Home
Bible Study ©
Established
November 2008
Rightly
Dividing the Word of Truth
(2
Timothy 2:15)
This
is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to
be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 1Timothy 2:3-4
1 Corinthians (Lesson 10)
A new missionary
was assigned a car that wouldn’t start without a push from behind.
He pondered this
problem for some time before coming up with a solution. He went to the nearby school, received
permission to temporarily remove some of the children from their classroom in
the mornings, and he had them push the car to get it going. As he made his rounds, he either parked the
car on a hill or he left the engine running.
This is how he managed
the car concern every single day of the two years he served in country. Ill health forced him to leave the ministry
and a new missionary was sent to replace him.
While the retiring
missionary was explaining his arrangement and the problem he had getting the
car started to the new man, he had already opened the hood and began looking
around. After a few minutes he
interrupted the missionary’s explanation saying, “I believe I’ve discovered you’re problem. There’s a loose cable on the battery.” He quickly tightened
the cable, sat down in the driver’s seat, turned the ignition key, and to the retiring
missionary’s amazement the engine roared to life.
For two years the
missionary had endured unnecessary difficulty because not only was the power
there it was available the entire time; only a loose connection kept him from
putting that power to work.
Food
for Thought
It has been said, “What you value you will pursue.” It’s fairly obvious that some people in
the church value the gift of the Holy Spirit and some do not. Permit me to put it this way, “What would your lives be like if you allowed
the Spirit of God to live though you daily?”
True Believers
understand they need both the Word of God and the Spirit of God working in
their lives continuously. When we establish
a firm connection with our heavenly
Father, His power flows through us …and
what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These
are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might
which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated
Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,
(Ephesians 1:19-20).
But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead
dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your
mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you (Romans 8:11).
Is a “loose”
connection preventing you from experiencing God’s power in your life?
********
Please
open your Bible at 1 Corinthians 2:12.
1 Corinthians 2
12: Now we have received,
not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we
may know the things freely given to us by God,
13: which things we
also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit,
combining spiritual thoughts with
spiritual words.
14: But a natural
man (or
woman) does not accept the things of the
Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him (or her); and he (or she) cannot
understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.
15: But he who is spiritual
appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.
16: For “WHO HAS
KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ. (Isaiah 40:13)
As
usual, we’ll tackle these verses one at a time beginning with verse 12.
Now we – by we Paul means to say every true
Believer, in Christ Jesus, but especially the apostles or those who were called
specifically by the Lord Jesus Christ to herald and explain His message of
salvation to the lost. We know this
because of what Paul says in verse 13: which things we (the stewards of God’s word) also speak… (1 Corinthians 4:1).
Every
true Believer has received (past
tense) not the spirit of the
world – Scripture speaks about the world
frequently and I mean to emphasize it whenever possible. The present-day world is functioning without God.
Paul refers to it as a “spirit of
slavery” in Romans 8:15. The
majority of people living in the world today
are enslaved to sin. They are
being ruled by pathological hypocrites and liars and their father is Satan,
“the father of lies” (John 8:44-47).
Where
do I get this? The Bible says Satan is the
god of this age and has been ever since the man (Adam) willfully sinned against
God yielding his God-given dominion
to the evil one: And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly
walked according to the course of this world, according to the price of the
power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons (and
daughters) of disobedience (Genesis
1:26; Romans 5:12; 1 Corinthians 15:21; 2 Corinthians 4:4; Ephesians 2:1-2).
But
we (true Believers) have received,
not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God. Followers (imitators) of Jesus Christ are not subject to, or vehicles for, the
evil spirit of the world. They are instead striving, as best as they
can, to be led by the Spirit of God, in order to live a life according to the
Light of God, or the Word of God (Luke 4:1; Romans 8:14). We esteem the gift of the Holy Spirit and
give thanks daily for our firm connection
with God the Father who has
identified us as His own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first
installment that guarantees everything He has promised (2 Corinthians 1:22
– NIV translation).
…that we may know
the things freely given to us by God – we can understand the Gospel of Jesus
Christ and the blessings contained in that message only through the operation
of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, we’d be “lost
in space,” so to speak, along with the rest of the unbelieving world.
