This May Not be the Safest Course to Take...

Through KingdomScribes, we're advocating for a new course for people to take... And we're not talking about our Rightly Dividing the Word course (though that will take you the same direction as what we advocate here.)

What we're saying is that the "old wineskins" of churchianity -- how we've been "doing church", how we "pray", how we "evangelize", whether we "do church" in churches, houses, mall or on the street -- all these are inconsequential to the new Move of God today. This is the Morning of a New Day, the Dawn that leads ultimately to the establishment of the Kingdom of God throughout the whole earth. In short, the Lord has set a New Course for His people, and it's NOT the "old course" that's worked in the past!

Wake up and smell the coffee! It's early in the morning, and Our God's on the Move again. Now, some people think that it's sort of arrogant to think God is telling us He's "on the Move". Hasn't He always been "on the Move"?

Yes, He has. But God always wants His people to keep their eyes on Him, and go with Him from the "old" into the "new". Many people want God to "stay the same" and not ever lead us into new places, spiritually. But think about it a moment -- how will we ever be ready for His Second Coming if we expect (or hope) for things to stay the same? How will the Bride ever "prepare herself" for her coming Groom if we don't "progress spiritually"?

The events of the Old Testament are intended to be seen as examples to us. The word God gave to Israel in the Wilderness still applies to us today. He said that He'd be visibly present in their midst as a Pillar of fire by night and smoke by day, and that whenever they saw the Pillar begin to move, they had to pack their tents immediately and follow it.

We may not have a visible Pillar moving in front of us -- but we still have a Moving God! He still expects His people to see that He's doing a "new work" -- and when He is, we're supposed to "remember not the former things". (Isa 43.18) In its original language (accord. To Strong's), the word "remember" is in the imperfect tense which implies that this "remembering" is a process that's been going on for awhile. Here are people who have been "remembering" the "good Move of God in the past" -- but God wants to do something new. And in order to do it, the people have to stop "remembering" the past, and start "listening" for God's new directions.

And in the same verse, where it says not to "consider the things of old", "consider" also is in an imperfect tense, implying, "don't show oneself attentive any more to the things of old" -- the past Moves of God.

In fact, Isaiah says that when God is "on the Move" and leading us into new things, He'll tell us about it. "Before they spring forth I tell you of them" (v. 18) and "I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it?" (43.19)

Honestly, it's not rocket science to consider that when God is Moving into new spiritual places, He's taking along all who want to follow. It's not like He's going to Move secretly. In Amos 3.7 is given an Old Testament proverb: "Surely the Sovereign LORD does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets." When He's doing a new thing, won't we be able to recognize or discern it?

Sometimes people who consider themselves "prophets", in fact, are arrogant. Not always, by any means. But sometimes when they're telling everybody that "God is doing this" or "He's doing that", you wonder if they're on track or not. Some "prophets" claim the above verse as warrant for their arrogance. Yet the New Testament presents Kingdom Saints as all having a personal, audible relationship with the Holy Spirit. We are a people who have received the "anointing" of the Holy Spirit, Who in His relationship to us, "teaches us all things." (1Jn 2.27f)

What does this mean? It means that we are not in the same position as people were during Old Testament days. Today, every Believer in Christ has the opportunity -- no, the responsibility -- to hear from God the New Things He is doing!

This course I'm advocating here may not be the "safest" course for us to take. After all -- if every Believer follows the leading of the Holy Spirit (instead of being told by their pastors and prophets what to do), won't many Believers get off track?

Well, yeah. I guess. But consider this parallel: Let's say two teens are going to get married. Over in India, maybe. They haven't met each other yet. The marriage has been arranged by their families. But before it takes place, the girl's mom is talking to the boy's mom, and one says, "Do you think they'll like each other and build a good life?" The other says, "Oh, I don't know -- so many married couples fail, now days." The first asks, "What do you think we can do to help keep their marriage from failing?" "Well," the second says, "maybe they can get married and not live together. If they keep away from each other, they won't quarrel or misunderstand one another."

