Rightly Judging
15Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. (2Tim 2:15)
"Rightly dividing the Word of Truth."
Jesus is the Word, and to divide the Word He supplies a two-edged sword which "Proceeds from His mouth," we are told. (John 1:1-14; Rev 2:12-16; 19:13)
I read that to mean we are to use the Word (Sword) so Jesus can interpret His Own Words. And to aid in this, He has sent His Holy Spirit to instruct us and guide us.
In order to divide, we must also judge. And in order to judge properly and fairly, we must listen to all sides being presented. After hearing all that everyone has to say, including the misconceptions and out-'n-out lies, we must consult the Book of Rules and Laws which contain restrictions and applications that may be applied according to our judgment.
And in order to be a judge, we must be educated in the field of law, and therefore acquainted with that which the law of the land dictates. In our case, Heaven.
Not all judges judge rightly. Jesus told us of one such judge in Luke 18. Here He tells of a judge who cared for no one but himself, and only judged fairly when it suited his own purpose.
I have myself had such a situation where I was not judged fairly. Long ago I received a ticket because my car smoked. The judge, who had a son killed in the war, could only see my beard and assumed I was a draft dodger, though in reality I had served in the Army. I was never allowed to say a word, but was judged harshly with vicious and verbal attacks by the judge.
Jesus and the Apostles, as well as many in the early Church, and even in Churches around the world today, have suffered cruelly by unjust judgement.
Whatever church, whatever denomination you belong to, you are told very distinctly what to believe, and what not to believe. You are told that you are not to listen to anyone else's opinion, especially those on the "banned" list which are often defined as "cults." To do otherwise is to invite chastisement or shunning, and even expulsion. In the past it could even mean death.
The churches (and even the cults) can not be entirely condemned for such practices. Often their intent is to protect their members from being influenced by well-spoken people who will lead their lambs astray. The church feels their flock is not secure enough in the Word to discern the difference between right and wrong.
And they are often correct in thinking such - because they have kept their lambs bottle-fed for fear of losing them if they try to mature them into strong sheep.
But that does not concern us, we are tired of milk and are looking for the Meat of the Word.
Here we will not be confined in our belief. I plan on having no walls whatever in my investigation of the Word. One reason for this is that many of the "cults" have been given a Word of Truth that they ran with and built walls of false doctrine around in order to keep it as their own, and to protect its "validity." I hope to shovel away the manure in order to find the pearl.
And the cults are not the only ones who have buried their Word of Truth under a mountain of False Doctrine, which will need to be shoveled away.
Another reason for searching the cults for information is that each and every denomination and cult has worked diligently to find the very best evidence with which to prove their point of view. I believe it would be foolish of me to ignore such efforts. I believe that after such an investigation, if nothing else, I will have found the best evidence why such a doctrine or theory can not be considered in my findings.
HEADLINE NEWS; GOD KILLS MOSES
18And Moses went and returned to Jethro his father in law, and said unto him, Let me go, I pray thee, and return unto my brethren which are in Egypt, and see whether they be yet alive. And Jethro said to Moses, Go in peace. 19And the LORD said unto Moses in Midian, Go, return into Egypt: for all the men are dead which sought thy life. 20And Moses took his wife and his sons, and set them upon an ass, and he returned to the land of Egypt: and Moses took the rod of God in his hand. 21And the LORD said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go. 22And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn: 23And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he may serve me: and if thou refuse to let him go, behold, I will slay thy son, even thy firstborn. 24And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him. 25Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. 26So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision. (Ex 4:)
In order to whet your appetite for this study, I thought I would start off with something easy and often, in my estimation, misinterpreted.
This is a difficult passage to interpret at best. And there have been a variety of ways it has been attempted, none that I have seen that I agree with or that makes sense.
Remember to keep in mind the 5 rules of Hermeneutics (interpretation).
1. CONTEXT (including the Theme of the Scripture)
2. WORDS (including the Hebrew and Greek meaning)
3. GRAMMAR (Watch for twisting meanings toward Doctrine)
4. BACKGROUND (What did the Scripture mean to them.)
5. UNITY
The verses concerning the circumcision seems to have been brought out of nowhere, almost as if they were not, and could not have possibly been there in the first place. One might believe that they were added by some frustrated scribe in order to confuse us.
The interpretations I have seen have not been so brash as to say what I just did, but it appears obvious to me that they were indeed frustrated by these verses.