As I’ve said before, the message of the cross and God’s redemptive plan is complex; it’s too spiritually
deep for us Believers to understand it. Adding to that thought, even though we’ve
established a firm connection with
our heavenly Father, we can’t hope to know Him fully this side of glory. But because of the indwelt Holy Spirit we
know everything we need to know for
salvation and godly living through the revelation of God (Deuteronomy 29:29;
Psalms 119:105; Romans 8:32).
Let’s
look at verse 13.
1 Corinthians 2
13: which things we
(apostles)
also speak, not in words taught
by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
Paul
is continuously comparing the wisdom of man against the wisdom of God
throughout chapter 2; we find more evidence of this in v13. To the dying world the Bible is only a dated book written by ordinary men; according
to these people it’s inconsequential and has no redeeming value.
Should
an unbeliever try to read the Bible they couldn’t hope to understand what God
is saying because they don’t have a relationship with Him. I heard it put this way years ago; an
unbeliever isn’t able to understand the Bible because they’re reading “somebody else’s mail.” But once you become a Believer the Bible begins
to make sense through the operation of the indwelt Holy Spirit. The more time you invest in Bible study the
more your understanding grows.
…which things we
also speak –Paul
says he’s going to speak; he’s going
to use the words God has provided. By this he means to say every Believer needs
to share God’s Gospel (particularly those God has called for this purpose), for
His Truths are Light and life to those who are lost.
Please
don’t get the idea you need to memorize 50 or more Bible verses before you’re
ready for your first assignment. You
don’t need to “down-load” the entire book of Romans on an unsuspecting co-worker
or family member either. You’ll discover
the method changes with each individual you encounter. Paul knew this and he did his best to avoid
sounding like a walking cliché’ or a tired door-to-door salesman when he talked
to people about the cross. Remember, you’re not in the salvation
business, so let go of the stress and let the Holy Spirit guide you. The Spirit of God does the work of
regeneration in a person’s heart; it is God who saves. Remember too that even though you may be the
one who introduces them to the gospel, it often takes several such contacts in
a person’s life before the Spirit helps them understand the content of
its message; it did for me… (1
Corinthians 3:6; 2 Corinthians 5:11-21).
The
great and glorious truths which Paul and others explain or speak are not in words
taught by human wisdom. Again, Paul
speaks of the insufficiency of the human intellect to understand the things of God - because the
“puffed-up,” eloquently-trained philosophers of the day, and the crowds who gathered
to listen to their rhetoric, not only didn’t know God they weren’t interested in
acquiring knowledge of Him.
The
things, Paul speaks of are
associated with God’s redemptive plan;
things which had been kept hidden in the mind of God since the
foundations of the earth, according to His will (Deuteronomy 29:29). These truths were introduced to our Apostle
Paul by the Lord Jesus Christ over a period of three years in the desert of
Arabia; probably at or near the place Moses received the Ten Commandments from
God. I’m thinking the Lord spent most of
this time helping Paul unlearn the Mosaic Law.
Making the transition from the Dispensation of the Law to the Dispensation
of God’s Grace wasn’t an effortless change for a Jew. Scripture says the Gospel of Jesus Christ was
and is a stumbling block to a Jew
(Romans 9:32-33; Galatians 1:11-19).
…but in those (words) taught by the Spirit,
combining spiritual thoughts with
spiritual words – another way of putting this is the Holy Spirit was
involved in the development of the Scriptures from Genesis to the book of
Revelation and works through Scripture to accomplish God’s purposes in
Believer’s lives today. The Scriptures
are the revelation of God; God has communicated to man information that man
would not have known otherwise.
Please
turn with me to 2 Peter, chapter 1, and we’ll drop in at verses 20-21: But
know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy
Spirit spoke from God. (The
word prophecy as used here has nothing to do with predicting the future. In the early church, those with the gift of prophecy simply spoke forth the
Word of God (Logos); this was
necessary because the Bible wasn’t in print yet.)
In
short, this Bible passage is saying the Holy Spirit is the author of Scripture;
therefore there are no contradictions or errors contained within it. The other thing its saying is no interpretation of Scripture is private belonging
only to you or me. I think a better way
of saying this is, “Don’t hang your
eternal destiny on just one or two Bible verses.” The Bible is a progressive revelation,
meaning those things God has
revealed to humanity were not given all at once but in stages and this includes
increased revelation of Himself and His expressed will. Therefore, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for
reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man (and
woman) of God may be complete,
having been fully equipped toward every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17); the
Scriptures contain everything we need to
know!
