Rightly Dividing the Word - 2Timothy 2:15 (2/4)

Equipment for the task

So far, so good, but in order to carry out some process or other, a workman requires an implement of some sort. Just what is the necessary tool for the business of the straight cutting of Scripture?

Here is where the language becomes a little frightening. The tool for the job is called dispensationalism. Now, it should be emphasised that this dreaded term is the name of a tool, not of a strange sect or set of beliefs. Neither is it 'some new thing' but is a tool which has been used by discerning Bible students for centuries (e.g. Miles Coverdale in the 16th Century).

So how does this implement work? Well, it is mainly a matter of basic common sense. It has been likened to the way in which we deal with a letter which drops through our letter box. If the letter is addressed to us, we open it, read it, and may carry out any instructions therein or follow any advice which it contains.

If the letter is not addressed to us, we may be allowed to read it (with the permission of the person to whom the letter is addressed) but we would be foolish to take its contents as applying to ourselves when they are directed at someone else, and may even conflict with other instructions given specifically to us.

The same should apply to our reading of the Bible. If we will rightly divide it, we will recognise that much of it was written about, and for, the people of Israel and that, as outsiders (Gentiles), while we may read and learn much from the whole of the Bible, there is a limited number of parts of Scripture which speak directly to us with instructions which are to govern our Christian life and witness. A couple of examples might serve to emphasise the truth of this.

In Old Testament times God told the Israelites that for forgiveness of sins they must bring a sacrifice to atone for (or cover) their sin. But as Christians today, we do not take that instruction for ourselves. We believe that the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary is the atonement for our sin and that by confessing our sins to God, in prayer, we show our repentance and we thus have forgiveness and cleansing. In fact, all that sacrificing of Old Testament times was part of Israel's education that, as Paul writes in Hebrews, "without shedding of blood is no remission" of sins. Thus we can learn from this Old Testament instruction but we do not need to apply it to ourselves. We rightly divide the word of truth.

In the gospel records we can read of many instructions which the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples and to those who would be His followers. Right division enables us to take some of these dictates for ourselves (e.g. "love one another as I have loved you", which has to be of universal application) but to see others as having been superseded by later requirements (e.g. the criteria the Lord demanded of the rich young ruler in Matthew 19:16-29 does not apply to us who "by grace are .. saved through faith" (Ephesians 2:8).

As may be seen from the example above, right division is not simply a matter of drawing lines in the Bible which delineate between the things that are said for our education and the dictates which we are meant to follow. Often there are maxims which are, in a general sense, of universal application, the ten commandments being a case in point. In general it may be taken that, if a particular injunction is not contradicted by a later statement, that injunction may be adhered to with reasonable confidence, or at least extrapolated for our benefit by accepting the spirit of the instruction, if not always the precise letter of the law.