How Do You Rightly Divide The Word Of Truth

[AVBibleBeliever]

So far I am reading a lot of comments about interpretation and leading of the Holy Ghost.

 

I have not seen much about How you are rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

Please stop jumping on people for their way of right division and express more on how you Rightly divide. 

 

Some are saying they read and are lead.  Other read and apply.  Other read and interpret.  these are in fact modes of OBservation of the scripture this is the base beginning of study and not real study until you get into seeing how the words are used(without a Greek or Hebrew Dictionary of any kind.  The AV Bible is an interpretation so interpreting it is not needed as you already have it.  an interpretation is from one language into another language.  That is not what is commanded in 2 Tim2:15.

 

Divide in 2Tim 2:15 in English is to divide which is a verb, an action one is to take and to do it rightly.  any simple English sentence structure will reveal this as such.  Is anyone taking time to break the Sentences/verse down?  this too is needed to come to correct understanding in study.

[Covenanter]

What do YOU use to divide the Scriptures? I use the sword provided.

[Genevanpreacher]

From Websters 1828:(of which I put no special confidence in, but others do) Rightly; in a right form; without mistake or crime.

 

Big responsibility for the man of God, huh?

[Genevanpreacher]

So far I am reading a lot of comments about interpretation and leading of the Holy Ghost.

 

I have not seen much about How you are rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

Please stop jumping on people for their way of right division and express more on how you Rightly divide. 

 

Some are saying they read and are lead.  Other read and apply.  Other read and interpret.  these are in fact modes of OBservation of the scripture this is the base beginning of study and not real study until you get into seeing how the words are used(without a Greek or Hebrew Dictionary of any kind.  The AV Bible is an interpretation so interpreting it is not needed as you already have it.  an interpretation is from one language into another language.  That is not what is commanded in 2 Tim2:15.

 

Divide in 2Tim 2:15 in English is to divide which is a verb, an action one is to take and to do it rightly.  any simple English sentence structure will reveal this as such.  Is anyone taking time to break the Sentences/verse down?  this too is needed to come to correct understanding in study.

 

As we speak and converse in our language, maybe dividing the word of God correctly entails us using our 'smarts' to listen intently and use all of our cognitive powers to listen, not just with our heart, but with the mind that God gave us.

 

That 'might' contain a precise 'study', it might not. Kind of depends on what it takes for us to get it in our thick heads.

[John81]

AVBB,

 

You have made it perfectly clear that you choose to wrongly and in an unbiblical manner to separate the Word into ways which force the Word to contradict itself and not fit together as given by the Holy Ghost.

 

Therefore, anything anyone says which doesn't agree with your false divisions will be spoken ill of by you. Then, as others have pointed out previously, you contend that all who don't follow your ill approach are not as wise as you.

 

It's only by direction of the Holy Ghost that anyone can know and grow in the Word, not by some man made scheme.

[Genevanpreacher]

Amen!

[swathdiver]

AVBB - Doug Hammet's "Seven Steps of Bible Study".  Also R.A. Torrey's as outlined in "The New Topical Textbook".

 

Don't have the time to write it out these next weeks, you can look them up if you like.

[TheSword]

Jeremiah had a second inspiration and even more was added after words see Jer 36

 

Not a valid comparison. Not even in the same ballpark. If you can find a testimony of how God called ALL of the KJV translators as prophets and gave them special revelation and permission to edit the closed canon of Scripture AND how that squares with Rev. 22:19 then you might have somewhere to go with that thought. Otherwise it's dead in the water. If you want to talk about secondary inspiration though, I recommend starting another thread.

 

Is that the only thing in that entire post you can respond to? Nothing about plain meaning vs. woodenly literally? Nothing about the figurative language in the rest of the chapter? Or do you just agree with everything else I said?

[EKSmith]

I've tried to keep it simple because the Word of God is not hard to understand when you allow the Holly Spirit of God to fully indwell in your heart, but some don't quiet understand what I'm speaking about so I will explain.

 

when I study the Word of God I apply both the spiritual principles and the literal principles I consider this not be a method but very simple way the Holly Spirit teaches. Note this apply's only to the bible and not any other books written by man.

