Can the Average Person Understand the Bible?
David Himes
The book of Matthew, chapter 13, in the New Testament is quite an important passage on the subject of understanding the Bible.
Many times today as we talk to people about the Lord's Church, they will come back and tell us that they cannot understand the Bible. They will tell us that they are not interested in studying the scriptures. They don't want to have anything to do with the scriptures because it is impossible for an average person to understand this book.
If we pursue it and ask them why they believe that, many times they will say, "Look at the religious world. If the denominational leaders cannot agree on what the Bible says, then how can a person such as myself ever read the scriptures and determine what God really wants us to know?" Therefore many people around us today have the idea that you cannot understand the Bible.
I would like to ask the question this morning, therefore, worded this way: "Can the average normal person understand the Bible?" We may have visitors or some young people here this morning who possibly in the past have tried to read a few pages of the Bible and maybe it has seemed confusing and maybe you have given up. Nevertheless, you continue to come and so I again ask the question, "Can the average normal person understand the Bible?"
Many people would say you've got to have a Doctor of Divinity Degree to understand this book; or you have to attend a seminary or a theological school; or you have to go to the priest; or you have to go to the so-called pastor of the church and ask him to explain it. Again I ask the question: "Can the average person understand this book?"
The fact that so many people think this book is confusing has produced a lot of ignorance about the Bible. I saw one survey, about 4 months ago, that found that ten percent of Americans today believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. That indicates just how confused people are about the Bible. That is no joke. That is the truth. Ten percent believe that Joan of Arc was Noah's wife. 65% of Americans do not recognize John 3:16 as having come from the Bible. Less than 40% of Americans can name just 4 of the 10 commandments.
I think we are living in a time where there is wide spread ignorance of the Bible. I think a lot of it goes back to this idea that you can't understand it anyway, so why read it.
I would like to share with you a story that I heard. This friend of mine got on one city bus and a lady got on and she started coming down the aisle. He was at the very back of the bus, but she started coming down the aisle passing out these little brochures. He admired her that she was acting on her beliefs. The pamphlet came from a group in Chicago, the Christ Temple Apostolic Faith Church. So she gave one very politely to every person on the bus and then she sat down.
There was an empty seat beside her. So he went over and sat down beside her and I started talking to her. He said, "Does your group believe in baptism?" She said, "Yes." He then said, "In water?" She said, "Yes." "That is immersion?" She said, "Yes." He thought this sounds pretty good. He continued, "In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit?" She said, "No, only in the name of Jesus." He said, "Well, why only in the name of Jesus?" She said, "Because that is all there is to the godhead." She went on to explain this that this group does not believe in the Father or the Holy Spirit.
He knew at this point that he was talking to a member of a Pentecostal group known as the Jesus Only Movement. They think there's only one part of the godhead. There's no Father. There's no Holy Spirit. It's only Jesus, which presents a lot of interesting ideas.
He said, "Well, why do you believe that only Jesus is the godhead?" She said, "Because of Acts 2:38" and she quoted Acts 2:38. "Repent, let each of you be baptized into the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins." He replied, "The Great Commission, though, says that we are to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." She said, "Great Commission? Is that a book in the Bible?" He said, "No. That is at the very end of the book of Matthew." She again had this blank look on her face and from what He could tell she did not even know the book of Matthew was a part of the Bible. They discussed it a few more minutes briefly and she got up and got off at the next stop.
He thought it was interesting that she had the courage to pass out this material and yet she had never heard of the great commission and apparently had never heard of the book of Matthew. If he had had more time to talk with her, he would have explained that in Acts 2 the Jews already believed in the Father. They already believed in the Holy Spirit. It was not necessary to baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit because they believed in 2 out of the 3 parts of the godhead. It was Jesus. That was the key. Therefore, Peter said if you're going to be baptized, it's in the name of Jesus. That's why that is worded that way in Acts 2 verse 38. We here baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Isn’t this a real tragedy? She had a lot of courage and yet she had a gross lack of understanding of the Bible. You see this everywhere you go today, the ignorance of what the Bible really says. Can the average normal person understand this book? If you would look here in Matthew chapter 13 our Lord addressed this question.
Matthew 13 contains 7 parables, and when Jesus started speaking in parables the disciples had a good question for him. The question was: "Why do you speak in parables?" In other words, you tell a story to give a certain message. Why not just skip the story and give us the message? That's not a bad question -- an excellent question in fact. So they asked Jesus this question: "Why not just simplify it so more people can understand it, cut out the stories and just tell us what it is that you want us to learn?" That's the background as we look at Matthew chapter 13.
