Exits
Exits
2 Timothy 2:15 reads:
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
Though I have had this scripture memorized for over 30 years and could easily have quoted it in its entirety, my thoughts would have flowed more like: work hard at knowing the accurate truths of the Bible. But I missed the main point: “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God…” God is the audience. We have all likely heard, “for an audience of One.” Here it is plainly. God is our audience of One. We are to present ourselves as approved to God. In the end it is God who we will all stand before.
Let’s look at 2 Timothy 2:15 with some of the Greek definitions added. 2 Timothy 2:15 is the imperative mood denoting a command. We are commanded to:
Make hast and exert yourself as one who is tried as genuine and therefore unashamed when you stand beside God as His worker. You, who will receive your pay, because you cut straight ways as you teach the Logos directly and correctly; that is, what is objectively true in things appertaining to God.
As I considered this before God, I saw a picture of a freeway. The freeway represented the objective Truth: Logos. Logos stands eternally as the Word of God, forever fixed in Heaven. Not our own truth or own interpretation, but God’s eternal Word. Along the freeway were many exits, seemingly an exit at every scripture. Exits represent diversions from the Truth of God. They can be unintended misunderstandings or intended deceptions. Exits will never reach where the freeway leads. Error in doctrine is an exit off the Logos: the Word of God. It will lead on a trajectory of error.People who teach and lead others must know the Bible as God intended it to be know: in truth. The goals is not to make people come to our meetings, because we sound so eloquent having every word fitly placed. That is worldly wisdom. How absolutely boring and empty is such teaching! Teaching, as God intends, is not only biblical truth, but it is anointed. Teaching should produce hunger in the hearer to know the things of God. It is not informational in nature: it produces and deposits something of value in the hearers.
Just because we believe something does not make it true. There are basic rules to interpretation. Decades ago my husband said that if you think you have new revelation from the Bible that you have never heard before, you’d better think twice about what you are thinking. Read some commentaries and talk to others who know the Bible well, because “new revelation” is how heresies are formed. Context is the first rule of interpretation.
