The Pharisees placed their faith in the Scriptures rather than in God. This phenomenon is not unusual among Christians. The Bible takes the place of God. The believers attempt to penetrate with increasing depth into the meanings of the Hebrew and Greek terms. Sometimes regarding the knowledge of a text as equivalent to possessing the spiritual realities described in the text takes the place of a genuine experience with God.

Paul declared he was crucified with Christ and Christ now is his life.

One can swear to the inspiration of this statement. One can research carefully the etymology of each Greek word of Galatians 2:20. One can memorize the verse. But such knowledge is not equivalent to being crucified with Christ and being filled with His Life.

One of the most important disciplines of the follower of Jesus is daily study and meditation in the Scriptures—Old Testament and New Testament. Spiritual strength and guidance come to us from the Scriptures. Prayer and the Word are two pillars of discipleship.

There is a common error—the error of the Pharisees. It is the deifying of the Scriptures. The error has been termed "bibliolatry."

The Scriptures are not Christ. The purpose of the Scriptures is to lead us to Christ. The life is in Christ, not in the Scriptures. The knowledge of the Scriptures is not eternal life. Eternal life is Christ. He is the Resurrection and the Life.

How often the seminaries make the mistake of associating learning with godliness!

True faith is an interacting with the living Jesus, not a knowledge of the Scriptures. The Scriptures are our guide to a knowledge of Christ if we mix our knowledge of the Scriptures with prayer and faith. The end of the matter is to know Jesus.

Some day you and I will be standing in the Presence of the Man, Jesus. This is where our discipleship is leading us. He is the living Word. In Him we are becoming the living Word. In Him is life and the life is the light of men. It is not the knowledge of the Scriptures that is faith or light. It is Jesus Himself who is the Light, the Understanding, the Word of God.

The perennial error of the religionists is to confuse their knowledge of spiritual facts with the eternal life of God.

To "know" spiritual truth is not to possess God. The psychics know certain spiritual facts but they do not possess God (as in the case of Balaam).

One will say, "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." That is the truth. True faith is an interaction with God, and "hearing" has to do with inner spiritual perceiving and laying hold on, not with the registering of sound waves on the human ear and intellectual understanding of the content. "He who has ears to hear, let him hear."

Hebrews 10:38 repeats the declaration of Habakkuk that "the just shall live by his faith." Then the eleventh chapter of the Book of Hebrews defines faith.

To be continued.