Ankerberg Show

Guest (Male): Welcome to the John Ankerberg Show discipleship segment. Whether you've recently discovered your faith in Christ or have been a long-time follower, we aim to provide you with the tools and encouragement to strengthen your relationship with Him.

We are dedicated to equipping you to confidently share the hope that resides within you, as instructed in 1 Peter 3:15. Join us now for the John Ankerberg Show discipleship segment as we embark on this journey of spiritual growth and learning together.

Do you know that every day God wants to speak to you and give you wisdom? He wants to strengthen you with His love and power. One of the primary ways He does this is through the Bible. But what exactly is the Bible? How does God speak to you through it? And what difference does the Bible make in your life? Join us today as we discuss these questions in this session of the John Ankerberg Show.

John Ankerberg: Welcome. Our topic today is, "What is the Bible? What good is it? If you read it, what will happen to you?" All right. I'm John Ankerberg, and my guests are Sunder Krishnan and his wife Shamila.

When you first invited Jesus to come into your life, people said, "Read the Bible." So you take this book and you look at this Bible and you say, "What am I going to find in this book?" What were you expecting and what happened? What is the Bible?

Sunder Krishnan: This is probably an area in which I was completely surprised. Søren Kierkegaard is a Danish philosopher who said life is lived forward and understood backward. I now know much better what was happening to me, although at that time, I didn't. I just started reading the Bible. In fact, I was already reading it before I came to that point when I became a follower of Jesus.

Then I made one of the most amazing life-transforming discoveries. I was actually waiting for my friend to come out to play, and I was rummaging through a set of books that were destined for the garbage heap. I was just killing time and I happened to pick up a book which was actually a commentary on the Book of Romans, which was one of the letters that St. Paul, who was a leader of the early church, wrote to the church explaining Christian truth.

I was so fascinated by it, and since it was a book that was destined to be thrown away, I took it away and I just started reading it. Every night I found myself spending an hour or two just studying this one book of Romans. Nobody told me I was supposed to read the Bible. This is where God was already at work.

The beautiful thing is this is where the analytical mind that God had given me came into play. For as I began to study, I began to understand why Jesus came, what really happened, and that was just exciting. I have never looked back. That was 54 years ago. For these 54 years, I have continued to love, teach, and study the Bible.

John Ankerberg: People ask, they listen to you and they say, "I've read the Bible, but it doesn't seem to do anything for me. Why is it that it doesn't do something for many people out there, and why is it that it did do something for you?"

Sunder Krishnan: I think there are probably a wide variety of answers because sometimes there are certain natural giftings that we have that socket together perfectly into a study approach to the Bible, like in my case. What happens in other cases is then people make the mistake of thinking there's only one way to study the Bible. You have to become a student, you have to get commentaries, you have to learn Greek and Hebrew, which isn't true.

The other discovery that I made is that God's Word describes itself not primarily as a conveyer of information, but it uses metaphors that speak of food. The Bible is bread. The Bible is water. The Bible is honey. Then most important of all, the Bible is the voice of the living God that speaks to us. So my encouragement to people who might say they didn't react that way to the Bible is to say, "Change the way you approach the Bible."

John Ankerberg: I would say one more thing too, Sunder. I've found a lot of people have said to me, "I've read the Bible and I didn't get anything out of it." I automatically wondered: Did they ever ask Jesus to come into their life so that Jesus can help them understand His Word?

I'm not saying that everybody that reads the Bible is a Christian, but I always want to ask, if you're having trouble understanding the Word of God, why not first of all have a personal relationship with Jesus? Say, "I want to follow you." And then if you have said that and you meant it, then ask Jesus for some help because it's His book.

Sunder Krishnan: Right. The Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, he says the natural man, meaning human beings in their natural state, cannot understand the Word of God. Exactly what you said is so crucial, that we first have to become spiritual men. That doesn't mean perfect; it means people in whom the Spirit of God is alive.

That's what happens when we accept Jesus' invitation to trust in him for our salvation. He says, "I will live in you by the Spirit." And now we have the Spirit of Christ living within us. He says these truths are spiritually discerned.

What is important for us to do is to actually ask the Holy Spirit to open God's Word. In the Book of the Psalms, in Psalm 119, there's a verse that says, "Open my eyes that I might behold wondrous things out of your law." We need the continuous unfolding, illuminating work of the Holy Spirit to help us to understand mere ink words to become the voice of God that actually speaks to us.

