15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.
17 And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;
18 Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some.
Introduction
There was a time when the theology of a congregation was determined almost entirely by the pastor of the local church. But today television has changed that. By the time many people arrive at church today they have already heard two or three different television preachers. And they are hearing all sorts of strange ideas. They see people lifting and waving their hands in praise, speaking in tongues, and hearing what are reported to be miracles of healings. They see things they never hear or see in their local church. All of this can be confusing. The confusion is added to by the fact that all these groups claim the Bible as their authority. Obviously they can’t all be right.
We are commanded in scripture not to be carried away by every new idea, every doctrine, that is taught. The apostle Paul says that we are not to be “children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness” (Ephesians 4:14). He uses three figures in this verse to describe how we are not to be. We are not to be gullible like little children, unstable like ships, or naive like country boys playing poker with a Las Vegas gambler. We are to be stable in our religious convictions.
How is this possible in today’s world? It is possible only if we learn we rightly divide the word of God for ourselves. Paul wrote to Timothy, “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”
The expression “rightly dividing” as used here is taken from the Old Testament sacrifices and means “to cut straight.” In the Old Testament when the worshipper brought a lamb or other sacrifice, it was divided into three parts (unless it was a whole burnt offering). One part was offered to God, another part was given to the worshipper who brought the offering, and the third part went to the priest. From this practice the expression “rightly dividing” is borrowed. It simply means “giving to each that which belongs to him.”
In our Bible study we must do the same thing. All scripture is for us, but not all of it was given to us. God told Noah to build an ark, but he never told you to do it. God told Abraham to sacrifice his son, but he never told you to sacrifice your son. God told Israel to build a tabernacle with an altar, a laver, candlesticks, and an ark, but he certainly didn’t tell us to do these things. He told Israel that if they obeyed him they would not suffer from any of the diseases of the Egyptians, but he didn’t tell us that. He told the apostles that they would speak in tongues, tread upon serpents and not be bitten, and drink poison and not die, but he never told us that.
In our Bible study we must first of all ascertain to whom God is speaking before we make our application. Some things in the Bible were given only to Israel. Some things were given only to the apostles. And some were given only to the church. We must “rightly divide” the word of God so that we do not take that which belongs to another age and bring it into our own.
We also need to remember that not everything in the word of God is a word from God. In Acts 5:33-40, Jewish leaders were trying to decide what to do to stop the preaching of the early apostles. A Pharisee name Gamaliel suggested that they do nothing. His reasoning was, “if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.”
People have often quoted that as a justification for not getting involved in controversy or fighting the false beliefs of others. Because that statement is in the word of God they have taken it as a word from God. It is not! That idea is never presented as the truth of God. It is simply a statement made by a Pharisee, an unbeliever.
There are many things that are not of God that have survived. Witchcraft, black magic, Satan worship, Hinduism, Buddhism, and communism have all survived. Yet they are not of God. What the Jewish Pharisee said sounds good but it is not to be interpreted as a word from God to us.
All of this underscores the need to “rightly divide” the word of God. We must interpret the Bible and interpret it correctly or we end up in absolute confusion. What are the principles of good Biblical interpretation? What guidelines should we follow in discovering the real meaning of scripture?
1. Take it literally. First, you should always take scripture literally, i.e., always take it the way the original author intended it to be taken. If a passage of the Bible were written as an historical account of an event, for example, I would be taking it literally if I took it as an historical account. If a passage were written as poetry, then I should read it as poetry, just as the author intended me to do. If it were given as a parable, I should understand it as a parable.
To discern the author’s original intent requires that we know the historical context in which he wrote, the literary style he used, and the meaning of words in his day. The word Yankee has one meaning if used in the context of the Civil War. It has an altogether different meaning if used in the context of baseball. Knowing the historical context, literary style, and the meaning of words will help us to know what the author originally intended.
Seeking the author’s original intent will save us from the danger of allegorizing the Bible. Allegory or typology as used here is an imaginary or a divinely intended correspondence between a person, place, or thing in the Old Testament and a person, place, or thing in the New Testament.
Some people, in interpreting the Bible, used the allegory method extensively. They read about Noah’s ark and they say, “This is a type of Christ. As people were saved by getting in the ark, so people are saved by getting into Christ.” That may be true but the author did not have that in mind when he told us about the ark. Others say that Joseph was a type of Christ. They say, “As Joseph was betrayed by his own brothers, condemned unjustly, and eventually became the savior of his people, so Jesus was betrayed, mistreated, and became our redeemer.” There may be similarities between Joseph and Jesus but that was not the original intent of the author.
