We’ve all stumbled our way through a dark room. We bump into the chair, the table, or step on a child’s toy while we desperately search for a light switch.  Once the light is on we are able to clearly see everything in the room.

The Bible can sometimes seem like a dark room.  We may read it, but we don’t understand what we read.  The light of understanding is still turned off in our mind, but once it is turned on then understanding comes. The process whereby God turns the light on in our minds is called illumination.  It is a specific act of God whereby we are able to understand the meaning of a particular passage in Scripture.

The apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthian church states what  comes from the Spirit of God is spiritually discerned, meaning that the light switch of our understanding must be turned on by the Holy Spirit.  After his resurrection Jesus walked along the Emmaus road with two of his disciples.  They did not recognize him and were mourning because they thought he was still dead, however the Bible says beginning with Moses and all the prophets he explained to them the Scriptures. He turned on the lights of Scripture for them to understand.

In a sense the Bible is like all other literature; nouns are nouns, verbs are verbs.  In another sense it is unique. It is a book whose spiritual message can only be understood by our spirits when God’s Spirit illumines our minds by turning on the light switch of understanding within us. Perhaps you’ve read a certain passage of Scripture repeatedly without being able to grasp it, then one day someone explains the meaning to you, or perhaps one day it just makes sense. The light gets turned on in our minds.

Once a light is turned on in a room it’s on.  You can’t turn it more on, however our understanding of Scripture can and should continue to get brighter as God’s Spirit does his work in our lives. The Bible is not just a book we read, it’s a book God teaches us by the Holy Spirit turning on our understanding.