Shamila Krishnan: Just what Sunder was saying, I was thinking of the two men on the road to Emmaus right after Jesus rose from the dead. It says when He opened the scriptures, their hearts were stirred; their hearts actually burned within them. If you're just going to read it as a religious book, that's all it will be, for information. But if you're reading it keeping in mind that it's the voice of the living God speaking to you—and who does not want to hear the voice of the living God?—then He will open the scriptures to you by His Holy Spirit.

Truly your heart will be stirred. For me, it took me a long time to get to that understanding. As you said too, when you say you're going to follow Jesus, it doesn't mean everything falls into place, all the pennies drop into the slot. Over time, you begin to understand and even understand what the scriptures are. They really reveal the heart of God.

There's lots of story, there's lots of truth, but behind all of that, for me, that has so stirred my heart is to discover this God, this Jesus whom I'm following—His heart for me, His heart for the neighbors, my neighbors, His heart for the world. So I think it's very important not just that you read, but how you read it or the approach with which you come to read it. Now when I open the scriptures, I always preface my time by saying, "Holy Spirit, I'm here to hear your voice."

John Ankerberg: I like to think of when we say "the Word of God." You've got to think about what does that mean? The one who just spoke and the universe came into existence. The one who controls everything right now. The one who created our world.

I think of Moses and the children of Israel, and they went up to Sinai. God says, "Don't even touch the mountain or you'll die." And they could hear God speaking. Or when Jesus was on the mount and all of a sudden out of heaven the words came, "This is my Son, whom I am well pleased. Listen to him." Boy, if we were standing on a mountain someplace and out of the heavens booming came a voice saying, "I'm God and listen to this."

In essence, we have 66 books put into a book called the Bible. God says, "This is my information that I want to give to you." It has all kinds of stories about people's failures, it has about forgiveness, it has the plan of God through the ages, of where history is headed. It talks about why Jesus came, who He is, what He's done for us. It is food for us to grow each day that keeps Christians strong. Maybe you can tell a little bit more about this thing of we need the Word of God to live spiritually each day. It does so many things for us spiritually. What are a few of those?

Sunder Krishnan: Well, I think the first that comes to mind right away is the psalmist in Psalm 19 when he speaks about God's law. He loves this law so much. Most of us think when we have to read the Bible, "Oh, that's a book of do's and don'ts," and I feel more guilty after I read it. Whereas in fact, he uses six different ways to describe the law. He's so fascinated by it.

He says the law of the Lord is perfect or comprehensive and it restores my soul. It brings about a work of integration. Our lives are pulled apart in so many pieces. God's Word has an integrating effect and pulls it together. Then it says that God's statutes are trustworthy and make simple people wise. In other words, I get wisdom for navigating life; I can be surefooted.

It says the precepts of the law are right and bring joy to the heart. This book was written thousands of years ago, and I have read it 45 times from cover to cover. No other book have I read that many times, and I still get joy from it because they are right. Then it says the commandments of the Lord are radiant; they enlighten your eyes.

When you're walking in darkness, we need light more than anything else. God's Word is a lamp; it's a light. Then he says the fear of the Lord, which is a synonym for God's law, is pure and it endures forever. It builds stability and purity into our lives when there are so many things that are unstable. Finally, he says it is sweeter than honey in the honeycomb. It is something that you actually develop a relish for, and the words are like music in your ears. Those are the quick summary of the six things God's Word does.

John Ankerberg: I like it. We're going to take a break, but one thing I was going to say is that as you look at the world, and you look at families in the world, and you look at people in the world, would you say that most of your friends, their life is a mess? They've got problems. They've got doubts. They've got fears.

How do you get out of a mess if you are part of it? If you're puzzled and you don't know how to bring peace into your own family or to live happily, how do you do that? May I suggest that you first of all put your faith in Jesus and become a follower of Jesus, and then open His Bible and start to follow what He says?

You will find that He will put the pieces of your life together and He will bring harmony out of what was disharmony. He will start to lead you in a way that will bring joy into your life. We're going to talk more about that when we come right back. Stick with us.

Guest (Male): Join us next time for part two of our discipleship series, "Follow Me: Experiencing the Joy of Walking with Jesus," as Sunder and Shamila pick up where we left off this week.

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