Once I heard a television preacher say that Samson was a type of church. He said, “Samson was a chosen servant of God and had great power from God. But he laid his head in the lap of Delilah and she cut off his hair. Thus he lost his power, was blinded and bound. Just so,” he said, “the church is the chosen instrument of God. But she has laid her head in the lap of the world and lost her power. The church has become like any other organization, blinded and bound by tradition.”
Then he pointed out that Sampson’s hair grew back and he regained his power with God. Then he pushed down the walls of the temple of the false gods and did more for the Lord in the end than he did in the beginning. “So,” he said, “the church is going to regain its power and shake this old world again for God.”
All of this may be true but this kind of interpretation completely ignores the original intent of the author. Allegory is a flight of fancy. It goes back to the days of Alexandria and Philo, Origen and Clement. The allegorical method of interpreting scripture is what wrecked biblical interpretation in the church for a thousand years during the Dark Ages. It destroys the scriptures and undermines their ultimate literal significance.
The rule to follow is that you always take scripture literally unless you are specifically told otherwise. There is some typology in the Bible. For example, in 1 Corinthians 10:11, Paul says, “Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition.” “These things” refers to the things that happened back in the Exodus. Paul says they happened for an example. They are types and are written for our admonition. But the types are limited to the Exodus experience. “These things” does not refer to “all things.” In 1 Corinthians 5:7, Paul says, “Jesus Christ is our Passover lamb.” So the Passover lamb is a type of Christ. We know that because the scripture says so. But some people say that everything is a type. They act as if all scripture has allegorical meaning. This is not so and to interpret it that way will ultimately destroy the original meaning of scripture.
The Exodus experience specifically was designed for our learning and Paul says that we should learn from what God did with the Israelites. But to say that the entire Old Testament is a type is going too far. It is absurd.
Rule one: Take a passage the way the original author intended it to be taken. Don’t allegorize it.
2. Take it like medicine. Second, consider the context of a passage. Study each passage in connection with its setting. It will let you know whether it is literal or figurative. Remember to take it literally unless it is otherwise indicated. The Bible is not written in some magic code.
When we need medicine for an illness we don’t go to the cabinet and get a bottle without any regard for the label, date, the writer of the prescription, and the conditions under which it was originally given. All of those circumstances have an effect on the value of the medicine for us. Just so, you should not pull a part of the Bible out of its setting, the original conditions under which it was given, and try to interpret it.
Some people pick isolated bits of the Bible and attempt to interpret them because they think the Bible was given that way. They see it divided into chapters and verses and think that God gave it to us that way. The Bible was not divided into chapters until the year AD 1228. And it was not divided into verses until the year AD 1551. It was divided into these smaller divisions so that we could more easily remember it and find our way around in it. But when God gave it to us, he gave the books as a whole. If we are to understand them, we must understand them within the context of the whole.
Rule two: study a passage in connection to its setting.
3. Understand that revelation is progressive. Third, we cannot really understand the Bible unless we realize that God has progressively revealed himself. God revealed himself over a period of time, not all at once. He doesn’t reveal everything about everything the first time he mentions it. So the full truth of God’s revelation must not be gathered from an isolated passage, but from all that the scriptures say on that truth.
Remembering this will save us from taking a thing from one period down to another period. It is wrong to take what God said to Israel in the Old Testament and apply it to us unless there is some specific evidence in the New Testament that what he did then he is also doing now. For example, under the old economy, physical well-being, material prosperity, military success, large families, long life, and abundant crops were an indication of God’s blessings upon his people. But in the New Testament God does not promise believers all of that. We are not promised that if we are obedient we will be successful in business, prosperous as a nation, and always in good health. The New Testament just does not say that and we can’t accurately equate what God promised to Israel as a promise to us.
In the New Testament we are told that God makes “his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matthew 5:45).
Some of the godliest people I have ever known have suffered great physical infirmities and financial reversals. And some of the most ungodly have enjoyed good health and economic prosperity. What God promised Israel he does not necessarily promise us.
If all of God’s works in every age were the same in every other age, then we would still be under the Mosaic law. We would still be making animal sacrifices. We would still be forbidden to eat pork. We would still be worshipping on the seventh day. Some people do take those Old Testament teachings and bring them into the present and won’t eat pork and they worship on the seventh day instead of on the Lord’s Day. They have no concept of progressive revelation.
