Cold & Hard Study Truths

1/21/2019

This is a cold morning on the mountain—19, and a wind chill of 9. Nuf sed. Even Buddy is noticing the cold this morning. He’s a big dog, good thick coat, yet he is feeling this. His stay outside to do his natural duty he cut short to get back inside. Where he is, he knows where I am is warmer and he doesn’t want to settle down to his bunk. Sorry, Bud, you’ll be just fine.

It looks like we’ve gone through the coldest night expected and through the week it’ll move up to more livable temperatures. If not, I think I’ll move down South!

SIMH this morning is, “He The Pearly Gates Will Open”—written by Fredrick Blom, 1917, a Swedish man. It was translated into English around 1935 and arranged for quartet music. This was very popular for about 25-30 years until the Southern Gospel style sort of took over. I sang this with an ad hoc quartet in the 60s. Since coming to understand the eternal inheritances found in Scripture a little better, I don’t see us entering in through “pearly gates” (gates of pearl are on the New Jerusalem coming down from God out of heaven, and is the reward of the kingdom of Heaven.) But, the testimony of Mr. Blom spoke of his knowing the forgiveness of his sins and thereby has a good message in this, his song.

Applying the word of God to our lives requires a reasonable amount of study. The Lord has designed his word in such a way that a casual glance now and then will not reveal His will. I know I’ve said this to you before, but there is a prescribed way to go about studying the Word. Indeed, it is written in 6th grade English grammar, but it is in 17th century English legalese, in some fashion. Anyone who 1.) can read at a 6th grade level, and 2.) has heard ..how that Christ died for our sins, was buried, and was raised again for our justification, then 3.) has believed on the Lord Jesus Christ for salvation (has trusted Him) can understand it when studying the right way.

The simple instruction to “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth” lays out the method for understanding the basics of our salvation, that is, to practice rightly dividing the word of truth. The “word of truth” is not simply the bible, it is a phrase representing the gospel of our salvation as being our personal word from God (see Eph.1:13, phrases.) This enables us to tell the difference in what God says, as He says it, where He says it, to whom He says it, etc. Thus, not wrongly dividing the word of truth, but “rightly dividing the word of truth” (knowing what is ours!)

Then, the pattern for studying what He has preserved is designed to make us aware of rightly or wrongly applying Scripture. This is found in Isaiah 28:9-13. Briefly, it says there are three ways to look at Scripture; “line upon line”-which easily means read it straight through like a textbook; then, it says “precept upon precept”-which can only mean one studies a subject matter or a doctrine in various places, followed by “here a little, there a little”-having gone through the bible using the first two methods, one will be reminded while reading of other similar passages. If then, you follow those thoughts and go look at the remembered passages, the Holy Spirit teacher will show you many things about understanding God’s will (here a little, there a little). 

This is a really great study book, the King James bible.

Working toward arranging my upcoming trip to Texas. It will be about a 3,4 day trip, it looks like. I will be at a memorial service for a dear friend in Katy, TX on Feb. 2. Visiting with the family will be joyous afterward, I’m sure. Then, we have two Blue Jug stores nearby, so I hope to visit with them on this trip, as well. To fly seems suddenly cheaper, so this may be a flight trip. I should get this figured out in a day or so. Might mean a Monday night bible class will come to you from a motel room, but I will work at not missing any nights in this series about Ephesians.

Thanks for reading, the Elder