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Mustard Seed July/August 2004
Rightly Dividing The Word of Truth
Rightly Dividing The Word of Truth
II Timothy 3:15
Mustard Seed - July/August 2004
God gave us the Bible as a handbook for life. It not only instructs in how to have a successful physical life, but also in how to obtain Eternal Life.
In the last issue we read II Tim. 2:15, "study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." We also read in II Tim. 3:15 "and that from a child you have known the holy scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus." Now let's add verse 16 to this, "all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine for reproof, for correction for instruction in righteousness." verse 17; "that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." So it's very clear from the scriptures that the key to salvation is in the scriptures. That is why a man or woman of God must be able to understand true doctrine by rightly dividing the word of truth.
Let's consider Isa. 28:9-10: "whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk and drawn from the breasts." Verse10: "for precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, here a little and there a little." Now compare this to Heb. 5: 12-14 "for when for the time you ought to be teachers, you have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God, and are become such as have need of milk and not of strong meat." Verse 13: "for every one that uses milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness for he is a babe." Verse 14: "but strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised TO DISCERN both GOOD an EVIL." II Pet. 3:18 "But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."
In that process of growth, we have those who differ in degrees or levels of spiritual growth. Some are still in need of milk, and some are ready for strong meat. But we are all out for the same goal. Eph. 4:13 "Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.." So, to arrive at this goal, we must go through this process described in Verse12 of Eph. 4: "for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Throughout the entire process of spiritual growth, from the beginning of our conversion, all the way to perfection, we must follow God's instructions in the scriptures and learn to discern both good and evil by rightly dividing the word of truth.
To accomplish this, requires much study and I think it goes without saying also much prayer. Jas. 1:5: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that gives to all men liberally, and upbraids not, and it shall be given him." Please understand, all the epistles were written to and addressed to the Churches of God, the body of Christ. All men who wrote these epistles were true servants of God. They had no other purpose in life but to serve God and his people. All their efforts went into the "perfecting of the saints."
To these people to whom these epistles were written were converted, spirit begotten members of the Church of God. All their writings apply to us today as much as it did to them in the First Century Church. With the epistles, and other scriptures, we have the "roadmap" to the Kingdom of God. We have already seen that the word of God is "here a little and there a little." So our responsibility is to search out, each part of each subject, so that we can put them all together into one doctrine. Once we have all the scriptures together we can know for sure that we have the truth. Then we can move on to the next subject and do the same thing.
A Strong's or other concordance is very helpful in our search. You will probably be amazed at how simple it is to just accept the word of God as it is presented, without man's interpretation. We must realize that some scriptures might be a little obscure or confusing. So we must take all the clear understandable scriptures to use as a brace for our understanding of a particular subject and then the obscure scriptures can be explained by the clear scriptures.
We must NEVER use an unclear scripture to override or make null and void a plain, clear and understandable scripture, but rather do the opposite. We must use the plain, clear, understandable scriptures to explain the unclear.
False ministers love to use these unclear scriptures to confuse the saints of God. They have a unique way of avoiding, sidestepping, and panning over the plain, clear unmistakable scriptures. That is why it is so VERY important that we be able to rightly divide the word of truth and discern good and evil for ourselves, and not be influenced by these men and THEIR explanations.
I think that we have too many in the Church of God today with a "THESSALONICAN" attitude that we refuse to go to the trouble of opening the bible and seeing for ourselves if what we hear from men is true or false. We need to be like those in Berea, and SEARCH the scriptures daily to see for ourselves if what we hear is right or wrong, (Acts 17:11).
Too many of God's people are too willing to just accept the minister's word and not bother to check and see if it agrees with God's word. That is why Peter warned in II Pet. 2:1-2: "But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction." THE SAD PART, verse-2: "AND MANY shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of."
Salvation is our goal, but it doesn't come easily. It requires much effort on our part. In Phil. 2:12 it states "wherefore, my beloved, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your OWN salvation with fear and trembling."
Salvation is an individual thing that we must work out for ourselves, using the tools and materials that God has given us and following all of His instructions, and then acting accordingly. John 4:23: "But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshipers shall worship the Father in spirit and in TRUTH: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him."
In order to worship God in truth, we must be able to rightly divide the word of truth.
Hopefully we can use this as a "springboard" to go deeply into the word of God and begin to learn to rightly divide the word of truth.
-Neil Wroten
Updated Audio Version