Two
things immediately come to mind. #1: I’ve alluded to the fact that certain aspects
of human wisdom have merit but as the prophet Isaiah said, speaking for the LORD
God, “For as the heavens are higher than
the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your
thoughts (Isaiah 55:9). This verse
is telling us that God is infinite while man is finite. It’s also saying the nature of God is such
that man needs revelation or enlightenment from Him before they can know Him or
understand His ways.
#2: Scripture clearly indicates that man is by
nature fallen (depraved) and unable to think honestly about God. The need for a firm connection or spiritual relationship with the Creator is also
stressed throughout this book. Without the
power of the Holy Spirit working in
and through an individual they cannot hope to understand the things of God for they are spiritually
discerned from the Father. Paul writes …that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of (what) wisdom and of (what) revelation in the knowledge of Him (Ephesians
1:17).
After
God calls us, He expects each Believer from then on to exercise their faith in
seeking to draw near to Him. If we do
this we have this encouraging promise: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to
you” (James 4:8).
Permit
me to illustrate. When you really want
to know someone what do you normally do?
Spend time with them, right?
After I met the girl that would soon become my best friend and then later
my wife, that’s pretty much all I wanted to do.
In other words, I wanted to know what “made her tick” and the only way I
could accomplish this was by investing time in her and our relationship.
Albert
Einstein said, “I want to know how God
created this world. I am not interested
in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are
details.”
The first step in
our quest for intimacy with the Lord is getting to know Him – who He is, what
He does, how He thinks, and what He desires.
Even though God is invisible and inaudible to our physical senses, a
close relationship with Him is cultivated the same way human friendships are –
through time spent together, communication, vulnerability, and shared
interests.
Dr.
Charles Stanley.
Although
God is invisible and inaudible, as Dr. Stanley explained above, He has made a
way for us to know Him and that is through the spoken Word (John 1:1-4, 1:14-17,
5:18-24, 14:6-11). This book says: God,
after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions
and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us (this includes
you, me, and every Believer) in His Son,
whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world (Hebrews
1:1-2).
A
Word is a thought that has been expressed. Makes sense, right. God’s attributes, His character, and His revealed
thoughts are addressed to us in His written Word. Put another way, the Bible is the divinely
inspired, inerrant Word (Logos) of
God. However, it requires the Spirit of
God to properly appropriate it.
Now
let’s go to verse 14.
1 Corinthians 2
14: But a natural
man (or
woman) does not accept the things
of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him (or her); and he (or she) cannot understand them, because they are spiritually
appraised.
The
Greek word for natural is Psuchikos (pronounced: psoo-khee-kos) and means – the principal of animal life, which men have
in common with the brutes; the sensuous nature with its subjection to appetite
and passion. The word natural stands in opposition to the
word spiritual and symbolizes those
folks who are controlled by their natural instincts or desires as opposed to
those who are influenced by the Spirit of God.
This was certainly the case with the great mass of the unbelieving pagan
world, which included many of the renowned philosophers (Romans 1:21-32).
A natural man (or woman) does not accept the things of the Spirit of
God – this verse has nothing to do with ignorance. It has everything to do with an individual’s
“stubborn” refusal to accept God’s Truths for no other reason other than
self-pride and their love for the world (1
John 2:15-17). Then there are those who
are unable to “comprehend” or “make sense” of God’s revelation simply because: they
are foolishness to him (or her); and
he (or she) cannot understand
them.
There
are underlying reasons for this behavior and Scripture points them out. I mentioned earlier that this present-day world is enslaved to sin (Romans
8:15). Our Apostle Paul goes on to say
that the devil is preventing the unsaved masses from knowing the Truth: in
whose case the god of this world has (what) blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they might not see
the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God (2
Corinthians 4:4, 2:11; Acts 26:18).
The
other reason is this. The natural (unregenerate) person can’t
understand the things of God because they are spiritually
appraised. If you brought an unsaved
friend to your Bible study class and the conversation commenced in earnest
about the topic of interest, there’s no way that individual is going to be able
to add to or keep up with that conversation.
