Don't be ashamed

2 Timothy 2:15, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” 

What is rightly dividing and why would I be ashamed of it? 

First, rightly dividing is recognizing that Scripture is laid out in a way that shows us the different administrations of God’s plan.  God had the task of writing a book that would give humans an accurate picture of who He is and how we can come to Him.  With Adam and Eve God showed us His care for humans and His desire for fellowship with them.  We also saw how seriously God takes sin as this first division ended and God threw Adam and Eve from the garden.  Can you see that God dealt with Adam and Eve differently than He dealt with Noah?  This is because before sin God could fellowship with man face to face, sin put a barrier up and deserved punishment so God showed another side of Himself.

When after humans were left to their own governing and became so wicked God could not look at it any longer, He showed His justice, judgment of wickedness and holy wrath as He sent a flood to wipe out all humanity.  After the flood, God made a promise (covenant) with mankind that He has not yet broken (Genesis 9).  God showed Himself to be a covenant making God. This is another division of Scripture.

Next, God made a promise to Abraham and set His descendents aside as a special people unto Himself.  Through Abraham God showed that He values Faith and obedience and those things would be counted as righteousness (Genesis 15:6).  This is another division of Scripture.

God then made a law for these descendents of Abraham (the nation of Israel) through His servant Moses.  God established Himself as holy and that man had to worship Him in a certain way.  Many people still attempt to follow these laws to the best of their ability.  Jesus when He came to earth was still under the Jewish laws that were established with Moses (Matthew 5:17). 

However, this time of the law ended as God ushered in His plan of the mystery through the apostle Paul.  Paul taught us many mysteries:  The mystery of the cross, the mystery of the church, the mystery of Jew and Gentile in one body, the mystery of Christ in us the hope of glory.  The list could go on (do a word study on the word mystery in Paul’s epistles and make a list of all that you learn).  This is the division or administration we currently find ourselves. 

So why would anyone feel shame over this teaching?  The biggest area of criticism over this teaching is that Christ was under the law in the gospels.  People like to apply the words of Christ, it is understandable, He is our leader, God, and lover of our souls.  However, when He took on flesh He humbled Himself to the restrictions of His body.  His body was Jewish and He followed the rules that other Jewish teachers followed.  Matthew is a book that shows Christ following the Mosaic law, so often when Jesus is speaking we have to keep His audience and the time period His was living under in mind.  According to John 1:11 who did Jesus come to? 

Another criticism of rightly divided teaching is that others say the church started at Christ’s birth, His baptism, His resurrection or at Pentecost.  I believe the correct division is later in Acts, check out Acts 9 when God calls Paul as an apostle to the Gentles, or Acts 13 where Paul sets aside the nation of Israel and turns to the Gentiles.  I believe this transition period between Acts 9 and 13 is where the correct division of Scripture takes place.  The implication of this is that the gospel’s often cannot be taken literally because the mystery was not yet revealed.  Paul is the apostle to the Gentiles who explains this division we currently live under. 

So are you ashamed to stand up for a rightly divided Scripture?  Next time we will talk about the ministry of correct division, if you understand this, you have a duty to share. 

What is all the fuss about?

So you are probably thinking, “Honestly Natalie, what is the big deal anyway.  We all believe in Jesus, isn’t that enough?”  I guess my question for you would be what is enough to you anyway?  For me, I want my faith to make sense.  I want to understand what I am hanging my eternity on.  I want the Bible to make sense and I want the ability to be able to explain my faith with others in a way that makes sense to them.  So, yes, believing in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus is enough for your salvation, but just this knowledge is not enough for me. 

I want to “walk in a manner worthy of my calling” (Ephesians 4).  Look at Colossians 1:10, “so that you may live worthily of the Lord and please him in all respects – bearing fruit in every good deed, growing in the knowledge of God.” 

So how do we do that?  This is my definition of “enough.”  It is not my goal to just capture the “Bible basics” and go no farther.  It is not enough to put my faith on a shelf and dust it off on major holidays or when I am feeling like life has not dealt me a fair hand.  My faith has to be logical, it has to be based on something concrete and if I don’t have that, I have nothing.  I have told you before I have a background in science so when I approach my faith, I don’t check my brain at the door.  I test what I hear, from every teacher and preacher against what I know to be true in the Bible. 

