Scriptural Understanding Quotes

No man … ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means.

A native speaker of English who has never read a word of the King James Bible is verging on the barbarian.

Nobody ever outgrows Scripture; the book widens and deepens with our years.

When you read the Bible, you are reading the Holy Spirit and not history books. When you read history books, you are reading about events, but the Bible is not an event. So, when you are reading the Holy Spirit, you are supposed to be carried along by it.

If the Apostles and the writers of the gospels were to enjoy a brief stay on earth and return to the company of men, they would be astonished at how many different analyses and approaches were being used to interpret their books, and how many bizarre constructions had been assembled from the trivial notions of the sophists.

It is necessary for the Bible, in order to be accommodated to the understanding of every man, to speak many things which appear to differ from the absolute truth so far as the bare meaning of the words is concerned.

The Bible has been trapped in modernity. Everything has to work perfectly. And if everything doesn't fit in a Lego-oriented functionality, then we don't deal with it as Christians.

The wearing of fabric head coverings in worship was universally the practice of Christian women until the twentieth century. What happened? Did we suddenly find some biblical truth to which the saints for thousands of years were blind? Or were our biblical views of women gradually eroded by the modern feminist movement that has infiltrated the Church

Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.

Until the Bible begins to talk to us, we really have not been reading it.

Building a godly life on the sand of scriptural illiteracy is impossible.

...There is a great need of more familiarity with the Scriptures and their teaching in order that we may be crushed to our knees with a sense of humility and be made to cry to God that He would visit us again.

This is my only and permanent complaint, that vulgar people, empty of the Spirit of God, want to judge solely by their human thinking what they listen to or read in the Bible, which has been pronounced and written by the Holy Spirit and in the Holy Spirit.

[Copernicus] did not ignore the Bible, but he knew very well that if his doctrine were proved, then it could not contradict the Scriptures when they were rightly understood.

The Bible, of course, is not a theology book. It is certainly not a philosophy book. So we have to derive the meaning of terms from the context in use.

The devil knows the Bible like the back of his hand...

Let us strive, every year we live, to become more deeply acquainted with Scripture.

I believe that the Bible is to be understood and received in the plain and obvious meaning of its passages; for I cannot persuade myself that a book intended for the instruction and conversion of the whole world should cover its true meaning in any such mystery and doubt that none but critics and philosophers can discover it.

Sometimes I, as a public official, turn to Scripture or hymns - especially hymns, because sometimes we Catholics don't have the Scriptures memorized like we should - to help me explain a public policy position or an idea or to be able to articulate it better when you're talking about justice or mercy or compassion.

Whoever seems to himself to have understood the Scriptures in such a way that he does not build up that double love of God and neighbor has not yet understood.

He who is anxious to attain a true understanding of holy Scripture, will discover the spiritual truths which are spoken by it to those who are called "spiritual," by comparing the meaning of what is addressed to those of weaker mind with what is announced to such as are of acuter understanding, both meanings being frequently found in the same passage by him who is capable of comprehending it.

It's a pity people pick and choose what they learn from the Bible.

The Bible is like a telescope. If a man looks through his telescope, then he sees worlds beyond; but if he looks at his telescope, then he does not see anything but that. The Bible is a thing to be looked through, to see that which is beyond; but most people only look at it; and so they see only the dead letter.

I am verily persuaded the Lord has more truth yet to break forth out of His holy word. I beseech you, remember (it is an article of your church covenant) that you be ready to receive whatever truth shall be made known to you from the word of God.

If you find the light of Scripture clearer than the light of reason (which also is given us by divine wisdom), you are doubtless right in your own conscience in making your reason yield. For my part, since I plainly confess that I do not understand the Scriptures, though I have spent many years upon them, and since I know that when once I have a firm proof I cannot by any course of thought come to doubt of it, I rest wholly upon that which my understanding commends to me, without any suspicion that I am deceived therein, or that the Scriptures, even though I do not search them, can speak against it. For one truth cannot conflict with another.