I want to read verses 10-17. This takes place immediately after the first parable of the sower and the four soils. Matthew 13 verses 10-17:
"And the disciples came and said to Him, why do you speak to them in parables?" And He answered and said to them, "To you it has been granted to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been granted. For whoever has, to him shall more be given, and he shall have an abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has shall be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because while seeing they do not see, and while hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in their case the prophecy of Isaiah is being fulfilled, which says, "You will keep on hearing, but will not understand; and you will keep on seeing, but will not perceive; for the heart of this people has become dull, and with their ear they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn again, and I should heal them. But blessed are your eyes, because they see; and your ears, because they hear. For truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it; and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it."Let's go back; I want to just briefly summarize the statements that our Lord made here. In verse 11 Jesus said it was granted to His disciples to understand the parables. That is very interesting. It has been granted to the disciples to understand the parables.In verse 12, Jesus went on to say that for those that understand these things, they would understand a lot more. The one who has, more shall be given to. Those who do not understand the parables, it shall be taken away from them. In other words, if we understand the Bible, we will understand more and more about it as time goes on. In verse 13, there will be some that will not understand these things.
In verses 14 and 15, the Lord quoted from Isaiah chapter 6, where God wanted a volunteer to go to the Jewish people and warn them to repent. Otherwise, the nation was going to be destroyed. You recall from Isaiah 6 that the prophet Isaiah volunteered for that job. We'll come back to verses 14 and 15 in just a moment.
In verse 16, the Lord was thankful for His disciples because they understood these things. In verse 17, Jesus said the great men and women in the Old Testament looked forward to this time. Therefore, it is your great privilege to see these things occur and to hear the Messiah speak.
Let's go back and look at the total message of verses 10-17. The disciples understood the parables. Many of the Jewish leaders did not. Let us think about some of these Jewish leaders.
Let us think about the Pharisees. Why could the Pharisees not understand these 7 parables in Matthew chapter 13? Was it because they were not smart enough? That wasn't the case. The Pharisees were very intelligent people. They were highly educated. They constantly studied the Old Testament. They were experts in the Old Testament.
So they were educated; they were intelligent; they had the opportunity to see Jesus perform the miracles. They were standing there. We don't have that opportunity. Sad in some ways, but we were not there. The Pharisees were there. They saw Jesus perform the miracles. They saw what took place, and yet in spite of all that they could not understand what Jesus was saying about the gospel.
I ask the question, "Why didn't the Pharisees understand the parables of Matthew chapter 13 and believe them?" Here is the answer: they didn't want to. Notice again, please, verse 15. As the Lord used the quote from Isaiah chapter 6, notice verse 15 very carefully. "For the hearts of this people has become dull. and with their ears they scarcely hear, and they have closed their eyes lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart and turn again, and I should heal them."
These are the words that Isaiah was debating over in his mind. He said, "OK, Lord. Here am I send me." That's in Isaiah chapter 6. "I will preach to the people." In the book of Isaiah, we have 66 chapters on the preaching of the great prophet Isaiah trying to get the people to repent. Why did they not repent after 66 chapters of preaching? They did not repent because they did not want to repent. They were perfectly happy to continue believing what they believed and practicing idolatry and doing the other things they had been doing. Therefore, they closed their eyes; they stopped up their ears; they let their hearts grow dull and the preaching of the great prophet did not succeed in getting the people to repent.
It's the same therefore about the Pharisees in the Lord's day. They did not understand the parables because they did not want to. They preferred to ignore the words of Jesus Christ and continue on their way to their destiny, which was the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD They preferred that route than to change and to listen and to obey the parables of the Lord. Allow me to ask another question: "Why did the Pharisees not want to understand the parables?" Let me suggest three things.
Number one, if they understood the parables they would have lost their position of authority over the Israelites in the first century. The Pharisees liked power. They lusted after power. They did not want to humble themselves, and so many of the parables were about serving others rather than lording the power over others. The Pharisees therefore chose to ignore the parables because they would have lost their power and their authority over the Jewish people.