Guess what, the Bible holds up.  It is the most amazing collection of words that I have ever studied.  The Bible from cover to cover does not disappoint and will not leave you wanting more.  It works and is so cohesive I am amazed.  If you don’t find the Bible to be that, then you haven’t studied it enough.  At times I have to admit that I have been stumped, stumped for hours, stumped for days, weeks, years.  God has always been faithful as I have searched He has revealed. 

That is the key of course, are you searching, are you looking, do you have the faith to look for the answers and the patience to wait for them to come?  This mystery stuff may seem like a lot to do about nothing, but I have experience that if you keep searching the Scriptures you will find it to be the most excellent message. 

Look at some verses that God brought to my attention this week. 

Philippians 1:9-10, “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may distinguish between the things which differ that are of more value in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.”

What are the things that differ?  This is the message of the mystery that Paul was a minister (Colossians 1:23-27).  You want to study something that is excellent, that has the most value in Scripture, study the mystery.  This is a concept that goes over the heads of many Bible students, but I think it is the key to understanding Scripture.  Keep going, keep putting the pieces together until you have had enough!

 

All Scripture

Let us not forget an important truth within the message of the mystery of Paul’s writings.  2 Timothy 3: 16-17 states, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”  

Here is the great rub.  All Scripture is profitable to us, but not all Scripture is meant for us to make a direct application to our lives.  For instance when I study the Law, I see how holy God is, how sinful I am, how high God’s standard is, and how easy it is to fail.  However, I don’t all of a sudden decide to obey the Jewish dietary restrictions or to keep the Sabbath holy. 

When I study Matthew and realize that, “If my eye offends me, I should pluck it out. (Matt. 18:9)”  Or that, “God will not forgive me, if I don’t forgive others. (Matt 6: 15)”  I can feel like a hopeless failure.  I will never measure up the standards in the Old or New Testaments. 

Many look at the Bible and get discouraged and confused because these passages seem impossible to live by and seem opposite to the experience they have had with God.  Most of us are drawn to God because He is love and light and offers rest and peace.  However, then we study the Bible and realize that something is just not right.  So, while we learn much from Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures, look to Paul’s writings for application. 

Do these verses resonate with your spirit? 

Eph. 2:4-9, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, 2:5 even though we were dead in transgressions, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you are saved! 2:6 and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, 2:7 to demonstrate in the coming ages the surpassing wealth of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God; 2:9 it is not from works, so that no one can boast.”

Rom. 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

Rom 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.”

I Cor. 15:1-4, “Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, 15:2 and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you – unless you believed in vain. 15:3 For I passed on to you as of first importance  what I also received – that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, 15:4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised  on the third day according to the scriptures.”

2 Cor. 5:18-21, “And all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and who has given us the ministry of reconciliation. 5:19 In other words, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting people’s trespasses against them, and he has given us the message of reconciliation. 5:20 Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making His plea through us. We plead with you on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God!” 5:21 God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.”

Eph 4:1-6, “I, therefore, the prisoner for the Lord, urge you to live worthily of the calling with which you have been called, 4:2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 4:3 making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4:4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you too were called to the one hope of your calling, 4:5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 4:6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”

Hang your hat on these verses and promises.  Learn and apply Paul’s writings, he was the apostle of the mystery, sent to the Gentiles.  Learn from all Scripture, apply these Scriptures and see if things get a little less confusing.        

Back to Mystery Part 2

This is where the truth of the mystery is so powerful.  First, let’s see what the mystery is and when it started.  Colossians 1:26, 27 “That is, the mystery that has been kept hidden from ages and generations, but has now been revealed to his saints. God wanted to make known to them the glorious riches of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.” 

There are many verses in Paul’s writing about the Mystery, here we can see it was hidden.  This is huge and this is why it is so difficult for people to put much weight on it.  There is really nothing said about this mystery until Paul’s writings.  So there is no prophecy about this mystery, Jesus does not mention a mystery.   Can you imagine the persecution Paul suffered bringing forth a new message that was not previously found in Scripture.