It would be like me sitting down with a group of physicists at an annual
gathering discussing the events of the past year. I can spell physicists but that’s about it,
folks. Your unsaved friend may know that
Jesus was born in Bethlehem and that Mary and Joseph were His parents for
instance, but they’re not going to be able to talk to you or anyone else about
the deeper things of God because they are spiritually appraised.
Let’s
go to verse 15.
1 Corinthians 2
15: But he (or she) who is spiritual (born again of
God) appraises (discerns) all things, yet he himself (or every
Believer) is appraised by no one.
The
Greek word for appraise is Anakrino (pronounced: an-ak-ree’-no) and means – to investigate, examine, inquire into,
scrutinize, sift, question; specifically in a forensic sense of a judge to hold
an investigation. Paul has chosen to
use a legal term here to convey the meaning of examining something carefully, such
as the written Word (Acts 17:10-12). Believers
are able to discern all the things which the apostles themselves
had mentioned or those things which
are revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.
This
is extremely important and I’ll explain why.
Considering the age in which we live, every Believer should be in the
habit of asking this question: “Is this Scriptural (of God) or is this coming from the heart of
corrupted man?” I have a verse in
mind, of course, so please turn with me to Matthew 24:3. Here we have Jesus’ disciples full of questions
regarding the end times, so they approach Him with this: “Tell
us, when will these things happen, and what will
be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
Now,
I want you to pay attention to what Jesus Christ did not say. He didn’t begin this discussion talking about
the depressing state of the global economy; He didn’t mention famine, floods, or
the lack of safe water to drink. He
didn’t even mention the arrival of the anti-Christ. The very first thing He mentions at verse 24
is this: And Jesus answered and said to them, “See
to it that no one (deceives) misleads
you.”
False
Bible teachers are everywhere, my friends and as the Day of our Lord draws
nearer their numbers will increase causing many to fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and
doctrines of demons, by means of the hypocrisy of liars seared in their own
conscience as with a branding iron (1 Timothy 4:1-2).
False
Bible teachers use the Bible but they use it deceptively. Listen folks.
A deceitful person can make this book say just about anything they want
it to. A couple hundred years ago they
used the Bible to condone slavery in this country – get the point. It takes a Believer with a discerning Spirit to
differentiate all the things the apostles themselves had explained,
or those things which are revealed
to us by the Holy Spirit, from the deceitful
spirits speaking untruths intent on working their own agenda and not Gods.
…yet he himself (or every Believer)
is appraised by no one. Paul means to say there isn’t a natural (sensual)
man or woman who understands a Believer’s principles or views on life. The reasoning for this is since we’re
influenced by our Savior, Jesus Christ, and the natural person doesn’t know Him,
they cannot hope to understand those who are motivated to pattern their lives
after Him. Paul follows this line of
thought in the succeeding verse.
1 Corinthians 2
16: For “WHO HAS
KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD, THAT HE WILL INSTRUCT HIM? But we have the mind of Christ. (Isaiah 40:13)
Paul
borrows another quote from the prophet Isaiah (40:13). I think Paul’s argument is easy enough to
understand. No one can understand the Creator God.
Breaking this down; no one can comprehend His plans and His purpose
for His creation, even when they are revealed unless the Spirit of God explains
all these things to those who love Him.
But we have the
mind of Christ
which means we share the same perspective of Jesus Christ. Having the mind of Christ means we understand God’s plan for His creation – to
bring glory and honor to God, to restore creation to its original splendor, and
provide salvation for the lost sinners (Luke 19:10). It
also means we share Jesus’ perspective of humility and obedience to the Father
(Philippians 2:5-8), compassion (Matthew 9:36), and prayerful dependence on the
Father (Luke 5:16).
If
we backtrack a bit, some of the verses leading up to 1 Corinthians 2:16 note
some Truths concerning the mind of
Christ:
The
mind of Christ stands in sharp contrast to the wisdom of man (v5-6)
The
mind of Christ involves wisdom from God, once hidden but no longer (v7)
The
mind of Christ is given to Believers through the Spirit of God (v10-12)
The
mind of Christ cannot be understood by unbelievers (v14)
The
mind of Christ gives Believers discernment in spiritual matters (v15)
(To
be continued)
[Published weekly
on Friday]
©
Copyright 2011
GJ
Heitzman’s Ministry
All
Rights Reserved
No comments:
Post a Comment