4 Attitudes A Believer Should Have Toward The Scriptures

1. A believer has an innate love for the Scriptures.

Imagine for a moment that you have a loved one who lives far away, and that you can only communicate with him or her through snail mail. What would it be like to receive a letter from that loved one after a long time? You would probably be eager to read what your loved one has written to you. You would pore over every word, being careful to take in everything your loved one wishes to communicate to you. Your loved one’s words would mean a lot to you because he or she is someone whom you love, and someone who you know loves you too!

This is very much like the relationship between God and a believer. Since a believer is someone who loves God and is loved by God, he has an innate love for the word of God. Hence, with the eagerness of someone who has received a letter from a loved one, a true believer would always seek to learn, understand, believe, preach and live by the Scriptures.

2. To a believer, the Scriptures are the highest form of revelation from God.

2 Peter 1:19
and we have more firm the prophetic word, to which you do well to pay attention...

As Christians, we love God, and we want to know him more. Moreover, we want to discern truth from error and right from wrong regarding the things of God. How can we do that? Many Christians determine the truth of God according to their experiences. However, this is not Biblical.

In 2 Peter 1:16–21, the Apostle Peter talks about how we can know the truth of God. From Peter’s attitude toward the Scriptures, we learn that according to God, the Scriptures are superior to and more authoritative than even first-hand supernatural experiences!

A believer is someone who esteems according to how God esteems, and sets his priorities according to God’s priorities. Hence, a true believer would discern truth about the things of God by the Scriptures, and not by anything else—feelings, circumstances, or even personal experiences of the supernatural!

3. A believer seeks to grow in practical righteousness through the Scriptures.

Every true believer has an innate desire to live a life of righteousness according to God. First John 2:29 says that “every one who does righteousness has been born from him,” because it is in their new, born again nature to do righteousness. However, this does not mean that believers are perfect in practical righteousness.

In Psalm 119, we see the heart of a true believer yearning to live righteously according to God, even though he realises that he is not perfect. In verse 5, he exclaims, “Oh, that my ways were established to keep your statutes!” In verse 9, he asks, “How can a young man make blameless his path?” How can a believer like him walk in practical righteousness? He answers this question in the next half of the verse: “By keeping according to your word.”

The Apostle Paul affirms this in 2 Timothy 3:16, where he says that “every scripture is God-breathed and [therefore] profitable... for training which is in righteousness.” From this, we learn that the Scriptures are the means by which God causes the believer to grow in righteousness.

4. The Scriptures are as vital to a believer as food

Matthew 4:4
... [Jesus] said, “It is written: ‘The man shall not live on bread only, but on every word that is going out through the mouth of God.’ ”

In writing about the previous three attitudes, I only implied that a true believer would want the Scriptures. However, according to Jesus, a believer does not just want the Scriptures, he actually needs them!

In Matthew 4:4, Jesus quoted a passage from the Old Testament Scriptures which likens the word of God to the food which a human being depends on for the continuation of his life. We need food. Without food, we would cease to live; we would die. Likewise, a true believer needs the word of God as if his life depends on it; because it actually does!