The answer
a. Read the Holy Bible with love: St. Jacob of Sarug says, “He who loves learns
much, for love opens the door to receiving the word.”131
b. Read the Holy Bible while asking for the grace of God: “Grace is moved by the
request of the one who asks; and the fountain of grace draws near and unites with the
mind of one who asks, despite his poverty and affliction, to give him what he asked of it.”
c. Put off the love of the world which blinds the soul from the perceiving the truth:
St. Jacob of Sarug says, “Were it not that the love of the world blinds our souls, preventing them from seeing the riches of Christ’s care, the great treasures buried in the volumes of the holy books would be clearly visible to our souls … If the soul were unclothed in the purity of its nature, rather than clothed with strange love, it would be easy for it to look, see, search, find, comprehend, receive everything it asks, to do whatever it wants, and to speak to benefit others.”
d. Read the Holy Bible in humility: St. Jacob of Sarug says, “If the soul is not
submerged under the earth in humility, it can never see the beauty of the Bible, for its beauty is present only where humility is evident.”
e. Read the Holy Bible with the spirit of praise: St. John Chrysostom says, “Teach
[your son] to sing those psalms which are so full of the love of wisdom; as at once concerning chastity, or rather, before all, of not keeping company with the wicked, immediately with the very beginning of the book [of Psalms].”132
Fr. Tadros Yacoub Malaty
Notes
131 Memre 6 on the star that appeared to the wise men and on killing the children (see the text of Paul Bedjan and Dr. Fr. Behnam Sony).
132 St John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians 9 (NPNF I/13:301), amended.