Rightly Dividing the Word*

      We have long been identified as a "Word" church. One prophet said that Everlasting Covenant is "the church where they teach the Word, preach the Word, and dance the Word." The Word of God is essential to a believer's life, but knowing the Word is also essential in teaching others who will teach others the truth of God. Endless arguments over other things that will not edify are fruitless. Paul wrote to his son in the Gospel, Timothy: "...strive not about words to no profit, but to the subverting of the hearers. Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." (2 Tim. 2:14-15). This means to teach the Word of God directly and correctly. Many churches barely teach the Old Testament, for example, but the Old Testament is the foundation of our faith. Christ said what He was teaching were the things upon which the Law and the prophets hang, which are the two great commandments of the Law: To love God with all your heart...and to love thy neighbor as thyself. Paul in writing to Timothy continued: "But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness." (v. 16). The Word of God beings godly change to a life. As Paul charged Timothy before God and the Lord Jesus who would judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables." (2 Tim. 4:1-4). Although people are being drawn to things that are not true to their own destruction, the truth of the Word of God is the opposite of this, causing us instead to grow into the stature of Christ.

     It is the spoken Word of God that created all things, including life itself, and it holds back darkness and destruction. Jesus is that Word: "In the beginning was the Word (logos/lego - word, speech, saying/to say, to speak, to call by name), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not...And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (Jn. 1:1-5, 14). Light reveals the darkness, and the dark cannot hold the light back. Is the light of the Word in your life? Jesus told Pilate that He came to bear witness to the truth. Pontius Pilate, with the cold cynicism of the world, said, "What is truth?" Jesus, the Word, is truth.

     We see in John 1 that the Word that formed all things is the spoken Word (logos). This agrees with the account in Genesis. God spoke and what He spoke manifested. The first created thing was spoken by the LORD: "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness." (Gen. 1:3-4). The logos of the Gospel of John was the spoken Word, and the Word of God here was also spoken, or amar in Hebrew. The Book of Genesis is B'reshiet in Hebrew. Each Hebrew letter has its own meaning, and when the Hebrew letters of B'reshiet are put together, they mean "The Son of God crushed, His hand on a cross". The Hebrew language is an important key to any Bible study, as we will see.

     When the serpent sought to deceive Eve, he did it by challenging God's Word. God had commanded Adam that he was free to eat of every tree in the garden, "But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die (dying die)." (see Gen. 2:16-17). As the serpent questioned Eve, she did not relate the commandment of God accurately, saying that God had also commanded that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil could not be touched either. She had gotten involved in a lie. The serpent had asked her, "Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?"  The serpent then denied that she would die if she ate of it and told her instead, "...in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." (Gen. 3:1-5). Sometimes man prefers to believe that God is a liar, but He is the One who is truth, and His Word is truth. Adam and Eve already knew the name of the tree because God had told them, so the serpent wasn't revealing anything new. However, they both believed the lie and died because of it.

     As God spoke to Adam, He also spoke to Abram/Abraham. And the Word spoken to Abraham brought him forth abroad and spoke the promise of an heir from Abraham's own body, and countless descendants, as many as the number of the stars. Abraham, unlike Adam and Eve, "believed the LORD; and he (the LORD) counted it to him for righteousness." (Gen. 15:1-7). God can walk and speak.

      The prophet Jeremiah cried out to the LORD because he was being persecuted for speaking forth the (unpopular) prophetic word of the LORD for Judah. Jeremiah said, "Thy words were found, and I did eat them; and thy word was unto me the joy and rejoicing of mine heart: for I am called (qara - give name to) by thy name, O LORD God of hosts." (Jer. 15:15-16). In the same way that Adam had named the animals presented to him by God, God has named each of us. Jeremiah found God's Words and ate them and made them part of himself.  Jeremiah had separated himself from the mockers, sitting alone because of the LORD's prophetic Word which Jeremiah had delivered. Then the LORD answered Jeremiah, saying, "If thou return, then will I bring thee again, and thou shalt stand before me: and if thou take forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as my mouth: let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them." (v. 17-19). When we feast on the Word of God, we become His mouthpiece. The apostle Paul also was one who spoke truth to power, relating his own experience of Christ and conversion, and belief in the Gospel to King Agrippa. 

     The prophet Zephaniah became the mouth of the LORD as he delivered the prophetic Word to Judah and Jerusalem. The treacherous prophets were revealed by the Word and also the priests who polluted the LORD's sanctuary and did violence to the Law of God (Zeph. 3:4). For the sake of the instruction and fear of His people, the LORD would gather the nations and the kingdoms "to pour out upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy. For then will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent." (v. 8-9). The Hebrew language is the pure language, only recently restored in the late 19th and 20th centuries fulfilling this prophetic promise of God. The Hebrew language reveals the depths of meaning in the Word of God. Even each letter of the Hebrew alphabet has a significant meaning that can reveal more about the word in which they appear. The Hebrew letters reveal the name of the LORD upon which ALL will call. The Hebrew letters aleph-vaw-tav used together mean "master-nailed-cross/sign/wonder".  The Hebrew letters translated as LORD, Yod, Hey, Vav, Hey (YHWH) have the meaning "Behold the hand, behold the nail". This reveals Jesus as the name of the LORD which tradition calls "unpronounceable". Now it can be pronounced. The Hebrew letters aleph-tav, the first and last letters of the alphabet, are also those letters by which Jesus identifies Himself as also translated "the Alpha and Omega" in Greek. Aleph-tav being the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet also signify "totality and perfection". This is also Jesus, our totality and perfection.

      Each stanza of Psalm 119 is constructed around a single letter of the Hebrew alphabet while revealing the manifestation of each of their meanings. The first stanza is dedicated to the first letter, ALEPH, which means "master, Lord". The first verse of this stanza says, "Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the LORD. The second stanza is dedicated to the second letter BETH, which means "house", and begins with this verse: "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." (v. 9), and then, "Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee." (v. 11). This is about the importance of walking according to the Word as Joshua said, "As for me and my house, we shall serve the LORD." David relied upon prayer of the Word for cleansing and restoration from God in Ps. 51. Look at each of the letters and stanzas of Psa. 119 and see how our focus must be on the Word of God. By the intricacies of meaning in the Hebrew language, and looking at each letter, we can see that God always had control over all in His Word. It was written by men, not of their own ideas, but as moved by the Holy Spirit. Those who return to the genius and depth of the pure language must do so with humility, purity, and repentance.

*Based upon Dr. Kenneth E. Stevenson, Jr.'s 5/19/24 message to the church. If you would like to hear the complete message, you can find it on Dr. Stevenson's Facebook page. To contact or support this ministry, or to request prayer, you can write to PO Box 154221, Waco, TX, 76705. To find out more about the Shroud of Turin, and to receive a free e-book now available in several languages, go to http://www.theshroudofturin.org/freebook.