Author Archives: Pastor Dennis Kiszonas
Paul’s Ministry to People
The Scope of Evangelism; The Motivation of Evangelism
Your Reasonable Service: How to Worship God in the Dispensation of Grace
If there’s anything that characterizes heaven, it is worship. In the last book of the Bible, the Book of Revelation, we see glimpses of heaven, as John, the author, repeatedly shifts the viewpoint from heaven to earth and back to heaven again. Listen to John describe what he saw:
“Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice: `Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!'” (Rev. 5:11-12).1
The word “worship” is derived from the older word “worthship,” and means to ascribe worth to God, to consider Him as worthy of value, the ultimate value of our lives, and in some way to express to Him our sense of His worth and value to us. The angels said, “Worthy is the Lamb…to receive power, riches, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, blessing. These things belong to Him, and rightly so, for He is the Lamb who was slain.” Later, the “living creatures” around the throne joined in the worship by simply responding to the angels’ words with “Amen!” while the 24 elders fell down and worshiped Him who lives forever and ever (Rev. 5:14).
That’s a glimpse of the worship of heaven, but how should we worship God today, here on earth? The Bible is clear that, if we want our worship to be acceptable to Him, we need to find out from Him how He wants us to worship Him. As Cain discovered early on, there is “acceptable” worship and “unacceptable” worship. This is one place where we do not write the rules.
The Apostle Paul wrote,
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).
Paul writes here about our “reasonable service.” This word “service” could just as well be translated “worship.” When we talk about going to the “morning service” of a church, or a sign in front of a church building announces, “Divine Service—Sundays 10 a.m. and 6 p.m.,” that is the idea of “service” or “worship” that Paul’s word conveys. “I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice…which is your reasonable worship service.”
Israel’s Worship
This same word, “service,” is used several times in Hebrews Chapter 9:
“Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary” (vs. 1).
Here Paul’s word, “service,” is translated by the fuller phrase, “divine service.” The writer to the Hebrews is describing the worship that God ordained, “the ordinances,” under the Law of Moses for the people of Israel. He begins in vs. 1 writing about the “earthly sanctuary,” referring to the tabernacle in the wilderness, and later to the temple that then stood in the center of Jerusalem, where the worship of Israel was continually carried out. He goes on to a detailed explanation of Israel’s worship:
“For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary [margin: “holy place”]; and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All, which had the golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant; and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat” (vs. 2-5).
As the writer describes the worship that God commanded for Israel, he walks us through the tabernacle describing the architecture: two rooms, the holy place and the Holy of Holies, and two veils; the furniture: a table and a lampstand; certain “relics” that were preserved in the Holy of Holies: the ark of the covenant, the tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments, Aaron’s rod that budded, a pot of manna.
Then he goes on to describe how these things were actually used in the worship:
“Now when these things had been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle, performing the services. But into the second part [The Holy of Holies] the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood, which he offered for himself and for the people’s sins committed in ignorance” (Heb. 9:6-7).
Here we read about the personnel who were required in order to worship the Lord and the calendar of feasts that governed the worship. We read that the ordinary priests went into the first room, the holy place, performing the worship, but into the Holy of Holies only the High Priest went, and that on only one day of the year, Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. On that day he could go into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood on the ark, or mercy seat, and make atonement for the sins of the people.
If a person in Israel wanted to worship the Lord, he couldn’t do it in just any way that he desired, in any place that he desired. God had prescribed the way to worship Him acceptably, and the Israelite had to obey, or be guilty of breaking the covenant. To worship the Lord he had to go to a particular city, Jerusalem, and to a certain building, the temple. He would have to be concerned about certain furniture, certain relics that had to be present, about a certain ritual, the proper sacrifices and manner of performing them. He had to be concerned about a priesthood, and the calendar, the yearly cycle of feasts and the weekly Sabbaths. Later in this same passage we read about “foods and drinks, various washings, and fleshly ordinances…” (Heb. 9:10). Worship was a complex undertaking, but these were God’s instructions to Israel about how He wanted them to worship Him.
It might be complicated, and it might at times be burdensome, but still, what a privilege! God said to these people that He wanted to have fellowship with them, and that He was providing an access, a way that they, through their High Priest representative, could come into His very presence and have fellowship with Him and make atonement for their sins. This fellowship was limited, only the High Priest could come, and that only once a year, but it was real, and it was unlike anything that any other people on the face of the earth enjoyed. This was the “divine service,” the worship, of Israel.
Your Reasonable Service
Now we turn back to Romans 12:1 and read what Paul writes to the members of the Body of Christ:
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.”
The twelfth chapter of Romans is full of instructions on the practical aspects of living the Christian life. It is noteworthy that the first issue that Paul deals with is the issue of “worship.” Worship, for the Gentile Christians, as for the Old Testament Israelites, has a priority in our lives.
We need to notice the dispensational emphasis of Romans 12:1. When Paul writes, “I beseech you by the mercies of God,” he’s not referring to the mercy of the Lord in general, but to the specific mercy that he has just written about in the previous chapter.
“For as you [Gentiles] were once disobedient to God, yet have now obtained mercy through their [Israel’s] disobedience, even so these [the Jews] also have now been disobedient, that through the mercy shown you they also may obtain mercy” (Rom. 11:30-31).