So, that's a safe path. The safe shepherd says, "Don't even try to get God's people living in the leading of the Holy Spirit -- just keep them doing the old, tried-and-true things we know are pleasing to God. Because, after all, if all Believers are (helter-skelter) encouraged to be personally responsible to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, so many of them just might get off track. They could get lost, fall into the ditch, spiritually!"

In 2Cor 13.14, Paul writes a blessing at the close of his letter. He says, "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen." For what it's worth, this is clearest presentation of the Trinity given in Paul's letters. But there's something more interesting here. Notice that not only does Paul mention "Jesus", "God" and the "Holy Spirit", he also attaches a special description of what blessing Each Person brings: in Jesus we have "grace" (Gk. charis), in God we have "love" (Gk. agape), and in the Holy Spirit we have "communion".

In Greek, "communion" is the word koinonia. Many people think that "communion" means "fellowship", and in some places it could be translated that way. But it means something much more. Wuest quotes two Bible scholars, Moulton and Milligan, who explain that koinonia was used in New Testament days to refer to a business or endeavor "belonging in common to two or more people. The idea in the word, koinonia is that of one person having a joint-participation with another in something possessed or owned in common by both.

In light of this, koinonia does not mean you're going to "fellowship" with someone over a cup of coffee. This kind of communion means that you are jointly-participating in a project or endeavor that both of you own.

"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the koinonia of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen."

Every one of us -- as Believers in Jesus Christ -- share in His Grace, His Love, and in the Work of God, jointly-owned by every person in Christ.

God is Moving in a New Way through this earth today. In fact, if it is "today", He's Moving in a new way -- for He will never rest with the old.

And you and me, we get to Move with Him -- in the anointing and the communion of the Holy Spirit, we get to set aside the "spiritual success of the past" and press into the new things of God. Paul says (Rom 8.14) that "all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God". We may have been taught to pray "Our Father" and trust "in Jesus", but are we the companions and co-laborers of the Holy Spirit, in koinonia Him?

Many Believers have been wrongly taught that they can safely ignore the Holy Spirit or relegate Him to being a sort of a "divine energy field". But we're actually supposed to be able to hear Him, to be taught by Him and to share spiritual labors with Him.

Consider this: Most Christians traditionally are familiar with John 3, especially verse 16. They know about the interview with Nicodemus, but many have never observed verse 8. Here's both 7 and 8: "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but can't tell from where it comes and where it goes: so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

What's this "wind" business? It's the Holy Spirit. In Greek, the word for "wind" and "Spirit" are the same word (pnuema). So, Jesus is telling Nicodemus that no one can see the Movement of the Spirit of God -- like the wind, it comes from "somewhere" as it travels to "somewhere". But its Movement can't be tracked by human observation.

But did you really look at the last phrase? If these things are true of the Holy Spirit, they must be true of you, too, because Jesus says, "so is every one who is born of the Spirit".

If you're born of the Spirit, you will follow a track like the blowing Wind. The point isn't that you'll "wander" in some sort of aimless, pointless, inexplicable and retarded pattern -- but that you'll move as the Spirit of God Moves you. People observing you through the filter of their natural (non-spiritual) minds often will be totally unable to make sense of the path of a righteous child of God. But we're not responsible to submit to the judgment of natural minded people -- we're responsible to submit to the leading of the Spirit. And all of us who are so led, we are the Children of God!

It's hard to disagree very much with a point Bible teacher Harold Eberle has made. He said that "to resist the nature of flowing and constant change is to resist the Third Person of the Trinity... The person who is unwilling to be blown by the Wind will never experience the Spirit-filled life."

We still have a Moving God and the people of Kingdom will be those who -- in their koinonia and intimacy with the Spirit will move with Him.

Maybe it's not the "safest course" -- but it's the only one that leads to Life!

Emil & Michele Swift
Em&M Ministries

KingdomScribes -- Rightly Handling the Word of Truth

For those of you who are currently working through our tutorial, Rightly Dividing the Word, here's a brief study of our Theme Verse -- 2 Tim 2.15. In this blog, we plan on often focusing studies to correlate with the tutorial.

