The Recording for Session 2 is 415B, titled “Scriptural Quotation Class on Supply,” from the 1961 London Open Class. This class was not used as source material for any book. The recording is no longer available on this site. To purchase this recording and/or the transcript from The Infinite Way Office, click/tap here.
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In this class, Joel continues his instruction on working with the Bible:
“We can take really any subject of human life, and with a Bible and a concordance or a Runner’s Bible we can work out passages for ourselves. Be careful not to use all of the passages [in the Concordance or Runner’s Bible] and be careful not to interpret them the way they are always interpreted. Be very careful, because you are not supposed to be living on somebody else’s word, but on the word of God as it defines itself to you. Don’t accept somebody else’s interpretation. When you go to the word of God, have It interpret Itself for you. My function isn’t really to tell you my particular meanings for all of these Bible passages. I do share some of them with you, not for your acceptance, merely as an illustration.
“I don’t believe that a true religion can be formularized. I don’t believe that anyone can tell you what to think. And I personally don’t tell you, and I don’t believe that anyone should tell you what to think. I’m merely trying to illustrate how to use spiritual passages of Scripture; how to take them into your consciousness and there receive within yourself the spiritual interpretation of them as given to you.”
He also says:
“Do you see that as quotations [Bible passages], they could fool you and trip you up and make you dependent on some theological God somewhere, whereas if you study them to get the meat from them, you are led to the idea behind them?”
[Note: In this class, Joel mentions The Runner’s Bible by Nora Holm. This book was originally compiled in 1910 for busy people “on the run.” It contains more than 1,000 Bible passages and some brief commentaries. The book is available in both new and used editions from Amazon and abebooks,]
Obviously, working with Bible passages as Joel suggests would be an excellent way to study this lesson further. You might take some passage of Scripture that has never been clear to you and work with that. Or, you could take any of the quotations that Joel used in this class on the subject of supply and continue contemplation on them:
You might choose to work with a passage that is new to you. For this, Joel recommended a helpful approach:
“Now, the best approach is this: you meditate—you may even have the Bible in your hands—and you meditate, and you turn within, ‘Father, I’m seeking Thy word. Father, I’m seeking the kingdom of God, the realm of God. I’m seeking that word of life which is life eternal. I’m seeking Thy word. I know man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God, and I know that in this book there are spiritual saints and seers and sages, leaders, saviors, all who have been divinely inspired, and they have written in this book the word of life; and I know that in this book there is a word of life, and I’m going to open it. Father, instruct me. Father, give me light on this volume. Father, lead me back to the very consciousness of your saints and sages and seers who wrote in this book. Let me see the vision they saw; let me hear the words they heard; give me the message that they meant to convey.’
“Then you’re still for a few moments, and you open your Bible. What your experience will be, I don’t know in the beginning, but I know that if you persist in this, the day will come when you will open your Bible, and things will stand out there as if they were in electric lights, and hidden meanings will reveal themselves to you. . . . And so my way of approaching the Bible is, first of all, to pray for spiritual light, for spiritual understanding, and then open the Bible and let God interpret it for you. Meanwhile, you have in my writings all of the passages that have been revealed to me, and every one of those is with power.” (Recording 383A: 1960 Auckland Closed Class, “Healing Principles of The Infinite Way”)