Morning Moments

RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH

One of my great concerns through the years has been the failure of people of faith in their failure to get the "Big Picture" before seeking to hear or read or understand "something new".  When preachers miss it, people usually miss it, because people listen to preachers whom they trust to "do their homework" for them.  Our misunderstanding of the whole always leads to our misunderstand of the parts.

Imagine, if you will, a picture puzzle of thousands of pieces, scattered across the table with no idea whatsoever what the pieces are to look like when they are all put together.  That would be a nightmare!  That is why the picture of the whole is always printed on the box, so that you can know when a piece is in the wrong place or missing.

Although the Bible is an amazing combination of books written over a period of some 1600 years by some 40 different human authors, it is The Book (not a book) that explains the Past, Present and Future of humanity.  It is The Book of Perfect UNITY!  All the pieces fit, and it is only our refusal to see the "whole" at the expense of a "piece" that brings confusion and division among those who confess Jesus as Lord.

We shall take a brief break in our brief outlining of the Bible (OT) to seek to bring perspective before we continue with the outlines of the New Testament books.

To this point, we have discovered in our readings the following major events as recorded in the Old Testament:

1. The Foundation - Creation.
2. The Fall - Adam and Eve.
3. The Flood - Earth completely covered in water.
4. The Family - Abraham and his descendants.

THAT is the simple account of the entire Old Testament.  God began with a man, added a woman, both sinned, had children with sinful natures, but who divided into two groups of people - the righteous (those who sought to be  reconciled to God) and the unrighteous (those who would not be reconciled to God.

God established an unconditional covenant with Noah that He would never again destroy the earth by flood, and He established an unconditional covenant with Abraham that He would do for two primary thing through his seed:  1) Establish an Earthly Kingdom for his descendants, and 2) Send them the Messiah who would redeem them, restore them, and re-establish them to their rightful place among the nations.  THAT, in a nutshell is the story of the Old Testament:

Heavens and Earth - Foundation

Humanity - Fall

Holy vs Unholy - Flood

Holy - Family (The Jews)

The Old Testament from Genesis 12 is the story of the Birth and the Behavior of that nation that was set apart by God to be the means of communicating to all humanity the reality of God, His forgiveness, and Our Future.  For 4,000 years the Good News about God would be communicated to man through the JEW to the Gentile.  When God spoke He spoke through the JEW - descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We live in a world of "specialization" even among Christians, because each different group desires to make a "piece" of this great puzzle, more important than the "whole".  It seems each denomination desires to focus on the "piece" and call it a "denominational distinctive", at the expense of the "whole" which involves ONE KINGDOM (the Kingdom of God or Heaven), composed of ONE NATION (Israel: an Earthly Kingdom) and ONE BODY (the CHURCH: a Spiritual Body, Building, and Bride).  

BLESSINGS!