Number two, the Pharisees liked living in sin. The sin that they were most guilty of was hypocrisy. They liked standing out on the street corner and giving long, wordy prayers so that people would say, "Oh, what a religious man that is. Can't you just see it in listening to his prayer? Can't you just understand how great that man is?" The Pharisees preferred living in the sin of hypocrisy rather than repenting and getting out of that sin. So they lusted after power. They enjoyed the sin they were in.
Number three, they also liked the money involved. If they had listened to the parables and followed through with those messages, they might have had to start working for a living. They didn't want to do that. Therefore, because of the power, because of the pleasure of sin, because of the money, they were in a comfort zone, as we would say today. They did not want to be out of that comfort zone. Therefore, they closed their eyes; they stopped up their ears, they hardened their hearts and they could not understand the parables. They did not want to.
Let's think about the situation today in our society. Isn't it just about exactly the same? Can the average person understand the Bible? The answer is yes, if that person wants to. Well, why would people not want to understand the Bible today? Let's go back to the three reasons that the Pharisees didn't.
Number one, there is the power and the authority. Beloved, there are religious leaders today that I'm convinced must know they are teaching error. We take a subject such as baptism and it is hard to misunderstand that subject. There are highly educated people leading some of our denominational churches today that I just can't believe that they don't understand that they are teaching error. They must know that they are teaching something contrary to the Bible. Why don't they want to change? Because they would lose that power, that authority over others.
I'm going to give one example. This is a statement that was composed by the cardinal of The College of Cardinals in the year 1550 and was delivered to Pope Jules III of Rome. This was the advice of his cardinals concerning what the Catholic Church in the year 1550 AD should do about the Bible.
This was their advice: "The reading of the gospel must be permitted as little as possible, especially in the modern languages and in the countries under your authority. The very little that is read at the mass should be enough and it should be prohibited for anyone to read more. As long as the people are content with that small part, our interests will prosper; but from the moment that the people desire to read more our interests will begin to suffer. Here is the book that more than any other has provoked rebellions against us, storms that have been rising and bringing us loss. In fact, if anyone reads accurately the teaching of the Bible and compares what occurs in our churches, he will soon find out the contradictions and will see that our teaching is far removed from that of the Bible and more often is in opposition to it. If people realize this, they will provoke us without rest until all becomes unveiled and then we will become the objects of ridicule and universal hate. It is necessary that the Bible be taken away and snatched from the hands of the people, however, with as much wisdom as possible, in order not to provoke trouble."
I think we see that same attitude with the people today who are leading some of our denominational churches as we saw back in the days of the Pharisees. They did not want to give up that power. They chose to teach error. They chose not to understand even the simple parables because they knew it would cost them their jobs.
There's a second reason, again referring back to the Pharisees, and that is today that people are involved in sin which they enjoy committing and they're not about to understand the Bible because it would require them to get out of those sins. I'm sure that everyone has heard of the armored truck that turned over and spilled several million dollars out on the pavement. We're all familiar with the mad scramble and even the fistfights that broke out as people tried to steal the money that had been spilled out on the pavement. There was a discussion of that event on a talk radio station I was listening to. People started calling in and quoting the Bible in defense of those who stole the money.
What they were quoting was this; I wrote it down. They said the Bible says this, "The wages of the wicked are set aside for the just." I thought, "Well, I never heard that in the Bible," but I started looking. It sounded like it might be in the Bible, "the wages of the wicked are set aside for the just." In other words, this money was gained wickedly and therefore the just people, if you can call thieves that, had the right to steal the money off the pavement.
So, does the Bible say. "the wages of the wicked are set aside for the just?" I have looked. I've checked several concordances. I could not find that anywhere in the Bible. Maybe it is a perversion of Proverbs 11:18. This is the closest I could come concerning what they were saying the Bible says. Proverbs 11:18 says, "The wicked earns deceptive wages, but he who sows righteousness gets a true reward." That's not the same as saying the wages of the wicked are set-aside for the just. There's a big difference there. The reward is from God. The reward does not come from stealing from the wicked rich.
You might say, "Well, where did they hear this?" I suppose they heard it from some kind of religious leader who tried to justify this; but it's not in the Bible. The Bible does not justify stealing and doesn't say what these people were saying that it said.
Why, though, would they misunderstand the Bible that badly? Because they want to keep the money. That's what it comes down to. They want to justify stealing from others because these others earned that money wickedly; so it justifies their lifestyle. It was the same way with the Pharisees. We could also say today that there might be those that would lose their jobs, as the Pharisees would have, if they had believed the truth.
