The Word of Truth Ministries       Some Scriptures treated carefully In Interpretation   I am now teaching on the Last Days—starting with the Catching Away of the Saints from the Earth, commonly called the Rapture,  and there are a number of aspects that have come up in this study that may be of minor interest to you and a point of clarity of the scriptures. I present those today, but after I finish the study, I will write it up and publish it here.  But before I finish, I will share these interesting truths and complexities with you, my readers. First, in understanding the things of God and his word—that is, to understand and not encounter what appears as contradictions--we must place this whole Last Days series of events into a perspective and a proper time frame. The scriptures are complex and must be carefully interpreted to see what God is really saying.  We have many would-be teachers who do a disservice to scripture and the people of God through uninformed, untutored, and naive interpretations of God's word. But a wrong interpretation of God's word is not what God is saying. It is only what man is saying. "The Spirit of the Lord is Upon Me" [Luke 4:18-21] This expression was spoken by Jesus when interpreting scripture. As was the custom of Jesus he went into the temple on the Sabbath Day to read and discuss scripture with those of the temple. In Luke 4:18-21, Jesus read the scripture of Isaiah 61:1-2:  The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preached the acceptable year of the Lord. The bible says at that reading, he closed the book, and he gave it to the minister, and sat down. And as they looked on him, he began saying, “This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” But what Jesus read from Isaiah is not all that Isaiah wrote in that book on this matter. Yet Jesus narrowly divided the word of truth, as Paul tells us to do in 2 Timothy 2:15.  When we examine the same Isaiah scripture Jesus read and interpreted for us, we see a very interesting commentary he makes through implication about this scripture and interpreting scripture itself. The Isaiah scripture reads as Jesus reads it, but Isaiah continues to write, although Jesus did not continue to read. And there was for a good reason. The next line in this Isaiah passage that Jesus did not read is this:  “…and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn…..”  If Jesus had read all of that verse of Isaiah, it would have looked like this: “…to preached the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;”  But he stopped instead of continuing his reading.  Jesus interpreted this passage of Isaiah by stopping where he did. The part of scripture he did not read was a part of scripture that was not for that particular time. Indeed, to declare the vengeance of the Lord is another time we generally call the Great Tribulation or the Time of Jacob’s Trouble. Although as written in Isaiah, these two events—the advent of Christ to preach the acceptable year of the Lord and the Vengeance of God—were prophesied as one contiguous action, they are not to be interpreted as one or contiguous. Hence, Jesus gave us a notion of looking at scripture, viz., carefully read to see the lines, the times, and the divisions as God intended them. It should be remembered that although we have chapters and verses in our bibles, those were placed there by men for our convenience in reference and navigation of the bible. In the original they were not there as such.  We must carefully study his word, and in so doing, we must observe how Jesus read scripture and interpreted it. We must carefully examine what Jesus said to his disciples and observe how they interpreted and carried out what he said to them. We must also carefully observe how the disciples interpreted scripture. For when we carefully read the scripture, giving ourselves over to it, we will understand it, know when to divide and when not to divide. We will know that all scripture is to us but not for us to do; we will know that there are unwritten timelines in many passages of scripture. And those almost invisible timelines often cause less careful students to trip and see contradictions where there is only complexity.  If you will receive it, Luke 4:18-21 is Jesus' gift to us in methods of interpreting scripture. "He who now letteth will let until he be taken out of the way." [2Thes. 2:7] This is another of those scriptures that came up and has to be delicately interpreted, lest there be confusion and misinterpretation. When Jesus was in the earth in bodily form, he declared that he was the light of the world. But he transferred that light upon us, the disciples of Christ. He declared that we are the light of the world:  “Ye are the light of the world.” [Mat. 5]  Since the disciples of Christ, the church, is now the light of the world, we function as light functions, to dispel and disperse evil. But men love darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil. Light exposes those evil deeds. The great Apostle Paul argues that anything that makes manifest is light. That is because it is the nature of light to show and reveal that which is in the dark. [Eph. 5:13]  One of the major roles of the church in the world today is to make manifest the evil that is here. Now if the church of God becomes evil, it cannot show the evil that is in this world because it is no longer light. And as lights in this dark world, we are the only moral light this world has. If we are removed or become dark and dim, the world will have no moral light. And this is precisely what this passage of scripture in Second Thessalonians is saying.  Because we are the light of the world and we, and we alone, are capable of dispersing darkness and making evil manifest, before the man of sin can reveal himself, we must be caught up with Christ out of the earth--the Rapture. And when that occurs, the man of sin will be revealed, the son of perdition. And he will oppose and exalt himself above all that is called God…. But remember, Paul said that situation cannot occur until the catching away (falling away) FIRST. [2 Thes.2:1-11]  We are "him that lets" (hinders) and we will "be removed out of the way."  [2 Thes. 2:7] This scriptures shows us again what our role is to outsiders. We must therefore walk as lights into this dark world, because we are the light of this world.   .......................................................   ......Home The Word of Truth Ministries P.O. Box 6573 Oakland, CA 094603