Knowing that the Bible is progressive revelation will save you from attempting to make the Old Testament ethical doctrinal teachings for contemporary living. In the Psalms David implores God to destroy his enemies. It helps to know that these words were uttered and read long before Christ lived and in a time when the children of Israel were establishing the kingdom in the midst of all sorts of internal and external pressures. These prayers of David can’t be reconciled with the Sermon on the Mount. But David could not be expected to reach the spiritual heights of the Sermon on the Mount, for the revelation of God was progressive.
The full and final revelation of God is come to us in Jesus Christ. If you stop short of him with your doctrine, theology and ethics, you will miss the ultimate truth of God.
We cannot build our doctrine of the Holy Spirit upon what is taught in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit existed then. In the beginning chapters of Genesis, we are told that the Spirit of God brooded upon the waters. But in the Old Testament the Holy Spirit came upon special people for special tasks. Priests, prophets, and kings were often filled with the Holy Spirit for a specific purpose. And he left them as quickly as he came. But even the prophets looked toward the time when the working of the Holy Spirit would be different among the people of God.
So, on the day of Pentecost, Peter said, “But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:16-17).
We can’t even build our doctrine of God upon the Old Testament. It is not until the New Testament that we understand that God is our Father. The idea of God as Father is hinted at in the Old Testament but the full understanding of God as Father is not given to us until Jesus taught us to pray, “Our father which art in heaven” and told us the story of the prodigal son.
Rule three: it is wrong to take a thing from one period down to the present unless there is some specific evidence in the New Testament that what he did then he is also doing now.
4. Understand that the scriptures do not contradict themselves. Fourth, the scriptures when correctly interpreted always harmonize. You have not interpreted a passage correctly if it does not harmonize. The scripture will not contradict itself. If there is an ambiguous passage, then you take the clear passage to interpret the ambiguous. Always use the plain to interpret the obscure.
If there are two apparent contradictions in scripture, then hold on to both of them as equally true. For example, the Bible teaches that God is one. But it also teaches the trinity. The Bible teaches the free will of man, but it also teaches election and predestination. It is difficult to harmonize these teachings so we accept all of them though we do not understand them. We remember that the infinite God is greater than our finite minds. And a God small enough to be completely understood would not be great enough worship.
If there is any apparent contradiction in scripture, the contradiction is in us, not in the word of God.
Rule four: the scripture will not contradict itself.
5. Listen to what the saints have said. Fifth, we should consider what the great saints have said about the scriptures down through the ages. We need to know what has been the historical teaching, the essential thrust of the church concerning each passage down through the centuries.
The apostle Paul said that among the gifts the ascended Christ gave to the church was that of pastor-teachers (Ephesians 4:11) to equip the church for the work of the ministry.
We should recognize that God has gifted certain people for a teaching ministry in the church. The same indwelling Holy Spirit who inspired the scriptures has divinely equipped them to help you understand the scriptures. Do not, therefore, try to be independent of the best of human help. The believer who does so is hindering his own spiritual development.
It is sheer spiritual arrogance to neglect commentaries, source books, and the teachings of God’s gifted teachers in the past and feel that God will tell you directly what the Bible says. We neglect the scholars of the past to our own peril. It is as if we are saying to God, “We don’t need what you have provided.”
Rule five: consider what the great saints have said down through the ages about a particular passage of scripture.
6. Be born again. Sixth, if you want to know the Bible, you must know the author of the Bible. The natural man does not understand its deep truths (1 Corinthians 2:14). Men may admire its literary beauty, its historical accuracy, and its high ethical principles, and still miss the real truth of it.
Since man is spiritually blind and dead by sin, he must be regenerated to understand the spiritual message of the Bible. We talk about the inspiration of the scriptures, but it is twofold; it is given by inspiration and received by inspiration.
The same divine person who inspired the writers of the Bible also indwells the Christian, and his ministry is to lead us into the truth of God’s word. But he can only do that when we expend the energy and self-discipline necessary for a careful and systematic study of the Bible.
The teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit is not some magical shortcut to an easy understanding of every verse in the Bible. It will not necessarily make you a masterful Bible scholar just because you have prayed for his leading. It still takes hard work. That’s why Paul said, “Study” to show yourself approved unto God. Study and follow these principles of interpretation and you will rightly divide God’s word.