Thursday, March 21, 2013

Rightly Dividing God's Word: “Proxy” Membership?

Rightly Dividing God's Word: “Proxy” Membership?: What is involved in membership?   How important is it?   Many people claim membership or affiliation to a church.   The ‘criteria’ varies...

Monday, March 18, 2013

Rightly Dividing = Un-suppressing the truth!


The Bible declares that only God’s words are truth (John 17:17); yet truth from God is NOT to be found in the partial, but the entirety of His revelation (Psalm 119:160). God purposed eternal life for man; that purpose being termed His “eternal” purpose, in His revelation.  It was a gradual unfolding plan that began as a promise in the mind of God prior to the Creation and consummated with the establishment of Christ’s body, the church (cf. Titus 1:2; Eph. 1:9-10, 22-23; 2:16; 3:9-11). 

In this great purpose, we see God’s love for man; specifically, in the offer of eternal life (John 3:16); as it was purposed for man ALONE; nothing else or no one else in all of the created universe.  Notice, from Matt. 25:34 – “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world’.”  Yet the Bible reveals that God not only prepared a kingdom from the foundation of the world, but also an eternal fire prepared at the same time.  This eternal fire was not purposed for man, but the devil and his angels (cf. Matt. 25:41, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels).  But the Bible reveals that most of humanity will suffer this eternal fire, (cf. Matt. 7:13-14 – “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”) 

There are two questions relative to this eternal life that need to be answered from the Bible. 
     1) WHY will only a few inherit this eternal life? 
     2) How will this inheritance come? 

The key in understanding why only a few will inherit that which was purposed for all, can only indicate that man has some sort of a response to God’s offer of eternal life.  Therefore, the response to God’s offer is the key to the inheritance.  This is where preaching factors in, for the role of preaching to those in the kingdom of Satan is to explain their response to God’s grace, that they might be ‘translated into the kingdom of “His dear Son” where there is “redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col. 1:13-14).  As it relates to this most important subject, preaching can be in truth or in error.  This is why doctrine matters.  What is the response to God’s grace for the alien sinner?  While many passages could be set forth on the sinner’s response, three texts will suffice to show the nature of the response:
Eccl. 12:13 — “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man”
Rom. 6:17-18 — “...you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed...having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.”
Heb. 5:9 — “he (Jesus) is the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him”.

God gave commands to man for this very reason. God’s love for man was seen in this act of grace.  Man, in return, responds to that love/grace by obedience.  No act of man, apart from humble submission and obedience to God’s word, will be in faith, for faith only comes from one source...‘what God has spoken’ (Rom. 10:17).

The Bible declares that this eternal life is in God’s Son (1st John 5:11).  Eternal life is synonymous with salvation in Christ, (Acts 4:12; 16:17), so therefore the matter of learning how to get into Christ is one and the same as learning how to inherit this eternal life that was purposed to him.  It is within this revelation that man will find ‘truth’.  Truth came by Jesus (John 1:17), through the words of His teaching (John 17:17).  This truth is also called the “words of life” (John 6:63, 68; 12:50; 17:8; Acts 5:20).

In order to learn the truth surrounding this great eternal purpose, God’s word must be ‘rightly divided’.  In 2nd Timothy 2:15, we find Paul’s statement to Timothy in regard to this.  While the responsibility of “rightly dividing” falls upon every person who makes an appeal to the Bible; the disciple of Christ has multiple responsibilities in his ‘handling’ of that ‘word of truth’.  For a disciple, “rightly dividing”, involves more than just a determination of context.  It also involves:

1)   the responsibility to rightly “deliver” that word.  This is to be done with ‘graceful’ speech (Col. 4:6); and
2)   the responsibility to rightly “apply” that word to himself prior to passing judgment on another (Matt. 7:5; John 7:24) 

There are two very good reasons for these responsibilities.  They are to ensure that the truth will not be ‘suppressed in unrighteousness’ on his part (Rom. 1:18); and secondly, so that truth will have the ultimate effect upon the human mind (Isa. 55:10-11; Heb. 4:12-13).

There is great benefit/growth for the disciple to re-study definitions and concepts of words/phrases/texts in these two areas of his responsibility.  Herein is seen the benefit of trials in the life of a child of God.  James dealt with this in his epistle.  We see from chapter 1:22-25, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.” 

Problems, both individually and collectively, arise when contexts are ‘handled’ aright, yet irresponsibly in the delivery and/or the application of those contexts.   If they are not, the gospel, (i.e., God’s power to save – Romans 1:17), which God entrusted as a talent to His stewards for the purpose of accomplishing unity/salvation; will instead, incur the very opposite results (division/damnation).  Yet, even for the sinner; there are consequences in this realm of responsibility.  To fail to apply the relevant passages of the Bible to himself will result in only a reforming of his life, not repentance from his sins, motivated by godly sorrow (2 Cor. 7:9-10).

Let all who preach, heed the inspired apostle’s warning of “following”; “continuing in”; and “holding to” the pattern of sound words” (2nd Tim. 1:13; 3:14; Titus 1:9).  Every preacher must take heed in regard to his preaching. Two reasons relative to God’s eternal purpose bear this out:

·          The foundation [of teaching] has been laid by the Lord; (1 Cor. 3:10-11)
·          His own salvation and of those to whom he preaches (1st Tim. 4:16)

Likewise, let all take heed “how” and “what” they hear [taught] (Luke 8:18; Mark 4:24)

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