In
these last days, when the ears of so many in the churches
are turning to fables, and so many are giving heed to
doctrines of devils, it is more needful than ever for the
church of Jesus Christ to draw nigh unto her head and be
washed with water by the word. These are times when men
have grown complacent and lazy, and are,"...at ease in Zion..."; the
time of the angel of the church of the
Laodiceans, when the so-called Christians are
saying, "...we are rich, and increased with goods...", and
know not that they are "...wretched, and
miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." (Revelation
3:14-22) So, it is the mission and calling of
this man of God to bring the word of the Lord Jesus,
rightly divided, to the people of God in these last days.
It is my prayer that you, the reader, will
prayerfully consider the things you are about to read
herein, and search the scriptures to see that the things
I write to you are indeed the word of God rightly
divided. Rightly dividing the word of God (2 Timothy 2:15) simply means to
use it as it was intended, as opposed to taking
words and phrases out of context to form a doctrine
(teaching) that is not taught in the scripture.
In these last days, most professing Christians believe
what they believe based on the opinions of their
denomination, or commentaries of scholars; but have never
actually searched the word for themselves.
Therefore it has become dangerously easy for men to stand
in the pulpits of today and use a verse or two from the
Bible totally out of context and teach doctrines that are
totally foreign to the word of God, deceiving the
multitudes; because the people in the churches just don't
know their Bibles. That is the purpose for my calling
from the Lord in these last days, and for the material
you are reading. So be prayerful, and be ready to hear
the word of God, and reject the traditions you have
probably been taught from your youth (as was I, until
I began to read the scriptures for myself!), and let
the vain traditions of men be replaced by the pure word
of God, in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Rightly dividing the New Testament is so very important
because that is the dispensation (time period)
in which we are now living. So, What is the New
Testament? It is the fulfillment of the Old
Testament. In the Old Testament it was written by
the hand of Jeremiah the prophet,
"Behold, the days come, saith the
LORD, that I will make a new covenant (testament) with the
house of Israel and with the house of Judah...I will
put my law in their inward parts, and write it in
their hearts; and will be their God,
and they shall be my people."
(Jer. 31:31-33).
This New Covenant (or Testament) was a blood covenant---the
one that God had planned all along, and was the reason
for the blood sacrifices of the Old Covenant, which could
never
take away sins (Hebrews 10:11), but were a shadow of things
to come (Colossians 2:17).
"But when the fulness of the time
was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive
the adoption of sons"
(Galatians 4:4,5),
so that by the power of HIS BLOOD we could be set
free from the power of sin, and the condemnation thereof,
and be clean by obeying the gospel of the New Testament.
So, the New
Testament of our Bible is the historical account of:
how
Jesus came in the flesh and accomplished what he had
promised in the Old Testament,
and also of
the
first few decades of the New Testament church,
as well as
the
teachings of the apostles and elders concerning the
doctrine of Christ,
as they were commanded by him to,
..."teach all nations, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost,
teaching them to observe
all things whatsoever I have commanded
you..."
(Matthew 28:19, 20).
The Bible is really pretty easy to understand, if one
will only take the time to study it, and be willing to
obey it.
So let's look at the New Testament...
The New
Testament has 27 letters, which are commonly called books. They
are arranged in a particular order (chronologically)
for good reason.
The first
four books are:
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
These books tell us the historical account of the things
we need to know which happened from the time of the birth
of our Lord Jesus Christ, until the time of his ascension
into heaven, including his life, teachings, miracles,
persecutions, crucifixion, death, burial, and
resurrection, and his appearing to his disciples for 40
days afterward.
It is important to note at this point that the New
Covenant (or Testament) that Jesus came to bring had
not yet been established here. It was spoken
of here, and the way was made here, but here in the four gospels of
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
...there is NO church,
there are NOChristians,
and there is NONew Testament gospel being preached.
The gospel (good news) that Jesus was preaching
was the fact that the kingdom of God was at hand, and it
was time for the Jews to repent and believe on their
Messiah. It was a gospel for the Jew only, and it was
preached under the dispensation of the law, so that
"...the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24) could be
gathered unto their Shepherd, as he had promised to do
for them by the mouth of Ezekiel the prophet (Ezekiel 34:11,12).
So, we need to keep in mind that the things that Jesus
said in these four books were not addressed
to the whole world (although at times he did refer to the
world in his teachings), but solely to the house
of Israel---the Jews. The lack of understanding of
this truth has many multitudes in the churches confused
in these last days, as they take many verses from these four gospels out of their
proper context, and misapply them to the church, when in
fact there was no church at that time; and
the Lord Jesus was dealing exclusively with the house of
Israel.
As it is
written in Romans 15:8,
"Now
I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of the
circumcision [the Jewish people] for the
truth of God, to confirm the promises made
unto the fathers [Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob]..."
These
four books are a part of the New Testament of our Bible
because they tell the story of how the New Testament was
prepared and accomplished by God in his Son, Jesus
Christ. But the New Testament period in which we
now live did not begin during that time.
The prophet Jeremiah said,
"...I will put my law in their
inward parts, and
write it in their hearts..."
(Jer.31:33);
and Paul
the apostle of Christ quoted Jeremiah this way,
"...I will dwell in them, and
walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall
be my people."
(2 Corinthians 6:16).
So, when
did that come to pass?
