Rightly dividing is not a doctrine, nor is it an identify, it’s an inevitable conclusion.
People who hold to a dispensational view of the Bible often justify their view by quoting the following verse …
2Tim 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
… and they focus almost exclusively on the part of the verse that instructs one to rightly divide the Word of truth.
Now, although there is nothing wrong with that, since right division is of crucial importance to understand the Bible in the correct context, I do want to point out something that is often overlooked in the verse above, which is in fact the primary key to this whole concept of rightly dividing.
Note the word, “Study”. This is the only instruction in the verse and that which approves us unto God. Right division is not an instruction, it is a result. Rightly dividing the Word is an unavoidable consequence that stems from proper study of the Word, nothing more.
In Romans 16:25-26, Paul tells us that to become stablished in ‘the faith’ (his doctrine, Rom 1:5), we should study the revelation of the mystery, (which was kept secret by God and eventually revealed for Paul to write about in his epistles), and we should study the scriptures of the prophets, (which was proclaimed since the world began). These two sets of doctrine, though dealing ultimately with Jesus Christ, are fundamental different, and when we start to discover that they don’t fit together, we should keep them separate and divided rather than force the doctrines to fit by blending them together into something it does not truly say.
Thus, rightly dividing is not a doctrine to uphold, nor is it an identify that set one apart. It is simply the inevitable conclusion on how to interpret scripture, and something that Paul reminds Timothy to expect, and not to wrestle with, when studying his letters with the rest of the prophetic scriptures.
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