Wrong Division By D. Davenport 2 Timothy 2:15 "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." This instruction from Paul to Timothy is almost universally ignored or misunderstood today in light of the fact that the Greek word "ortho-tomeo".....which literally means "to dissect straightly" is widely not known. Paul is instructing Timothy that scripture has to be "cut straight" one book from another regarding three major issues: 1. WHO is being written to? 2. WHAT does it say (and mean)? 3. WHEN does it apply? As a frequent listener of talk radio I often hear political talk show hosts "quote" the Bible to try to prove a point and they utterly fail to fulfill the "divisional" requirements as outlined by Paul in Second Timothy. For that matter, I hear well-known Bible teachers do the same thing. A good example is Dr. James Dobson from FOCUS ON THE FAMILY frequently "claiming": Second Chronicles 7:14- - "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." Dr. Dobson, and most other teachers, refuse to "rightly divide" the Bible and thereby set forth the erroneous concept that that verse in Chronicles is written TO Americans, SAYS that God will 'heal" us politically and morally, and that God will do that NOW if we will only repent. Unfortunately, Dobson falls into the same pitfalls that talk show hosts fall into when they misquote the Bible and utterly botch the proper context of the verses. In the case of Chronicles, God had promised to HEAL the land of his chosen Nation Israel. If Dobson, and others, would only "rightly divide the scriptures, he would dissect it accurately and realize two basic cornerstone changes of the Apostle Paul's mystery dispensation: 1. That Israel is currently temporarily set aside by God: Romans 11:32 "For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all." 2. That there is no such thing as a Jew TODAY: Galatians 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." The failure to dissect the Bible along the straight line of knowing what God is doing TODAY leads to all sorts of confusion. In looking at our main verse of study again: 2 Timothy 2:15 "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." .....we come to a few easy intellectual conclusions. First of all, it should be fairly obvious that most people aren't really STUDYING the bible and therefore that most people will consequently be ashamed at some point in the future on this particular issue. Following the example of the radio talk show host mis-quoting the context of a Bible verse to make a point, it might be pointed out that what is actually happening is that the Bible is actually: 1. Misquoted 2. Browsed 3. Read 4. Studied but wrongly divided ....rather than 5. Studied and RIGHTLY divided. The reasons for this are fairly easy to identify. For one thing, studying the bible and rightly dividing it is a lot of ongoing hard work. It is probably fair to say that the past century of Evangelicalism is characterized by the type of "experiential Christianity" in which people claim that God is working all sorts of miraculous events in their lives. To be sure, God can work extraordinary events in people's lives, although Paul typifies the Mystery Dispensation as a time when we are "walking by faith and NOT BY SIGHT." This is in marked contrast to Israel's program when God was dealing with a Nation through a performance-covenental contract system and preparing them to be the "Nation of Priests" (see 1 Peter) to the world. Part of this modern obsession with the miraculous and personal comes the unscriptural idea that God is (forgive the silicone allusion) "downloading" truth personally to people. This is not in itself unique to the Charismatic or Pentecostal movement. I remember hearing my former Presbyterian Pastor tell me that God had "shown" him that there was no difference between the two major kingdoms described in the New Testament. Without getting into that issue the point I'm trying to make is that God is not picking out certain gifted individuals to "download" truth into. If that were the case, God wouldn't tell everyone today to STUDY the Bible. If God was implanting scriptural truth today why would He have us waste time studying and painstakingly attempting to rightly divide one Bible book from another? It is scary to think that you can spend your whole life studying the Bible and WASTE the entire experience. Not only that, but do a huge amount of harm to those that you try to influence. Why so? Because studying without the last ESSENTIAL ingredient of rightly dividing leads to the type of heretical teaching that a cult such as Mormonism supports. Don't believe that? Galatians 1:9 "As we said before, so say I now again, If any [man] preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed." Paul doesn't say: "unless you are a student of the Bible and then it is OK." No matter how much you study, if you fail to RIGHTLY divide it then you are WRONGLY dividing it. In the case of Galatians adding or mixing any aspect of ANOTHER Gospel to PAUL'S Gospel was disastrous. Paul points out later that such a gospel was ineffectual to save and was "in vain." Are you rightly dividing the Bible, or are you only quoting, reading, studying, or wrongly dividing it? greenvillegrace@yahoo.com (864) 420-4347
2 Timothy 2:15 "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."