We today are so privileged to have and hold God’s Word, preserved through history and translated into our King James Bible.
We see from this that God has and will reveal His approval towards those that commit to understanding His word, His way. This should be our goal – to receive God’s approval as we study and find out how God has and is dealing with people in different times and different ways (see Hebrews 1:1).
The verse mentions “the word of truth”. Sensible consideration of how this phrase is used in the Bible leads us to understand this as a broad reference to all of Scripture, including specific references to the gospel of the grace of God. The action to “study” is the clear and logical response of those possessing God’s word in a book.
God gives further detail as to experiencing His approval. We must study God’s way – we do this by “rightly dividing the word of truth.” This is the key to opening up and understanding God’s word. What is called dispensational Bible study: knowing and respecting God’s progressive revelation through time, and how he has separately dealt with humanity. He has a purpose differently at times – for man on both the earth and in heavenly places – working towards the end of Ephesians 2:10.
One reason for this website is the easy deduction that as there is a right way, so there is a wrong way. Two thousand years of church history and thousands of denominations today, all teaching what they believe to be “truth,” instructs us that we are living in what the Apostle Paul called “perilous times” (2 Timothy 3:1). By God’s grace, the teaching found here hopes and prays to help you be an approved workman – recognising the distinctions in holy Scripture so that you can have and experience God’s salvation, be established and grounded in God’s truth, and understand and work out your Christian life according to the principles of grace. As Paul wrote to Timothy, we can safely say that in his writings we find how to rightly divide the word of truth.
The Dispensation of Grace
What is it? The full name is the dispensation of the grace of God. The word dispensation is based on the idea of an economy. Many western democracies live under what is called “the market economy” – certain economic rules are in place to govern how the country operates. God, since the world began, has operated in different ways with different people (Hebrews 1:1). Different times and different ways: in times past God dispensed a different set of instructions to a different group of people.
For example, the Mosaic economy was governed by laws God instructed Israel to live by every day. But what about us today? The dispensation of grace is the set of divine instructions that pertain to us now. Read Ephesians 3:1–11.
Paul says a dispensation was given to him. The ascended Lord Jesus Christ saved Saul of Tarsus and sent him to be the spokesperson to us Gentiles. Paul relayed vital, unique information so that we could understand what God needed us to know and therefore live accordingly. See Galatians 1:11–12, Colossians 1:25–27, Romans 16:25–26, Ephesians 3:9.
The dispensation of grace is a mystery period – once hidden, but now revealed. Paul recorded the information from Jesus Christ alone. He was entrusted with it, and the Holy Spirit also revealed this information to Body of Christ apostles and prophets through manifestations, with judgment as to whether this was the truth (1 Corinthians 14:29). Paul was called the “wise master-builder” – the chief architect. He laid the foundation of Jesus Christ dying for our sins, being buried, and rising again for our justification. Prior to Paul, no one knew about this mystery truth.
For us today, we find the mystery of Christ and the information for the grace dispensation in Romans through Philemon. We study all the Bible to be grounded (Romans 16:25–26). However, it is only in Paul’s writings that we find our doctrine, duty, walk, and destiny as Christians today.