The point that the Lord was making was this. If people want to understand the Bible, they will be able to understand it. It does not take a Doctor of Divinity Degree from some seminary. It doesn't take even growing up in a Christian family. It doesn't take going to a Christian college. It takes a desire to understand the Bible.
We have an old saying in our society, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." For those that may believe that you cannot understand the Bible, I would say again, "a journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step." Take that first step. I would suggest beginning with the New Testament, with either Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, and take that first step and begin reading it. After reading one or more of the gospels, go to the book of Acts; go to the letters of Paul; to the general letters and so forth.
A Bible dictionary wouldn't hurt any for place names and characters and spellings and pronunciations and so forth. Maybe in some obscure passages, particularly the Old Testament, a commentary would help at least to give the background that is the historical setting of that passage. Yet the most important thing about understanding the Bible is being willing to study the Bible.
Would we say this about any subject today that we want to learn more about? If we want to learn more about mathematics, then we study mathematics. If we want to learn a foreign language, it begins by learning those first few words. If we want to learn the rules of grammar, pronunciation or punctuation, capitalization and so forth, it begins with the desire to learn. The truth is, the more we study the scriptures the easier it will be to understand. The average person can understand this book.
I've learned a lot over the years from my father. And I've learned from him the fact that a sharp tool is much safer than a dull tool. I used to think it was just the opposite - you wouldn't be as likely to cut yourself with a dull ax as you would with a sharp ax. However, I was wrong. My father was right. The sharper a tool is the safer it is. A sharpened ax does not bounce off of the log. It is not as likely to cut your ankle, or cut a toe off or something. The same is true with knives, and with planes and tools used with a lathe, anything such as that. It always is much safer if the tool is sharpened instead of dull.
You know, the Bible speaks of the Word of God as being a tool. In Ephesians 6, verse 17, the Bible says that the Word of God is the sword of the spirit. Beloved, we will do far better when it comes to understanding the Bible if we keep the sword sharp. If we understand the basic principles and we keep studying and we keep working at it, that sword will get sharper and sharper. We will not fall for something such as the Jesus Only movement. We will not have to go to the priest and ask him to interpret the scriptures for us. If we keep that tool sharp, we will understand the Bible. We will know for ourselves what God wants us to do.
We should appreciate the Bible more. It might be good to review from time to time exactly what sacrifices were made to bring us this book. John Wycliffe made the first translation into the English language. He made that translation in the year 1382. The church of that day was so furious at the fact that he had translated the Bible into the language of the people that they condemned him and would have executed him. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I guess we could say, he died first of natural causes. He died before they could execute him. However, 30 years after his death the church of that day ordered that his body be exhumed, and they burned his body to ashes and threw the ashes into the river trying to do away with the influence of John Wycliffe.
Another great person in the history of the English Bible is William Tyndale. Mr. Tyndale also brought the Bible into the language of the common people in the year 1524. There is a book called Fox's Book of Martyrs. If you want to read a book that will grip your heart page after page, then read that book about the sacrifices made by God's people down through the centuries. In Fox's Book of Martyrs you can read William Tyndale's letter from prison. He was in prison for translating the Bible into English.
This is the letter he wrote to the king of England. "I entreat your lordship, that by the Lord Jesus, if I am to remain here during winter, you will request that I be brought enough from my goods to have a warmer cap. For I suffer extremely from cold in the head, being afflicted with a perpetual cough, which has considerably increased in this cell. A warmer coat also, for what I have is very thin. My shirts are worn out. There is in my goods a woolen shirt if you would be so kind as to send it. I also have some leggings of thicker cloth to put on. I wish also to have a lamp for reading in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But above all, I beg and beseech your clemency to the urgent, that the warden may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, my Hebrew Grammar, my Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with that study."
The king did not grant those requests. Shortly after Tyndale's letter from prison was written, he was sentenced to be executed. He died by being strangled. After they killed him that way, they then burned his body at the stake. What was his crime? It was translating the Bible into the English language.
Maybe today we take the Bible for granted. It is very easy just to toss it aside and to say, "Well you can't understand this book." Let us keep in mind the great suffering, the great bloodshed that was endured so that we might have this precious book printed in our language and available at any bookstore in this country.
The truth is that we can understand this book if we will open our hearts to it. If we will determine that we are going to study it as the Word of God, it is understandable. I hope that maybe this passage in Matthew 13 has discouraged anyone from ever saying, "Well, you can't understand this book" again.