Tet and others,
Why not move over to one of the preterists threads. Can we get back to the origin and meaning of rightly divided.
A lot of those posts actually mark out its practice, or failure to. My apologies all the same.
And here ya go - your request:
The following are some observations about your OP I hope you might consider.
Many years ago, I read in some secular source somewhere advice along the line of “before you sit down to think about a problem, you might want to first sit down and think about
how you are going to think about the problem.”
In other words, there is a difference between concluding something about a thing, and where we often only think we are actually looking at it from to begin with.
In this, I often find the question ‘where am I looking at this from, and while I’m at it; where am I looking at that from?’ is a question apparently not often asked by many an individual, regardless of whether that subject is the Bible are any of its countless subjects, or any subject in life in general.
A case in point is your OP, here: you request that people “use Scripture to back up…what does this mean to everyone,” and then fail to follow that request yourself; perhaps unaware that such was the case.
Anyway, instead; you go into the Greek, and, and that; isolated from all the rest, and then you follow that with what you “believe… makes more sense.”
And you do that apparently unaware that both your request, and your practice, are each a contrast, distinction or division
between things -
between your request
and your own practice.
Again, this is for your consideration, as I have found this distinction I am noting here has been of much help to me in my own studies.
You relate you base your belief that “Accurately Handling makes more sense” on your understanding that “Cutting straight is making an accurate cut.”
Apparently unaware, once more, as you arrived at that conclusion, that you are actually noting and relying on a
contrast, distinction, and division between things; just as Paul himself is relying on a
contrast, distinction, and division between things; in that passage, and its immediately surrounding passages, as his means of communicating his intended sense.
Your last question, also contains a contrast, distinction, and division -
between “Are we to not to be ashamed for dividing up the Word of God”
and “or accurately handling the Word of God?”
In other words, while asserting your belief that that passage is referring to “Accurately Handling,” you appear unaware of the obvious – that the objective “Accurately Handling” cannot but rely on one’s being able to note a
contrast, distinction, and division between “Accurately Handling”
and not “Accurately” doing so.
Perhaps this is due to studying on your own. But then again, who and or what source, one studies things from, is just as important.
While, more importantly, as we will each give account of what we ourselves had held to as truth, 1 Cor. 3:13; 2, given its impact on our walk, Cor. 5:10, the above is perhaps one of the more important key principles behind avoiding a subjective objectivity, that an objective subjectivity be our guide, when approaching the Scriptures.
Subjective objectivity being my reference to the result that is a conclusion like “what this means to me…,” and or “what makes sense to me is…”
Objective subjectivity, on the other hand, being my reference to a
consistent asking throughout one’s studies, of the question - ‘where am I looking at this from, and while I’m at it; where am I looking at that from?’
In this, our studies are actually, alone. In this, perhaps you are better off, studying on your own; especially if you’ll apply the above, consistently.
In this, perhaps you might revisit that passage - and its immediate passages - seeking through the passages as a whole, what general principles, of rules of thumb for communicating intended meaning they might point back to as having been Paul’s reliance there.
Simply keep asking throughout, ‘what general principles for communicating intended sense of meaning through words, do these passages appear to point back to as having been Paul’s here?’
One of those is contrast, or distinction between things – as in his “Study to shew…
But avoid…”
Another appears to be the perspective on his part, not only of looking at things as if from a time line of some sort – but of his sense of its having been violated – ‘saying that the resurrection is
past.’
Note that as also the case, for example, in Ephesians 2:11’s “Time Past,” verse 12’s “But Now,” and verse 7’s “Ages to Come.” The greater sense of this one here is, for example, one major reason why I subscribe to the Mid-Acts Dispensational
Distinction, for example.
Supposed “books about” - the teachings of men - have nothing to do with it. Only those who over rely on books supposedly based on Scripture make that same conclusion about us – that we got this out of books.
The fools – what “books” did Paul get his Three-Fold
Division in Ephesians 2 from?
And there are other principles also evident there in 2 timothy 2:15 and its surrounding passages – just keep returning back to the above questions.
Other great questions being, ‘what does the Scripture writer appear to be tying all that to here? And, what words might help better identify that?’ Words like, but, and therefore, and so on…
