Outside of the holy Scriptures, there is no further revelation of God. God’s revelation, from the beginning to the ending, is contained in His word and conveyed to us through His word. If you are going to have God’s revelation, you have to come to the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation. Thus, the end of the book of Revelation warns us not to add anything or cut off anything from the word of God (22:18-19). This is blasphemy, a big sin. The holy Scripture has been completed. The Mormons’ founder, Joseph Smith, claimed that he received some revelation in addition to the Bible. That is demonic. Anyone who claims to have a revelation other than the Bible’s revelation is blasphemous to God.
The word of God becomes the revelation of God through His Spirit (Eph. 1:17). The Bible has been printed in many different languages. The content is the same to everyone, but how can we receive revelation from the Bible? A late Chinese philosopher who was an ambassador to the United States read the Bible, but he received only the letter of the written word. Many Christians have done the same thing. This is wrong.
When we come to the Bible, we have to prepare ourselves. We are getting ourselves prepared to read the word of God, not a newspaper or any secular book. First, we should come to God saying, “God, I am sinful; forgive me. I am mistaken; forgive me. I do not love You; forgive me. Even I do not fear You; forgive me.” We have to make a thorough confession of our sins. Then right away we enter into fellowship with God, and that fellowship is nothing less than God the Spirit. God’s fellowship is God’s Spirit. When we are in the Spirit of God, we are in fellowship with God. When we are outside the Spirit of God, we are not in the fellowship.
We must confess all of our sins to make ourselves pure and clean, without any hindering thing between us and God. Then we are in God’s fellowship. At that time we are in the Spirit of God, and when we come to the Bible, it is different. This is what we have learned—to study the Bible in the Spirit, in God’s fellowship.
Then we have to pray-read, not just read, the Word. As we read Genesis 1:1 we should pray, “God, thank You. In the beginning You created the heavens. O created the heavens! Created the heavens!” Learn to pray-read. Throughout the centuries, all the devoted lovers of the Lord and students of the Bible practiced pray-reading in fact, though they did not have the term pray-reading. Some in the past pointed out that we have to read the Bible prayerfully. To read the Bible prayerfully is to pray-read.
We teach the practice of pray-reading based upon Ephesians 6:17-18. We receive the word of God by means of all prayer, by different prayers—by shouting, by quietness, by singing, etc. I cannot tell you the tremendous amount of benefit I have received from pray-reading. In Ephesians 3 Paul said, “I bow my knees unto the Father…that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit into the inner man, that Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith…that you may be filled unto all the fullness of God” (vv. 14-19). When I read these verses long ago, I could understand only a little. Eventually, I realized that Christ’s making His home in our hearts is His building. Without building, how could there be a home? The only way through which I could get the help to understand these verses was by pray-reading them. There is much truth concerning these verses in the Life-study of Ephesians, and today I can give many more messages on them. A lot of verses in the Bible are beyond our understanding. We must pray-read the word in order to enter into their spiritual significance.
When we pray-read the word, the Spirit gives us the revelation (Eph. 1:17). Through our reading the word prayerfully, the Spirit makes the word a revelation.
(The Triune God's Revelation and His Move, Chapter 1, by Witness Lee)