Today’s devotion is from 2 Timothy 2:15
Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
A very important key to understanding God’s Word is knowing that God’s Word is divided into covenants…
To righty divide the Word, or to correctly interpret the Word, a believer has to study the Word in the context of covenants. To believe the right way, we have to believe according to our covenant with the Lord. For example, the way that the people of Israel attained righteousness under the Law required rituals and practices that are no longer required under the New Covenant.
To who believe that the practices, conditions, rituals and rules on one covenant apply in all covenants is wrong and can lead to confusion or even deception. Wrong believing can lead to unnecessary bondage and defeat and can block a person from living the blessed life!
God is a covenant God who governs His Kingdom according to covenants with His people…
A covenant is a sacred agreement or a contract. The root of the Hebrew word for covenant is the word “barah” meaning to cut. This word focuses on the fact that sacred covenants are cut by the shedding of blood.
Entering a sacred covenant between the Lord and ourselves is much deeper and more complex than just signing a paper or shaking a hand. Sacred covenants have been established by the shedding of blood and the NEW COVENANT that we are living in was established by the shedding of the powerful, innocent blood of our Savior, Jesus Christ.
We mainly speak about the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, but their are actually eight different main covenants between God and His people. There are many more subcategories of covenants to nations, individuals and smaller groups.
The EIGHT main covenants are the Edenic Covenant, (Before the fall), the AdamicCovenant (after the fall), the Noahic Covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, (The Law) the Palestinian Covenant, (Deuteronomy 30:1-10), the Davidic Covenant, (2 Samuel 7:8-16) and the New Covenant.
Another thing that believers have to understand is that NOT everything written in the NEW TESTAMENT is NEW COVENANT…
Jesus spent almost His entire earthly ministry ministering to the Jews as a teacher of The Law.
Jesus did teach and demonstrate many New Covenant principles and teachings recorded in four gospels, but He was also a teacher of The Law. So when reading the Gospels one has to look at the context of what Jesus was teaching to discern whether Jesus was teaching on the New Covenant, or whether He was teaching The Law and preparing the people's hearts for the New Covenant.
For example, Jesus taught that if a man looked at a woman with lust that he was committing adultery and that he should pluck his eyes out… That was clearly Jesus teaching the futility of keeping the Law and preparing His people for the New Covenant of Grace.
Over time there have been a few confused Christians that have wrongly believed that plucking out your eyes is the solution to lust. Sadly they plucked out their eyes and still had to deal with the lust that was rooted in their hearts. In another place Jesus said that believers would do the works that He has done and do even greater works… that was clearly a New Covenant teaching.
Here is an absolute truth to help you discern the New Covenant in Christ…
It is a covenant of grace, the gift of righteousness and unconditional love… unmerited favor towards the Father, the free gift of righteousness in Christ and the continual unconditional love of God. Jesus did it all – all we have to do is receive it by faith. Bottom line, if it doesn’t build you, if it doesn’t bless you, if it doesn’t give you hope, if it doesn’t lift you and impart the life of God, it may be in the Bible, but it is not the true New Covenant. God’s Word rightly divided according to the New Covenant will ALWAYS bless, empower, lift, build and leave you with hope and impart life and power.