Charles Spurgeon on How to Read the BibleSýnishorn

The Word of God is always most precious to the man who most lives upon it. As I sat last year under a wide-spreading beech, I was pleased to mark with prying curiosity the singular habits of that most wonderful of trees, which seems to have an intelligence about it which other trees have not. I wondered and admired the beech, but I thought to myself, I do not think half as much of this beech tree as yonder squirrel does. I see him leap from bough to bough, and I feel sure that he dearly values the old beech tree because he has his home somewhere inside it in a hollow place; these branches are his shelter, and those beechnuts are his food. He lives upon the tree. It is his world, his playground, his granary, his home; indeed, it is everything to him, and it is not so to me, for I find my rest and food elsewhere.

If we ask the guidance and teaching of the Holy Spirit, it will follow, dear friends, that we shall be ready to use all means toward the understanding of the Scriptures. When Philip asked the Ethiopian eunuch whether he understood the prophecy of Isaiah, he replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” (Acts 8:31). Then Philip went up and opened to him the Word of the Lord.

Who understands a book best? The author of it. If I want to ascertain the real meaning of a rather twisted sentence, and the author lives near me, and I can call upon him, I shall ring at his door and say, “Would you kindly tell me what you mean by that sentence? I have no doubt whatever that it is very clear but I am such a simpleton that I cannot make it out. I have not the knowledge and grasp of the subject you possess, and therefore your allusions and descriptions are beyond my range of knowledge. It is quite within your range, and commonplace to you, but it is very difficult to me. Would you kindly explain your meaning to me?”

A good man would be glad to be thus treated and would think it no trouble to unravel his meaning to a candid enquirer. Thus I should be sure to get the correct meaning, for I should be going to the fountainhead when I consulted the author himself. So, beloved, the Holy Spirit is with us, and when we take His book and begin to read and want to know what it means, we must ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning. He will not work a miracle, but He will elevate our minds, and He will suggest to us thoughts that will lead us on by their natural relation, the one to the other, till at last we come to the pith and marrow of His divine instruction. Seek then earnestly the guidance of the Holy Spirit, for if the very soul of reading be the understanding of what we read, then we must in prayer call upon the Holy Ghost to unlock the secret mysteries of the inspired Word.