We find out that now it has been revealed, when is now?  This is where the Book of Acts comes in so handy, “now” is when the apostle Paul comes on the scene, after Israel rejects their Messiah.  Let’s look at a few places in Acts, but I encourage you to study this book more closely, there are treasures in it that often get overlooked.  Acts 9:15, “But the Lord said to him, “Go, because this man (Saul/Paul) is my chosen instrument to carry my name before Gentiles and kings and the people of Israel.”  Paul’s mission from Jesus was to carry His name to the Gentiles, kings and Israel and Paul did just that, however check out Acts 13:45-48 to see what ultimately happened to this message Paul had, “But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and they began to contradict what Paul was saying by reviling him.  Both Paul and Barnabas replied courageously, “It was necessary to speak the word of God to you first. Since you reject it and do not consider yourselves worthy of eternal life, we are turning to the Gentiles.  For this is what the Lord has commanded us: ‘I have appointed you to be a light for the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the ends of the earth.’” When the Gentiles heard this, they began to rejoice and praise the word of the Lord, and all who had been appointed for eternal life believed.”  And what was this message? Go back and look at Col. 1:26-27 or Ephesians 3:5-7, basically for the first time salvation was offered by faith through grace alone.  It was through Paul and his message of the mystery that the body of Christ (the church) was formed through simple faith.  Nothing was to be added to this faith and it did not distinguish between Jew or Greek, slave or free.  It was grace through faith apart from the Law, apart from Baptism, apart from outer works of any kind.  We live in a wonderfully unique period in time which requires simple faith for our salvation.  When Jesus walked the earth He still followed the requirements of the Law, because this was still required for salvation.  It was not until Paul was called to the Gentiles that the mystery was preached which was our gospel of belief in the shed blood of Christ. 

So, this is why applying the gospels to our lives becomes so difficult, Jesus was speaking to His audience the Jewish people and many times He was speaking about requirements of the Law.  People get very offended when they can’t apply the Sermon on the Mount or some parables to their lives because we have been doing it for years and it flies in the face of our church tradition.  However, I am suggesting that this misappropriation of Scripture is what is confusing us.  When you are reading something and you can’t verify it in Paul’s epistles be cautious.   

Back to the Mystery

The main reason I am writing this blog is that there is a huge misconception out there that causes great confusion among many Christ followers.  This misunderstanding has caused many to throw their arms up in frustration when they study the Bible.  This lack of information has caused some to think that the Bible is beyond their understanding and that their faith is a blind faith that they are not even sure they could explain to anyone else.  The shame of this is that nothing could be further from the truth, but it is easy to see where this confusion stems from. 

First, if you studied my writing on the Seed then you learned that Christ Jesus was very much a part of prophecy.  Israel expected a Seed, a Messiah, a King (they forgot some of the suffering parts) and they were waiting.  They were waiting until a kingdom would be set up in which the nation of Israel would have a land, a king and in which through them all the nations on the earth would be blessed.  Look at Daniel 2:44 “And in the days of those kings (the days of the Roman empire) the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever.”  Also, look at Isaiah 42:6-7 this is what Israel was waiting for all those years. 

Here is the rub, we know by looking back that all the nations of the earth are blessed because of the gospel of Christ.  We are blessed because we have salvation through faith in Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection.  However, this is not the literal blessing of a land, a king and a nation that Israel was waiting for.  When Christ came to this earth, He was not here with the Gentiles immediately in mind John 1:11, “He came to his own (Israel), and those who were His own did not receive Him.”  Look at Matthew 15:21-28, 10:5-8 and Luke 1:31-33.

What does Jesus say about the Gentiles?

So when we take the gospels and don’t look at them as Christ coming to His chosen people, the Jews, we get all confused.  Christ was still under the law and speaking to a people who knew that, so when we take the words of Jesus without understanding His audience and His purpose we confuse ourselves.  We find ourselves trying to apply all matter of things that were not intended for us, because we are no longer under the law.  So what are we to do with the gospels?  Contrast these passages, do you see any contradictions? 

Matthew 6:15 and Romans 3:24-25

Matthew 5:18-20 and Romans 3:10-12

 Read next time to find the answer to these contradictions and find out more about the Mystery.