BTW -- for those who have not yet seen our tutorial, go here to see sample pages:

http://kingdomscribes.net/KingdomScribesNF/docs/bookstore.html

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One of the fundamental revelations needed for becoming a true student of the Word of God is found in 2 Tim 2.15. Our Bible study tutorial, Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth, uses this passage as its theme verse. In Paul's words to young Timothy, we find some crucial understanding about how to approach the Scriptures.

Since the Word of God is not merely "letters written on paper", but the Spirit of Christ Himself, the Living Word has power to transform our lives! We urge every Christian who desires to be "discipled by the Kingdom of Heaven" to memorize 2Tim 2.15 (as well as 2Tim 3.16-17 -- see below.) The process of memorizing the Scriptures, increases how much we are meditating on the Word -- it helps lead us into a closer relationship between the Mind of Christ and our own minds.

Let's take a look at our theme verse:

"Study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who needs not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth."
2Tim 2.15

SUMMARY

First -- Paul's point here in 2Tim 2.15 is neither eschatological nor dispensational (as some claim, that Paul's point is that somehow Timothy was supposed to "cut" God's provisions to humankind into "ages").

If you don't read a prior bias into this verse, Paul's point is simple. His point is that he wanted young Timothy to approach the Scriptures and Paul's own teachings -- God's "word of truth" -- as if Timothy were a diligent workman, a craftsman setting out to use his tools and materials as skillfully as possible in order to receive God's approval as a genuine minister of God. And the "tool" Timothy was to use, was the Word of Truth (Greek: logos).

This admonition to Timothy still rings true to us today. We also must reject a lazy and superficial approach to the Scriptures. We must respond to Paul's challenge to use our abilities to the fullest -- handling the Word of Truth skillfully and diligently.

So, how did I arrive at this conclusion?

Let's do a brief study of 2Tim. 2.15:

Let's paraphrase the verse:

"Study to show yourself approved unto God,
a workman who needs not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the word of truth."

-- 2Tim 2.15

In the first phrase, "study" is rendered in various translations as "study" (KJV), "be diligent" (NKJV) and "do your best". (NIV) These are all translating the Greek word, spoudazo. But Strong's dictionary defines spoudazo (#4704 -- "study") as:

(1) to hasten, make haste (2) to exert one's self, endeavor, give diligence

We could easily misunderstand the verse if we only read it in the KJV translation. To "study" usually assumes "academic" connotations in applying one's mind purposefully to increasing knowledge and information of a subject. But Paul does not mean that we are to "study" the Word academically.

In the Greek, the focus of spoudazo is not on "academic effort" as much as it is focusing on simply "diligence", the deliberate exertion of one's energies towards a goal. A better translation would be this:

"Deliberately exert your energies to demonstrating yourself to have received God's approval..."

In Paul's culture 2,000 years ago, this goal of spoudazo or "diligence" applied to many different tasks in which one could be diligent -- tasks such as plowing a field or picking figs. But in this verse, the goal of diligence is specific: it's to "show" or "present" oneself "approved" by God.

In the phrase, "approved unto God", the word "approved" is dokimos. A wonderful Bible teacher, Donald Barnhouse, tells a story to illustrate how dokimos was actually used in Paul's day:

In the ancient world there was no banking system as we know it today, and no paper money. All money was made from metal, heated until liquid, poured into moulds and allowed to cool. When the coins were cooled, it was necessary to smooth off the uneven edges. The coins were comparatively soft and of course many people shaved them closely. In one century, more than eighty laws were passed in Athens, to stop the practice of shaving down the coins then in circulation. But some money changers were men of integrity, who would accept no counterfeit money. They were men of honour who put only genuine full weighted money into circulation. Such men were called dokimos or "approved". -- Donald Barnhouse (Note in the Online Bible; 2 Cor. 10.18)

What's this mean for us? In Paul's day, bankers who were "approved" by the city were honest and didn't circulate an inferior product (coins with less weight than expected.) In our day, you or I may be "approved" by God for being "diligent" in how we "rightly divide the word".

