Thursday, March 13, 2014
“Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15 KJV).
The only verse that tells you to study the Bible also tells you how to understand the Bible!
When Scripture says we Christians are “workmen” (today’s Scripture), Ephesians 2:10 (“For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them”) and 1 Corinthians 3:9 (“For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building”) explain that God has saved us unto eternal life so we could join Him in accomplishing His will (which we could not do when we were lost, headed for eternal hellfire, participants in Satan’s policy of evil).
Recall that God has a two-fold will: save all people from their sins and Satan, and then save all Christians from all false doctrine (1 Timothy 2:4). Satan has a two-fold will that counters God’s: hide the Gospel of Grace from all people, and hide sound Pauline (grace) doctrine from all Christians. Religious tradition—a non-dispensational approach the Scripture—furthers Satan’s policy of evil, for it keeps lost people lost, and it keeps Christians ignorant of God’s will, His Word to them.
Satan, “the god of this world,” “hath blinded the minds of them which believe not,” by causing lost people to ignore Paul’s Gospel and trust in their own religious performance to gain a right standing before God (2 Corinthians 4:3,4). Moreover, Satan misleads Christians to introduce into their lives everything but God’s grace to them in Christ—the wrong “Jesus” (His earthly ministry in Matthew through John, rather than His heavenly ministry as revealed through Paul’s epistles, Romans through Philemon), the wrong “spirit” (law rather than grace, Romans 6:14 cf. Romans 8:15), and the wrong “gospel” (Israel’s kingdom gospel rather the Gospel of Grace of 1 Corinthians 15:3,4) (2 Corinthians 11:3,4).
We Christians are “workmen” when we “study… rightly dividing the word of truth,” and our faith in those verses causes the Holy Spirit to bring them to life in our lives, thus aligning us with God’s will for us….
Our latest Bible Q&A: “Should Christians observe Lent?“
333 Words of Grace 