Coming to a real understanding of the actual meaning of God’s word is no simple matter. Don’t just think that you can interpret the literal meaning of all God’s words, and everyone says your interpretation is good and gives you a thumbs-up, so it means you understand God’s word. That is not the same as understanding God’s word. If you have obtained some light from within God’s word and you have figured out the real meaning of God’s word, if you can say what the significance of God’s word is and what ultimate effect it brings, only when this is all clear is there some level of understanding of God’s word. So, understanding God’s word is not quite so simple. Just because you can give a beautiful explanation of the letter of God’s word does not mean you understand it. No matter how you interpret the letter of God’s word it is still the imagination and way of thinking of man and is useless.
from “How to Know Man’s Nature” in Records of Christ’s Talks
You think that mastering knowledge of the truth is particularly important, and so is learning by heart many passages of God’s words. But how people understand the word of God is not important at all. You think it is extremely important for people to be able to memorize many of God’s words, to be able to speak much doctrine and to discover many formulas within God’s words. Therefore, you always want to systematize these things so that everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet and saying the same things, so that everyone speaks the same doctrines, has the same knowledge and keeps the same rules—this is your objective. You do this as though to make people understand better, when on the contrary you have no idea that by doing this you are bringing people into the midst of rules that are outside of the truth of God’s words. To make people have a real understanding of the truth, you must join with reality, join with the work, and bring people before God. Only in this way can people master the truth. If your efforts are only directed toward applying formulas and rules to written words, then you will not be able to reach an understanding of the truth, will not be able to lead others into reality, and will much less be able to allow others to experience more change or understand more of themselves.