Have you ever listened to a teaching in Sunday School or in a home group, an afterwards wondered if the person really knew what they were talking about? Maybe you asked a question about the subject that night and the teacher wasn't prepared to answer it or maybe the teacher contradicted one thing five minutes after another thing was taught. The sense that a teacher of God's Word of Truth might not have prepared carefully comes through the presentation sometimes.

Well, according to Paul in this verse, any person who is dokimos to God ("approved" in God's eyes) gets there by spoudazo -- diligent effort and personal exertion -- not by casual or sloppy preparation. We'll be "approved" by God if we put our diligent effort into -- what?

We're to be diligent toward "rightly dividing the word of truth". Now -- what is this activity?

NIV's translation has, "correctly handles the word of truth"; NRSV has "rightly explaining the word of truth".

To get a clearer understanding on "rightly dividing:, we can look in Robertson's Word Pictures (in the Online Bible), where we read,

Handling aright (orthotomounta)... [means] "cutting straight"... It occurs in Pr 3:6; 11:5 for making straight paths (hodous)... Theodoret explains it to mean ploughing a straight furrow. Parry argues that the metaphor is the stone mason cutting the stones straight since temno and orthos are so used. Since Paul was a tent-maker and knew how to cut straight the rough camel-hair cloth, why not let that be the metaphor? Certainly plenty of exegesis is crooked enough (crazy-quilt patterns) to call for careful cutting to set it straight.

These images easily make sense of Paul's admonition to be "workman" -- workmen are skillful experts. Be it a stone cutter skillfully handling his chisels and stone, a farmer expertly handling his plow and field, a tentmaker handling his knives and camel-cloth or a follower of Jesus studying the Word of Life -- all of these speak of trained craftsmen using the tools and materials of the trade to the best of their abilities -- exerting oneself and endeavoring to do his best.

By the way -- notice especially how the NIV focuses away from any idea of "division" or "dividing"; in this verse -- the main idea wasn't that we learn to "cut" the word of truth but "handle it" professionally -- not slothfully or casually.

SUMMARY
Paul's point here in 2Tim 2.15 is not eschatological nor dispensational (identifying how to "cut" God's provisions to humankind into "ages").

Paul's point is that he wanted young Timothy to approach the Scriptures and Paul's own teachings -- God's "word of truth" -- as if Timothy were a diligent workman, a craftsman setting out to use his tools and materials as skillfully as possible in order to receive God's approval as a genuine minister of God. And the "tools and materials" Timothy was to use was the Word of Truth.

Paul's admonition to Timothy rings down the centuries to you and me, that we, too, must reject a lazy and superficial approach to the Scriptures. Instead, let's take up our destiny in God in handling the Word of Truth skillfully and diligently.

BTW -- here's the other verse mentioned above of serious value to KingdomScribes who are "discipled by the Kingdom of Heaven!

*2Tim 3. 16-17: "Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, so that the man of God may be perfected, fully furnished for every good work." (GLT)

Emil & Michele Swift
Em&M Ministries

"Early Will I Seek Thee..."

We haven't blogged in the last week or so because of going to the Pastors' Advance conference in northern Calif at Bill Johnson's church. Wonderful!

But while there, the Lord ministered prophetically in our lives in a way that truly amazed and uplifted us -- if you want all the details, go to the InJesus newsgroup.

You probably know that Paul said to Timothy that he needed to keep hold on "the prophecies once made about you, so that by following them you may fight the good fight." The prophetic words given to you are also VITAL for staying on top of all the enemy will bring against you.

And at the pastors' conference, we were given a prophetic word on three seperate occasions by unconnected people... Even MORE amazing, these prophecies clarified a puzzling Word Michele had received last summer which we've been holding onto all these months.

Want the whole story? Go over to www.KingdomScribes.InJesus.com and read all about it!

Bless you!

Emil & Michele Swift
Em&M Ministries