 

The Spiritual Principles

1. Prayer- Ps .119:18

2.Cleansing  -1 John 1:9 

3.The illumination of the Holly Spirit- 1 cor 2:12-16

 (There's nothing hard to understand here and without the these rightly dividing God's Word would be useless)

 

The principles of literally understanding

1. the mind of the Author

3. it's historical background

4.the context of the passage

5.the rules of Grammar-

 

( note:The illumination of the Holly Spirit is the ministry by which he causes christian's  to understand the truths of Gods revealed Scripture)

 

 I would recommend that some here study James 4, here James teaches about worldliness and pride,consideration for the brother and unchristian conduct . it would be well to take a good look at James 3:13 -18 as well.

 

You have ask and I have answered and will not indulge in strife nor debate over the answer I given, so no more attacks please   

 

God Bless

[ASongOfDegrees]

Now if we can get back on track.

 

Please detail on how you rightly divide the word of Truth?

Seven dispensations or economies. Essentially, God's attempt to manage mankind's relationship with himself.

 

1) Innocence- Adam's creation to fall.

 

2) Conscience- From fall to Noah's flood.

 

3) Government-After flood to Abraham

 

4) Promise- Abraham to Moses

 

5) Law- Moses to Christ's crucifixion 

 

6) Grace- From the crucifixion to the rapture.

 

7) Millennial- After the Great Tribulation.

 

There are various names given to each dispensation. Like sometimes Grace is called the Church Age but Grace is the common name used being that is God's primary emphasis when dealing with mankind. Also, some dispensations overlap or continue to today. Like human government is still in place but it's not God main method with dealing with mankind. All dispensations end in failure on man's part.

 

There are also "transitionary" periods in the bible. Between Law and Grace you have the kingdom being offered to Israel and it is continued to be offered up till at least Acts 8 (Acts can be a very confusing book because there almost seems to be two different gospels being preached at the same time). You also have the Tribulational period after the rapture where God once again is dealing primarily with Israel and fulfilling his promises to them. These two periods are very similar in that the gospel will be offered but it is the gospel of the kingdom. The body of Christ is complete and Christ's bride will be called out from this planet prior to the Great Tribulation. When this takes places exactly is another great point of dissension usually from the fact that people do not recognize that Israel is still in God's plan.

 

 

 

Now, where a lot of Christians stumble is that there are many passages and even books (the Jewish epistles and Revelation) that are primarily aimed at a future group of people. This shouldn't be any surprised since this is also a common occurrence in the OT. You have many passages in the OT that, though they may have been historically written to the people of the time, doctrinally they apply to a group of people in the distant future. Isaiah 53 is a perfect example. Joel is almost all prophetic. This is what we mean by "advanced revelation". We don't mean that God has given another revelation but that there is three ways of viewing a particular passage as well as many types, anti-types, pre-figurements, past predictive prophecies, foreshadowings, allegories, metaphors, similitudes and symbolism..

 

What you have are three interpretations of scripture for a lack of a better way of putting it. This is important to "rightly dividing".

 

Example:

 

"Jesus wept"

 

1) Historically- Jesus one time in history wept for a man named Lazarus.

 

2) Spiritually or devotionally- many applications here but one could be that we are to show compassion for those who have suffered lose like Jesus did.

 

3) Doctrinally- The humanity of Christ.

 

 

 

Also, the bible can be divided into Covenants. Of course there's the Old Testament and New Testament (technically, the New Testament and New Covenant aren't not the same the New Covenant being dependent of the New Testament).

 

Basically, a covenant is God promising that if "you do this, I will do that".  

 

1) Edenic (or Adamic) Covenant.

 

2) Noahic

 

3) Abrahamic

 

4) Mosaic

 

5) Palestinian 

 

6) Davidic

 

7) New Covenant

 

Again, some of these covenants overlap and still apply to today.

 

By the way, despite what you commonly hear, the New Covenant does NOT apply to the church. This confusion comes from the new versions of the bible changing the word "testament" to "covenant" in the book of Hebrews. 

 

 

 

Finally, as was mentioned before, you need to get the basic divisions of the Jew, the Gentile and the Church of God. Knowing and understanding who is being addressed is always a big help in understanding to bible. God did not drop his word out of heaven all one time the a bunch of IFB Baptists living in the South.

[Covenanter]

I approve EKS approach - it's very helpful.

 

ASOD's system of division is NOT a valid way of approaching Scripture, but is the end product of a questionable hermeneutic. I'll challenge one point, key to our disagreements. What are the two supposed gospels in Acts?

[ASongOfDegrees]

I approve EKS approach - it's very helpful.

 

ASOD's system of division is NOT a valid way of approaching Scripture, but is the end product of a questionable hermeneutic. I'll challenge one point, key to our disagreements. What are the two supposed gospels in Acts?

