God, the Great Divider!

“Blasphemy!!” you say? 

Absolutely not!   I stand on the authority of His Word and proclaim it!  Right off the bat, we see it in black and white…

Genesis 1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

Did He not create the whole universe?  Why not say universe then instead of having it preserved for us as delineating the division of the universe as: heaven and earth?  A clear, irrefutable distinction, yes?

As one studies His Word further, one can see that division is replete throughout the whole Book…

Earth / Heaven

Law / Grace

Prophecy / Mystery

Israel / the Church, the Body of Christ

Circumcision / Uncircumcision

Born of the flesh / born of the Spirit

Physical / Spiritual

…and that’s only scratching the surface.  None of the above (there are others!) can be mixed--they are totally separate from each other.

Allow me to digress here for a minute…

Before becoming a serious student of the Word, I’d gloss over these words without really considering them and what they actually meant.  Oh yes, I had a respect…a reverence…for the Bible but I didn’t honor it as I should.  Much like children are to honor their parents by heeding and obeying their word, so should we as sons and daughters of God, honor His Word by heeding and obeying It.  Therefore, when we do, we don’t simply gloss over His words but rather seek to understand them so we can ‘heed’ and ‘obey’ them.  Our earthly parents have our best interest at heart and therefore to the best of their ability will tell us that which is profitable to our physical growth.  Likewise, our heavenly Father desires that we know that which is profitable to our spiritual growth.     In order to gain parental approval (rather than correction), children in both realms need to hear, heed and act accordingly, their parents’ words. 

1 Timothy 2:4

Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.

Therefore…

2 Timothy 3:16

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

…and what does God’s word to us say?

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.

…and what is that?  God says His word is Truth…

John 17:17

Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth.

In respect to all the division occurring in His Word, to honor Him when He tells us to rightly divide, we should ask ourselves what is it that we divide?    Well, we look to Him for that answer—what saith the scriptures?  He leaves no doubt or guesswork by saying it is His word of truth that is to be rightly divided.   (It is a sad fact that the vast majority of Christianity doesn’t even know to do this because the modern bibles today used in the vast majority of denominational churches do not give that clear instruction. …but that’s a whole study in itself.)

Therefore, let us as sons and daughters of the Creator of the whole universe, seek to understand what He means by “dividing.”  Let us rightly divide as oppose to wrongly divide His Word of Truth so as to be approved of Him. 

Grace to you,

;j

P.S.   Just because you've never been exhorted to 'rightly divide' by your 'authority' (be it a pastor/mentor/bible teacher, respected relative, etc.,), may I ask you to consider an 'Higher Authority'?   As for me, I stand on God's Word, over and above 'the word' any man with feet of clay. [Yea, let God be true and every man a liar. Rom 3:4 KJB]