Small Group Bible Study
OUR DIVINE TEACHER
Small Group Bible Study
OUR DIVINE TEACHER
The Holy Scriptures reveal to us the profoundest, loftiest, most important truths that can ever occupy the human mind – truths divinely revealed through the Bible and that could not be discovered through human searching and investigation alone. In the pages of the Bible are revealed to us the truth about God, sin, Satan, salvation, the Son of God, holiness, heaven, the world to come, the ultimate destines of the earth, the Church, and the wicked dead. The themes of the Bible are not contrary to human reason, but they can never be understood by the natural mind alone (1 Cor. 2:6-9, 14 and 15). For this reason a Divine teacher is sent to instruct us in and reveal to us the truth God has inscribed in the pages of His Word. This teacher is none other than the Holy Spirit, significantly spoken of as the Spirit of truth (Jn. 14:17; 16:13).
On the night when He was betrayed, our Lord said to His disciples, “The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you” (Jn. 14:26). “When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come” (Jn. 16:13).
The Apostle John, writing sixty years after our Lord spoke these words, reasserts this same important truth: “And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as His anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him” (1 Jn. 2:27). The teaching of the Spirit causes the divine truth to enter into the soul, giving it reality within us; it alone makes the Holy Word of God, the Bible, a truth for us.
There can hardly be anything more important for a devoted, obedient believer in these days, when so much false teaching abounds, deceiving so many, than to be taught day by day, by the Holy Spirit through the Bible. The eternal truths are revealed to us in the Holy Scriptures. The first requirement for enrollment in His school is to be born again of the water and the Spirit (Jn. 3:3-8). Unless we have been born again and have the Spirit of God within us, we cannot expect to be taught by the Spirit. Furthermore we should be careful in our daily life to walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit (Rom. 8:4); that we do not grieve (Eph. 4:30), or resist (Acts 7:51) the Holy Spirit. If we are daily yielded to Him, reading and meditating on the Holy Word of God; if we are led by Him, we should confidently expect to be taught by Him. He loves to accomplish in us that for which He was sent. The gift of the Holy Spirit is available to everyone (Acts 2:37-41).