Common interpretation states that God met Moses at the inn and was going to kill him. Why? Well, some say it was because Moses was not circumcised, so therefore he must die. But his wife, in order to save her husband, circumcised her son instead as a representative of Moses' fulfilling that law.
Interesting, I suppose, but let's look at those rules of Interpretation and see if this fits.
1. Context. What is the Theme of this passage of Scripture? What has God been talking all this time to Moses about? Did He at any time say that Moses had better get circumcised or he would die?
I don't think so. As I read this and other surrounding Scripture God had a timetable to go by that He, Himself had set up. He had ordained and trained just one man to fulfill His purposes, and that was Moses. God had just finished telling Moses what He was to do and how he was to do it, and sent him on his way to fulfill that purpose.
I can't see God giving an important message to a messenger, then killing the messenger before the message is delivered. That being so, let us look for another explanation.
What else was God talking to Moses about? Wasn't He telling Moses that he was to deliver a message to Pharaoh that his firstborn would die? Could that be a clue?
I believe so.
Rules 2 and 3 of interpretation are difficult to apply here, because all the "He" and "Him" that is used could apply to just about anyone except the women. And only one woman was mentioned in the Scripture.
Our assumption would be (and is) that the "he" is Moses. And I would assume that to be so as well.
But is Moses the "he" that God was going to kill? I strongly doubt it.
Let's take a look at rule 4, the Background.
According to Gen 17:10-26 every Hebrew male was to be circumcised as a sign of their purification and sanctification (set apart, made holy) before God. This was to be accomplished on the eighth day after their birth. Along with this the first born male (to break forth from the womb) was to be presented as a "Sacrifice" unto the Lord. In other words, the firstborn male, of any nature or kind, be it person or animal, was to belong to God. (Num 3:12-13; Ex 13:12-16)
All animals were to be so sacrificed.
In other words, the first born male was to die.
But God made provisions for such an occurrence whereby the firstborn male could not only be sacrificed to the Lord, but live as well. This provision is called a "ransom."
With this picture, and seeing as how Moses was brought up as an Egyptian, we would assume that he would not be particularly aware of the importance of this practice.
That would be our assumption. But that assumption does not allow for the facts.
Moses was placed in a basket at the age of three months. That is three months after his birth by a Hebrew mother, is it not? His mother and father were Hebrew and fully aware of the practice of circumcision. That would mean almost three months before being placed in the river he would have been circumcised.
Another bit of information that might help prove this is the statement made by Pharaoh's daughter, that the child was a Hebrew. How would she have known that, I wonder.
And as for knowledge about Hebrew customs, do you recall who Moses' nurse was? (Ex 2:)
If you still have doubts, consider that Aaron was older than his brother Moses, therefore born before him, yet there was not a thing said about him needing to be circumcised. And he was God's High Priest.
I find little doubt but that Moses was not the one uncircumcised. Then if not Moses, then who was God going to kill?
By the context of the story, God fully intended to, and did, kill all the first born males of Egypt. This included everyone and everything that was a firstborn male in Egypt who was not "Under the Blood," and under the covenant of Abraham. And what was the sign of Abraham? Was it not circumcision?
This being the case, what firstborn of the Hebrews would have died along with the Egyptians?
Who was it that was circumcised?
Who is most likely to be the one God was going to kill? Do you think it was Moses?
There are two other interesting points that might be considered here as well. I can't call them facts, but of consequence none the less.
The first of these is that only one son of Moses was circumcised. My assumption would be that it was the first born for the reasons already given. By reading verse 20 it is clear that Moses took with him at least two sons because of the plural use of the word.
Moses at this time was 80 years old. He was 40 years old when he left Egypt, and presumably when he married Zipporah his wife.
Abraham, at 75 indicated that he was well past the age of childbearing. How much more so would be an 80 year old man? Besides, how long would a man wait before having his first born?
By my calculations this was not a small child that Moses' wife circumcised but rather a man of around 35 or more.
Do you find this interesting? Did it "whet your appetite?"
I hope so. It sure did mine.
This has been a tiny and insignificant piece of Scripture we have dealt with here. Most are going to be very arduous and complicated, and will take a long, long time to formulate and find references for.
And some will be, in my estimation, very important, such as the Rapture of the Church, and the true identity of Satan.
So please bear with me.
Tumbleweed