Acts
of the Apostles
It came to pass on the day of the feast of
Pentecost, in the year of our Lord 33, fifty days
after the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ (as it
was written in the law--Leviticus 23:10-21); and the
account of it is written in the book of the Acts of
the Apostles. The book of Acts picks up where
the four
gospels leave off, chronologically. It was written
by Luke, and it begins after the resurrection of
our Lord and shortly before his ascension into heaven;
and it continues as an historical account of the events
that took place from the birth of the New Testament
church, and several decades into the future, so
that we may see---
How
the promise of the Holy Ghost was poured out,
How
the apostles of Christ preached the gospel he
gave them,
The
order in which it was preached (Jew, Samaritan,
Gentile),
How
people got saved and became Christians,
How
churches became established, and
How
God bore witness with power to the word of his
apostles.
In the second chapter of Acts, the New
Testament church was born, and the gospel thereof began
to be preached in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in
Samaria, and unto the Gentiles (Acts 1:8), just as the
Lord had commanded his apostles to do.
Only in the
book of Acts can we read historical accounts of:
the gospel
being preached,
people
obeying it to be saved,
churches
being established,
and the
disciples of Jesus performing the same miracles he did by
faith in his name
(John
14:12-14).
So, the book of Acts is a continuation of the story of the four gospels, picking up at
the ascension of Jesus into heaven, and going on to
describe the beginning of the New Testament church which
he purchased with his blood in the gospel accounts of Matthew, Mark,
Luke, and John.
Then, we
have-----
The
Epistles (Romans - Jude)
Romans
1
& 2 Corinthians Galatians
Ephesians
Philippians
Colossians
1&2
Thessalonians 1&2
Timothy Titus
Philemon
Hebrews
James
1&2
Peter 1,2,
&3 John Jude
These are letters (epistle is another word for
letter), which were written by the apostles and elders to
the churches.
In the book of Acts, we can see many
of these churches being established (Corinth-Acts 18,
Galatia--Acts 16:6 & 18:23, Ephesus--Acts 19:1-7,
Thessalonica--Acts 17:1-9, etc...).
So, after the apostles went forth preaching the gospel,
baptizing believers, and teaching them the commandments
of the Lord (Matthew 28:19,20), they moved on
to preach in other places, and, at times, sent letters
back to the churches they had left earlier in order to
teach, comfort, admonish, and sometimes correct them.
This is what the epistles are. They are not written
to the whole world. They are written to
Christians.They do not preach the
gospel to sinners so they can get saved from sin.
They are instruction to saints who had already heard and
obeyed the gospel of the apostles, in order to further
establish them in the truth, give them greater and deeper
understanding of the gospel they had obeyed, and teach
them how they ought to live their lives both in and out
of the meeting of the church, in order to glorify God and
inherit his kingdom.
So, remember, when you read the pronoun "we" in the
epistles, it is not referring to the world,
but to the church of God. When the
writers are referring to the world, it is
distinctly noted by the use of the pronoun "they". This is
so very important to understand, and is a fundamental
part of knowing how to rightly divide the New Testament of the Bible.
For us
to take a phrase out of the four gospels, which was
spoken to the Jews, and read it as though it
was spoken to the church, will cause
error and confusion.
For us
to take a phrase out of one of the epistles, and read it
as though it was written to the world, or as
though it was preaching the gospel to sinners, will also
cause error and confusion.
Lastly,
we have the book of ---
The
Revelation of Jesus Christ
This book is prophecy. It is not
"Revelations". It is not
the Revelation of John. It is just what the first 5
words says it is---The Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Chronologically, it deals with the period of time beginning with
the birth of the New Testament church, until the
consummation of all things, and the
establishment of the eternal kingdom of God, when time
shall be no more, the wicked shall forever be in the lake
of fire, and the righteous shall reign with God (Jesus
Christ) forever and ever.
The book
itself is divided as follows:
Chapter
1----------the vision of Jesus Christ
Chapters
2-3------the dispensation of the New
Testament church Chapters
4-20-----the judgment & wrath of God
upon the world Chapters
21&22---the establishment of the
eternal kingdom of God
And that is how the New Testament is to be rightly
divided...it is basically quite simple. If we look at it
using the New Testament gospel as a center, or
focal point,
we can say
that:
*in the
four
gospels (Matthew-John), the gospel
was PREPARED-
*in the
book of Acts, the gospel
was PREACHED-
*in the
epistles (Romans - Jude), the gospel
was PRESERVED-
*in the
Revelation, the gospel
was PRESUMED-
It is my prayer and earnest desire that this lesson will
give you, the reader, a clear understanding of the basic
"building blocks" of the New Testament
of the Holy Bible; and that, having this foundation, you
will understand more and more by the grace of God, how to
rightly divide it and perceive the things written
therein, that you may be washed from the many errors of
the organizations of men by the pure word of God, and
come fully out of the teachings of Babylon and into the Bride.
Those who do not know how to
rightly divide the word of God
will never understand it.
It is not a
book of "magical" verses,
to be taken
and used in whatever context suits the will of the user
(that is witchcraft!);
but rather
it is a book given to us by the God of Heaven, inspired
word for word, and in purposeful order,
so that those whom he has chosen (his sheep) may know the
truth and obey it unto eternal life.
The prophet Hosea spoke these words from the LORD:
"...for the ways of the LORD are
right, and the just shall walk in them: but the
transgressors shall fall therein."
(Hosea 14:9).
So, let us
rightly divide the word of God, and live.
"Study to shew thyself approved
unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth."
2 Timothy 2:15
"All the words of my mouth are in
righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in
them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and
right to them that find knowledge."
