As grace believers, what is our primary objective? (Part 5)

Studying the Bible in the correct context

Start this series of posts with: Part 1

I stand firm on the fact that our primary objective, as grace believers, is to come to a knowledge of God’s Word. However, I also understand that we live our lives, day by day, bearing responsibilities, and being pulled into different directions due to demands, circumstances, and issues of life. So how do we balance the two? Well, the key to note is that 1Tim.2:4 does not have a deadline. We do not need to learn ALL truth and be experts in Bible doctrine before we can be used of the Lord. Life does not stop because we first have to learn ALL truth! No. The Lord provides us the opportunities daily, to encourage and edify others based on the measure of truth we know at our personal levels. We can offer ourselves as living sacrifices to the Lord daily, allowing the truth of the Word within us, to make us ambassadors of God’s kingdom, and reconcilers who show God’s love and forgiveness to others.

Even as babes in Christ, new believers can share the gospel with others through their testimony. However, our objective is to grow steadily in knowledge, not all at once, but daily, over our lifetime, so that we can increase in our responsibility of ambassadorship and in our ministry of reconciliation. Every grace believer can be a light for God’s kingdom, but when it comes to teaching others about God’s Word, this is when proper knowledge is very important. This is when the truth we know either approves us or disapproves us before God. Let me explain.

God tells us in 2Tim2:15 that when we study His Word, we should study it rightly divided. It is only then that we are workmen who are approved unto God and who have no need to be ashamed. You see, the knowledge of the truth affects EVERY corner of our lives. It affects how we think, how we react, how we speak, and how we influence others. If we do not learn and understand the biblical truth in the correct context, it taints EVERYTHING. Without understanding the Bible rightly divided, we are not approved of God to handle the truth and to teach it.

Although most believers do not actively become teachers who impart knowledge to others, a rightly divided knowledge of God’s Word is still crucial for you as an individual. You see, our purpose and vocation, as members of the Body of Christ, is very different to the purpose and vocation of Israel. If you read the Bible and believe everything you read is for you and about you, you will adopt a very skewed version of truth. We are not Israel. We do not abide by their system of law. We do not inherit the earth and we are not saved under the Kingdom gospel. You and I today, in this dispensation of grace, have a mystery doctrine that reveals the principles of faith and life that God expects us to abide by today, and that is very different from Israel’s program under law and prophecy.

If you go teaching others a blended doctrine which merges the doctrines of Israel with the mystery doctrine reveal to Paul, then you are stunting the spiritual growth of believers and you are harming their faith. Unfortunately, this is the greatest problem in the denominational churches today. They each have created a doctrine that fits their views and their agenda. Many promote and practice laws and traditions, rituals and rites, ordinances and observances; and all these holds them in bondage to the grace and liberty that is found in the simplicity of Christ and the cross. The primary cause of such disunion is the fact that they are ignorant of, or reject, the command to rightly divide.

Thus, to come to the knowledge of the truth involves studying the Word with the crucial context of separating out Israel, and everything that belongs to Israel, from that which belongs to the Body of Christ in grace. Paul provides us the template of study in his doxology in Romans. Have a look at the order and separation of the doctrines he mentions in the following passage,

Rom 16:25  Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, 26  But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith: 

Notice the three sections of study that Paul lists,

• My gospel: which is the grace gospel of justification and salvation through faith in the cross of Christ and without works.
• Preaching Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery: which is the complete body of the grace doctrine, separated out and untainted from the Old Covenant and Kingdom doctrine for Israel.
• The scriptures of the prophets: which reveals the extended plan of God for the salvation of all men and the restoration of creation, which is both heaven and earth, under Christ. Knowing the scriptures of the prophets is not for our practice, but for contrast and comparison. We will not know who we are and how we fit into the full plan and purpose of God if we cannot compare our doctrine to the entire purpose of God throughout the dispensations of the Bible and with His purpose for Israel.

This is the knowledge of the truth that God wills (desires) for us to know. It is this context, rightly divided that will form Christ within us and grow us up into sonship in God, providing us with knowledge if His will, His ways, and His judgements, which we will execute under His Headship in the ages to come. Knowling God, knowing His mind, His thoughts, and His ways is our absolute and only objective as believers, and it is our responsibility to grow in it daily, for His glory and purpose.