14 Of these things put them in remembrance, and protest before the Lord, that they strive not about words, which is to no profit, but to the perverting of the hearers.
15 Study to show thyself approved unto God a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, dividing the word of truth aright. 2 Timothy 2:14-15 (1599 Geneva Bible)
In our post What Does It Mean to Walk In The Light, we looked at what true worship is and what is isn’t. Sadly, the prevalence of false worship and “churchianity” has taken over the “visible church” in our time. However, God has not abandoned the True Church and there are those God is calling to take up the slack left by “Christian” leaders who have left their proper calling of genuine ministry and “Rightly Handling the Word of Truth” to pursue a form of “Church” that is more of a business venture than a genuine Church….
One of the lynchpins of whatever it is that God calls us to do to take up that slack is that we must be those who do indeed present ourselves to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. What does it mean to “rightly handle the Word of Truth?”
I am a big fan of William Tyndale. Yes, I know he has been dead since the early 16th Century, but he worked and wrote in a time when Protestant Reformation was young and still being defined by Luther and his followers and others. Tyndale was in exile in the Antwerp area of modern day Belgium when he wrote his classic work, The Obedience of a Christian Man. Henry VIII was on the throne of England and had just broke from the Roman Catholic Church. All of Tyndale’s old Catholic enemies had either been imprisoned, killed, or were in exile themselves because King Henry had confiscated all of the property of the monasteries and Catholic churches. However, Tyndale had to stay on the continent because King Henry still did not approve of an English Bible and that was William’s primary passion. He had already published several editions of an English New Testament that had been smuggled into England where it sold rapidly to people starving for the truth of God’s Word. <Continue reading post>