking for an “easier” Bible, you might want to consider these hindrances to understanding the Bible.

Hindrances to understanding the Bible:

Laziness – Prov 19:15 – an idle soul suffers hunger – this can be likened to spiritual anemia – the problem with your understanding may be related to how little you are willing to work to obtain the truth – compare Prov 2:2-6 and 2 Tim 2:15 – according to these verses you need to work for the truth.

Impatience – 1 Pet 2:2 – you begin by getting the milk of the word – but a lot of people aren’t satisfied with that and so they buy study Bibles with all the notes in hopes to “hurry up” the process of learning – kindergartners are not capable of handling physics – they need time to learn and to grow and there are no shortcuts to this process.

Evil – Job 28:28 – to depart from evil is understanding – many people can’t understand the Bible because they are only hearers of the word and not doers – your understanding is supernaturally limited when you are living in disobedience to God’s words.

Distraction – 2 Cor 10:4-5 – it is so difficult to concentrate on what you are reading when your mind is distracted by other things – that’s why Paul told us to “think on these things,” [Phil 4:8] – that’s why we are to meditate on the words of God [Ps 1:2] – these exercises keep our minds honed on God’s words and then we are less likely to be distracted.

Neglect – Mk 4:23-25 – you cannot ever hope to learn the words of God by neglecting to read them and to study them – even if you were a good student of the word at one time you will lose what you learned by neglect.

Pride – Lk 10:21 – no matter how hard you try to understand the words of God, if you are proud, the Lord will hide his words from you and you will not be able to understand them – he will give them to a humble child long rather than to a proud scholar –

Conclusion: Considering that most of the modern translations have been written by proud scholars, how do you suppose that they are going to help you understand the Bible better?