Introduction

The Bible is the single most “studied” book in history. One could obtain a doctorate in theology from any branch of Christian thinking and assume that “what the Bible says” is marked out and known. And, of truth, many also assume that one needs such an education in order to write a credible text on hermeneutics, on how to study and interpret the Bible. How else could one know what the Bible is about?

But then the words of Jesus hit us right between the eyeballs, or, shall I say, right in the gut. If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes on me, out of his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38).

Something deep inside of us says, “What is this thirst?” We study everything they tell us about “what the Bible says,” but the thirst remains. What is it that we are to drink? 

We read again, Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:13).

We realize just how thirsty all that Bible study has left us. What is this water that Jesus claims is inside of us springing up as fountains of life? And how does Jesus give us this water? 

Finally, we read these words: If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him (John 14:23).

We are astonished beyond measure – the Father make His home with me? Surely this must be the most studied topic in Bible interpretation! Surely many before us, searching their Bibles, have found just exactly what Jesus means in this words!

But when we search all the dusty tomes of Bible interpretation, we do not find any mention of the last part of John 14:23. What little reference there might be points directly at “keep My word,” and tells us, without question, that first we have to “obey” God’s word, then, after that, someday, we might know what this means.

And our hearts are filled with sorrow, for we know that we fail God at every point. What hope have we?

Yet the thirst remains. And the thirst grows. We long to know this God who seems to be speaking to us in the Bible, speaking to something deep inside that longs to know.

We go back to thirst – If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink. What does this mean? How do we go to Jesus and what is it that we drink? Most Bible interpreters assure us that Jesus is far away from us right now, up there in heaven, sitting on a big throne. They assure us that we should not be concerned about such questions, that we will know what it’s all about only after we die and go to heaven. They caution us regarding all those people in church history who let their thirst carry them away into all sorts of “non-Biblical” ideas.

A light goes on inside our hearts. “Non-Biblical?” we ask. John 7:37 sure does seem to me to be “in the Bible.”

WHAT DOES GOD ACTUALLY SAY in His word to me? I have a Bible. If all these Bible interpreters want to keep me away from Jesus and Jesus far away from me, then what “Bible” are they teaching me?

This book you have in your hands is a different approach to “Bible study” than the approaches you will find in most theological colleges. It is a text that comes out of forty years of a different kind of “study,” a study coming out of unquenchable thirst, a determination to find this Jesus in God’s word, this Jesus whom everyone says is something or somewhere else. It is a study coming out of a single-minded devotion to see just exactly what God does actually say in His word, every time some preacher shouts, “The Bible says.” It is a study coming out of tears and sorrows, out of failure and ruin – out of hours spent upon one’s face before a Holy and a Mighty God. 

There is one qualification required for anyone to approach the Bible in the way presented in this text.

DO YOU THIRST?

If you do, then come, come to Jesus where He IS, the only place you will ever find Him – and drink.