The answer from God’s word:
“To understand God’s word is not so simple. It is not that if you can give a literal superlative interpretation of God’s word, it means that you have understood God’s word. Literal interpretation is no more than man’s imagination and man’s thinking, and it is of no use! What is the way of interpreting God’s word? What is the way of understanding God’s word? The key to understanding God’s word is to understand it in God’s word. In speaking each word, surely God is not just speaking a general word, and there is specific content in it. The specific content is surely disclosed somewhere else in God’s word, and maybe it is spoken of in some other ways. The way God expresses the truth cannot be fathomed by man. God’s word is very profound and man cannot fathom it by the way of his thinking. With the truth of each aspect, as long as you exert efforts, you can find out its complete meaning, and its details will be fully supplemented when you in experience receive the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit and acquire the knowledge of the specific states. On the one hand, you understand God’s word from God’s word and find the specific content from God’s word; on the other hand, you understand the meaning of God’s word through experiencing God’s word and receiving the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment. The true understanding of God’s word is mainly achieved through these two aspects. If you interpret God’s word literally or by your thinking and imagination, even if you give a very superlative interpretation, it does not mean that you have truly understood. You may even interpret God’s word out of context and misinterpret it. That would be even worse, wouldn’t it? So, one gains the truth mainly through receiving the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment in knowing God’s word; one cannot be considered as having gained the truth if he can understand and interpret God’s word literally. If literal interpretation could do, what would be the use of the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment? It would be enough if one has a certain level of education. Then the uneducated ones would have difficulties! God’s work cannot be fathomed by man’s mind. And it is mainly through the Holy Spirit’s enlightenment that one can have a true knowledge of God’s word. This is the course of gaining the truth.”
from “How to Know Man’s Nature” in Christ’s Talks With Church Leaders and Workers
“God directs His word to all people. If you are willing to read it, He will enlighten you, but if you are not, He will not. God enlightens those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and those who seek Him. Some say that God did not enlighten them even after they read His word. How were the words read? If you skimmed through briefly and placed no importance on reality, how could God enlighten you? How could one who does not treasure the word of God be perfected by Him? If you do not treasure the word of God, then you will have neither truth nor reality. If you treasure His word, then you will be able to practice truth; it is then that you will have reality. So you must eat and drink of the word of God whatever the situation, whether you are busy or not, whether the circumstances are adverse or not, and whether you are being tried or not. All in all, the word of God is the foundation of man’s existence. None can turn away from His word and must eat of His word as if they are the three meals of the day. Could it be such a simple matter to be perfected and gained by God? Whether or not you understand at present or whether you have insight into the work of God, you must eat and drink more of the word of God. This is entering in a proactive way. After reading the word of God, hasten to put into practice what you can enter into, and set aside for the moment what you cannot. There may be much of the word of God that you cannot understand in the beginning, but after two or three months, perhaps even a year, you will. Why is this? This is because God cannot make man complete in a day or two. Most of the time, when you read His word, you may not understand at the moment. At that point, it may seem like nothing more than text; only through a period of experience are you able to understand. God has spoken much, so you should do your utmost to eat and drink of His word. Without realizing it, you will come to understand and the Holy Spirit will enlighten you. When the Holy Spirit enlightens man, it is often without man’s awareness. He enlightens and guides you when you thirst and seek. The principle by which the Holy Spirit works is centered on the word of God of which you eat and drink.”
from “The Age of Kingdom Is the Age of Word” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
“That you are required to create the style of Peter of the nineties means that every one of you is required to practice God’s words, to truly enter into them in your experience, and to cooperate with God yourself so as to receive more and greater enlightenment from God, which will be more helpful to your life. If you read many of God’s words and only understand them literally but do not experience them in your actual experience, you will not know God’s words, and God’s words will not be life but dead letters to you. If you only observe the dead letters, you will not be able to touch the substance of God’s words and will not know what God’s will is. If you experience God’s words in your actual experience, their spiritual meaning will be unlocked to you at that time. Only in experience can you touch the spiritual meaning of many truths. Only in experience can you unlock the mystery of God’s words. If you do not practice God’s words, however clearly they are spoken, in your hand they will become empty letters and doctrines and become your religious regulations. Isn’t this just what a Pharisee does? If you practice and experience God’s words, they will be reality to you. If you do not pursue to practice them, they will be like the legends of the third heaven to you. Actually, the course of your believing in God is a course for you to experience God’s word and a course for you to be gained by God. To put it more plainly, believing in God is to know, understand, experience, and live out God’s word. This is the reality of your believing in God. If you, while believing in God, only desire to receive eternal life but do not pursue to practice God’s words to make them become something of yours, you are all foolish ones. This is like a man who attends a banquet. He only has a look at what delicious food there is at the banquet and bears it in his mind but does not personally taste it. Isn’t he a foolish man?
What are contained in God’s word are all the truths man should have. They are most beneficial and helpful to man, are nourishment and nutriment your body needs, are to help man to be restored to the normal humanity and are the truths man should be equipped with. The more you practice God’s word, the faster your life will grow; the more you practice God’s word, the more you will become clear about the truth. When your stature grows, you will see the things of the spiritual realm more clearly, and thus you will have more strength to overcome Satan. Many truths you do not understand will become clear to you through your practicing God’s words. Most people are content to understand God’s words literally and pay attention to equipping themselves doctrinally, but they pay no attention to experiencing them more deeply in practice. Isn’t this Pharisees’ practice? Can they have the reality of the word ‘having God’s word as life’ by doing so? It is after practicing God’s word, not after reading God’s word, that man’s life grows. If you simply think that one will have life and have a stature as long as he understands God’s word, your knowledge is erroneous. Only when one practices the truth can he truly understand God’s word. You should know the words ‘It is through practicing the truth that one understands the truth.’ Today after you read God’s word, it can only be said that you have ‘known’ God’s word, but not that you have already ‘understood’ God’s word. Some people say that one has to first understand the truth before practicing the truth. This is only half right, not completely accurate. Before you know a truth, it is the time you have not experienced the truth. Even if you feel that you have understood it when listening to a message, you have not truly understood it; you have only understood the letter of the truth but not the true meaning of the truth. Your knowing the surface of the truth does not mean that you have understood the truth and known the truth. The true meaning of the truth is gained in experience. So, only through experiencing the truth can you understand the truth, only in experience can you touch the hidden part of the truth, and only when your experience deepens can you grasp the inner meaning of the truth and understand the substance of the truth.”
from “Practice the Truth After Understanding It” in The Word Appears in the Flesh
“To practice the truth and understand the truth, first you have to understand the substances of the difficulties you meet and of the matters happening around you, what problems they are, and which aspects of the truth they involve. You have to seek these. That is, you have to seek the truth through the actual difficulties of yours. And by gradually experiencing like this, you will see God’s hand in each matter happening around you and see what God wants to do and the result He wants to achieve in you. … What do you need to do first in pursuing the truth? First, you need to eat and drink God’s word more, listen to the fellowship more, and seek more. After having eaten and drunk your fill, you will grow fast. When you have stature, you will be able to do some things and withstand some trials and some temptations. Then you will feel that you have truly gained some truths and understood some truths, and also feel that the word God says is really what man needs, is just what man should receive, and is just the unique truth in the world that can give man life.”
from “The Importance and the Way of Pursuing the Truth” in God’s Fellowship and Preaching