First off, I said "there almost seems" to be two different gospels. But more accurately, it should be said they are to different facets or forums of the gospel since the gospel centers on the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Acts 2:38

 

Acts 16:31

 

Peter begins with preaching a message to the nation of Israel to repent and if they did the day of the Lord would begin (Acts 3:19,20). In fact, it was already upon them (Acts 2:16-21) with Christ possibly at the door ready to return (Acts 7:55,56). Because of continually rejection this message slowly changes (God shows Peter that they Gentiles can be saved too- Acts 10) to a place where Paul (after Acts 15) is preaching a gospel almost exclusively to Gentiles. A gospel that was revealed to him and a gospel we preach today (Gal.1:11,12; Rom. 16:25,26). Even Peter found Paul's words hard to understand (II Peter  3:15,16). 

 

Then you have Acts 19:1-7.

 

God will not be mocked and despite Israel's rejection will call out a church to himself to provoke them to jealousy.

 

The prOBlem with your approach is that you mush everything together without making any distinction and end up with the church as Israel and God reneging on his promises to the nation of Israel.

 

Nothing in that system have you proven to be questionable or invalid unless you believe that the whole bible is to be ripped out of the hands of the nation of Israel, spiritualized and placed in our hands. Except for the curses of the bible. They still belong to Israel, right?

[Covenanter]

ASOD Your system of division is not something one would readily arrive at simply by reading according to EKS's method. It is lifted straight out of Scofield's notes to Genesis 1. You even use "Palestinian covenant" which does not arise from Scripture. That does not necessarily make the system invalid, but it is the end result of the analysis of Scripture using a particular hermeneutic delevoped in the last 100-150 years..

 

 

 

Scofield:

 

The First Dispensation: Innocency. Man was created in innocency, placed in a perfect environment, subjected to an absolutely simple test, and warned of the consequence of disOBedience. The woman fell through pride; the man deliberately. 1 Timothy 2:14 God restored His sinning creatures, but the dispensation of innocency ended in the judgment of the Expulsion Genesis 3:24 See, for the other dispensations;

Conscience (See Scofield "Genesis 3:23")

Human Government (See Scofield "Genesis 8:21")

Promise (See Scofield "Genesis 12:1")

Law (See Scofield "Exodus 19:8")

Grace (See Scofield "John 1:17")

Kingdom (See Scofield "Ephesians 1:10")

 

The Edenic Covenant, the first of the eight great covenants of Scripture which condition life and salvation, and about which all Scripture crystallizes, has seven elements.

ADAMIC (See Scofield "Genesis 3:14")

NOAHIC (See Scofield "Genesis 9:1")

ABRAHAMIC (See Scofield "Genesis 15:18")

MOSAIC (See Scofield "Exodus 19:25")

PALESTINIAN (See Scofield "Deuteronomy 30:3")

DAVIDIC (See Scofield "2 Samuel 7:16")

NEW (See Scofield "Hebrews 8:8")

I do not want to discuss rival systems of interpretation except to point out that in every "dispensation" a living faith in God was required for salvation. Paul makes that very clear in Romans, Galatians & Hebrews. That brings into question Scofield's basic intro to dispensationalism:
 

DISPENSATION

A dispensation is a period of time during which man is tested in respect of OBedience to some specific revelation of the will of God. Seven such dispensations are distinguished in Scripture. (See Scofield "Genesis 1:28") , note 5.

If we accept the dispensations as time/administration periods, then in every situation, living by faith in God was the requirement, with salvation by grace, & the disps/covenant periods are clarifying the revelation relating to the coming Messiah. Thus we move from the anarchy before & after the flood, to the Patriarchal period to growth & slavery in Egypt, to the Mosaic Lawgiving, entry to the promised land, the time of the Judges, the Kingdom, the captivity & return, the Rabbinical/Priestly period up to the coming of Christ.

 

Not exactly a dispensation of Law, but under the Old Covenant the promise of blessing on condition of OBedience. The degree of OBedience acceptable was an acknowledgement of the Law & willing compliance with it. Perfect OBedience by man was & is not possible. Walking with God by faith was & is possible

 

Throughout the period, the Prophets were declaring the Word of God, correcting & rebuking Kings, priests & people.

[swathdiver]

Then you have Acts 19:1-7.

 

 

 

What about it?

 

What is the kingdom of God?

[AVBibleBeliever]

What about it?

 

What is the kingdom of God?

Let's stick to the sharing on rightly dividing and not about anyones views they come too.

 

I am interested only in that.