The Natural Mind Cannot Understand Spiritual Truths

To understand spiritual truths we need more than diligent study

In the previous posts we began looking at why prayer is important for learning truth about God, his Scriptures, and all the great questions of life. Here is the third surprising reason to pray for understanding.

3. The natural mind cannot understand spiritual truths.

After several years of ministry with his 12 disciples at his side, Jesus posed a question to them: “Who do people say I am?”

The disciples answered that people thought he was John the Baptist restored to life, or Elijah or Jeremiah or another of the prophets of old.

Then Jesus focused the question on the 12: “But who do you say that I am?”

“Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’”

From our perspective, knowing the full story of Jesus, that might seem to have been an obvious answer. But Jesus did not think so. “And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’”

Notice that Jesus did not credit Peter with prescience for figuring this out. He said the Father had “revealed” the truth to him. (Matthew 16:13–17, ESV)

1 Corinthians 2

That word revealed is important. The apostle Paul explains why we need God to reveal spiritual truths to us: “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).

Unaided by the Holy Spirit, you cannot adequately understand spiritual truths about God, his ways, his salvation, and his righteousness—understand them, that is, in the sense that you believe them and respond accordingly.

Therefore you should ask him for such understanding. “You do not have because you do not ask” (James 4:2).

Next week we look at the fourth reason why prayer is an essential guide into truth.