The following is an excerpt from Dr. Price's book:

Beware! The Lies of Satan

Many times -- especially if a person has come from a traditional religious background and is not familiar with our ministry -- we have had visitors come to Crenshaw Christian Center for a Sunday worship service without a Bible. They are ready to sit like a bump on a log, sing a few songs, and be preached to before they go out to Sunday brunch. They see everyone around them pick up their Bibles just before I start teaching, watch them turn to each scripture I mention, and either "get with the program" quickly or feel like a fish out of water.

That is not the fault of these people. It is an attitude that has been bred into many people: The preacher is your spiritual guide, and the preacher is always right. He will tell you everything you need to know about living the Christian life. You do not need to know anything on your own.

It is also a highly dangerous attitude, because, in most cases, the preacher may not have read the Bible himself. He may know what the denomination, the seminary, and tradition says about a particular subject, but he may not know what God has to say. The preacher is just as human as you are, which means he may give you the wrong information, because what he says and what God says can be entirely different.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Granted, this may seem an extreme case, but it will illustrate my point. I do not say this to denigrate this person, but to use him as an example of what I am talking about, and the tragic results which can result from it. Also, since what happened to this person and the people in his ministry took place several years ago, it has become something of public record.

Just after I came into the knowledge of the Word, and started learning what the Bible said about how God can work supernaturally in our lives, one of the people at the church I pastored told me about the Reverend Jim Jones. This person said that great spiritual and supernatural things were happening in his ministry.

I was interested in anything that was supernatural in terms of the things of God, and I wanted to be right there when God was operating supernaturally, in order to learn everything I could. This person told me that Jones was having some meetings in the Los Angeles area, so I went with a friend of mine to see what was going on.

By the time we got to the auditorium where the meeting was held, the place was packed, and we got two seats in the last row of the auditorium. The place was literally rocking, and the congregation had been singing for quite some time. All of a sudden, a lady in the front row jumped out of her seat and said, "Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus."

Jones had been sitting on the platform all this time, quiet, with a pair of dark sunglasses on. When he heard this lady, he came to the platform. He stared down at the lady, and with a stern voice, he told her, "We will have none of that here! You have to get my teaching."

When I heard Jones say this, my first thought was, "You mean we cannot praise the Lord here? We cannot say, 'Thank you, Jesus'?"

Later, when he got into his message, Jones told the congregation, "You do not need this Bible. You have to get my teaching. Even Jesus said, when He sent His disciples out, 'Carry no script with you,' and script is short for Scripture. You do not need this Book!"

We got out of that place very quickly. To show you that you definitely need "this Book," a few years later, Jones convinced hundreds of his followers to quit their jobs, sell their houses, and follow him to the jungles of Guyana. Eventually, he ordered them all to take communion with poisoned Kool-Aid, and had them all commit suicide.

The Apostle John warns us in 1 John 4:1, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. In order to test the spirits, we need something as a guide to test them with. That guide is the Word of God. If you remove the Bible, you have nothing to measure with.

There is no way the Holy Spirit will say, "We do not need this Book." He gives you only things based on the Word of God, and everything God tells the Holy Spirit to give you is based directly on it. There is no doubt that God uses men to proclaim the Gospel, but you have to try the spirit that is behind what the man is saying. The only way you will know is by the Word of God.

Even when you cannot initially understand what someone is saying or teaching, the basis for your accepting or rejecting it should be the Word of God. The Holy Spirit should witness to you as to whether or not what that man is saying is right, but the Word will act as a bridge for that revelation. In fact, I constantly encourage people to check out what I am saying by looking it up in the Word. That way, they will know that they know what the Bible says about what I am talking about.

The bottom line is, the devil wants you to stay ignorant. He does not want you to learn what God has available for you through Jesus Christ, what rights are yours, or that through Christ you have the victory over that dude in all areas of your life. Satan wants you one way -- whipped, defeated and ignorant -- so he can keep messing you up every chance he gets.

The only way you will get out of that rut is by studying the Word for yourself. Yes, you should go to a church where they meet your spiritual needs. Yes, you should go to Bible study. Yes, it is a good idea to listen to cassette tapes and watch TV programs where they teach the uncompromising Word. However -- and this is a big however -- if you do not check out what they are saying with the Word, and continue to build on that foundation by studying the Word on your own, you will get very little real benefit out of it.

Notice what the Holy Spirit says through the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 2:15:

The fact this verse says rightly dividing indicates you can wrongly divide if you do not study. The only reason you use rightly is to distinguish from wrongly.

We are told, in effect, to be diligent. The traditional  King James Bible puts it even more bluntly, telling us, Study to shew thyself approved unto God. Very few people take the time and effort to study. They do not realize there is a difference between reading and studying. When you study something, you go over it again and again, until it is virtually a part of you.

God has fully revealed Himself and made Himself fully available to us through His Word. It is an encyclopedia of facts, a history book on the subject of Christianity, and a biography of Himself. Therefore, to study God's Word is to be in touch with God Himself, because God is in His Word.

You should study, first of all, to please God rather than people. Second, you should realize that you, as a Believer, need to have a workman's equipment to do your work -- and you are a worker, not a vacationer, nor someone on strike or on sabbatical.

By studying the Word of God, you become equipped with the knowledge of God -- knowledge which is imperative to your living the victorious Christian life. Second Timothy says we should each be "a workman who does not need to be ashamed." That implies there are workmen who are already ashamed, who are whipped and defeated in life, and who do not need to be that way.

If you study the Word and apply it to your life, you will not be ashamed. The enemy is going to put some pressure on your life with the expressed purpose of shaming you, wrecking your testimony, and keeping you in defeat. But once you make the Word a part of you through study, you do not have to put up with his antics.