“Without the work of the Holy Spirit, however, a non-Christian cannot truly understand the significance of a particular text for salvation or come to saving faith.”
Let me break that down a little further...
Without the work of the Holy Spirit, however, a non-Christian cannot .... come to saving faith.
Either this is not true or the Holy Spirit was within me BEFORE I was saved.
I believe BOTH to be true. I came to be saved through reading the bible.
Galatians 1:15 English Standard Version (ESV)
15 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace,
Psalm 71:6 English Standard Version (ESV)
6 Upon you I have leaned from before my birth;
you are he who took me from my mother’s womb.
My praise is continually of you.
Isaiah 49:15 English Standard Version (ESV)
15 “Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.
Isaiah 44:24 English Standard Version (ESV)
24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,
who formed you from the womb:
“I am the Lord, who made all things,
who alone stretched out the heavens,
who spread out the earth by myself,
I am the same way. I had read bits and pieces of scripture for my entire life but it had never made much of an impact on me. Yet I never gave up. There came a time, however, when a change occurred. I believe this was regeneration. I began reading scripture with new eyes and it all started making sense in a fashion it never had before. I instinctively knew that what I was reading was truth and I began to see meaning within meaning. I suddenly felt the presence of the Lord guiding me. The more I read the more I grew. It drove me to join a Church a receive a true baptism. I had been baptized as an infant but I knew I had never been saved before and that now I needed a true baptism. I've been growing in it ever since.