Here Paul describes the changing of the dispensations. In times past Israel had fellowship with God while the Gentiles were far off, without God and without hope in the world. Yet now, because of Israel’s disobedience, the Gentiles have obtained mercy. The Messiah had come to Israel in fulfillment of the promises made to their fathers, but the people of Israel had rejected Him and crucified Him. Still He prayed, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.” So we read in the early chapters of the Book of Acts how the Holy Spirit preached forgiveness to Israel, if they would repent and believe in their risen and ascended Messiah. But again Israel was disobedient, persecuting the apostles and Messianic believers, and finally stoning Stephen, a man filled with the Holy Spirit.
Because of Israel’s disobedience, God “cast them away” (Rom. 11:15) and raised up a new apostle, Paul, the leader of Israel’s disobedience saved by pure grace, and revealed to him a hitherto secret program, “the dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:1-2). Because of Israel’s disobedience, mercy went to the Gentiles, but because of the mercy shown to the Gentiles, the Jew also now may receive mercy and be saved by the grace of God through faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.
“I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God….” Paul is writing in the light of the dispensational change that the Lord had revealed to him. The Gentiles who were once far off, not allowed to enter any further than the “vestibule” of the temple, these Gentiles, saved by grace, now are invited to worship God. But note carefully how they were to worship the Lord. Not by imitating Israel’s worship, not by building a temple, not even by going to the temple in Jerusalem (it was still standing and operating when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans), but by “presenting your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable worship.”
There was a profound change in God’s plan for acceptable worship. It once required all those complicated requirements for acceptable worship: a temple building, with furniture and relics and a priesthood and an altar and animal sacrifices according to the calendar, but now all that is changed. God no longer has a temple building of stone and wood, but in this new dispensation of the grace of God, the temple of God is the believer’s body!
“Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you” (1 Cor. 6:19).
That is just the beginning of the changes. Today we worship God, not by going to a building (after all, we are God’s building), making use of certain furniture, and the appropriate personnel, and observing a certain ritual; our worship is to present our bodies a living sacrifice. When Paul writes, “which is your reasonable service,” we should underline the word “your.” Israel’s acceptable worship was there at the temple, doing the prescribed ritual, but Paul writes, “YOUR worship, the worship God had commanded from you Gentiles, you members of the Body of Christ, YOUR worship is to present your bodies as a living sacrifice.”
“Back to Jerusalem”
The problem is that through the centuries the church has ignored Romans 12:1 and tried to go “back to Jerusalem” to worship the Lord. Even when God showed the change in the dispensations and allowed the old temple to be destroyed, Christendom built imitation temples with altars and railings and even a little box called “the tabernacle” where, supposedly, God lived. Some of the most beautiful architecture in western civilization was built for the express purpose of worshiping God with special furniture, and relics, and rituals, and a priesthood, and calendars of holy days and seasons. Even many “Bible believing Christians” have not escaped the error of this wrong worship with their “sanctuaries” and “morning and evening worship services,” rituals, and holy days and holy seasons.
It has a certain appeal. The author once went to an “open house” at the local Catholic Church. After a complete tour of the church building, we ended up in front of the main altar. The ceiling soared above our heads, we stood on slabs of white marble, before us was arrayed a retinue of the “saints” statues, with contrasting marble columns, and gold accents and candles; it was all very impressive. One person in our tour group then asked the priest, a young man fresh out of the seminary, “Why do you do this? Why all this gold and marble and extravagance of architecture?”
The young priest was quite candid as he responded, “We do this to give people a sense of awe, to give them the feeling of coming into the presence of God. It’s special when you walk through the doors into this building. It’s like a little corner of heaven. It’s psychological.”
And, we might add, it’s quite effective! But is it “acceptable?”
Paul knew of a temple that would make that church building pale in comparison, but he wrote to the Gentile believers in the dispensation of the grace of God, “Brethren, that’s not your worship, your worship is simply to present your bodies a living sacrifice.”
Our worship today is not to go to a certain building, on a certain day of the week or certain holy days of the year. It is not to practice a certain ritual. For God’s “earthly people” Israel that was appropriate, but God has set His “heavenly people” free from that kind of worship. We can worship God at any time and in any place. We can worship Him continually, not just once in a while. We don’t need a priesthood or a building or a special day. Our worship service is not just one hour on Sunday morning, but a life. 24 hours a day; 365 days a year! Whether we’re sitting in the church building or walking down the street, driving our car or washing the dishes, putting on our shoes in the morning or setting our alarm clock at bedtime, at any time in any place, in fact at every time and every place we can worship the Lord.
“Lord, I thank You that You have saved me. That You bought me with Your blood and I am Yours. Lord, I want to give myself to You, to live for You.”
Living in the Name of the Lord
Paul wrote about worship to the Colossians:
“Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him” (Col. 3:17).
“Whatever you do in word or deed….” What does that leave out? This verse encompasses our entire activity. Paul writes, everything you do, do it all in the name of the Lord. We know about praying “in the name of the Lord,” but now we’re instructed to do everything in the name of the Lord, so that all of life becomes a prayer. God has designed our worship to go on continually, not just at one hour on Sunday mornings. All of life can be a prayer of thanks to God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ, all of life can be a worship service for the believer living in the dispensation of Grace. In the “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2) there are no sacred days or seasons, because every day is the “Lord’s day” (Rom. 14:5-6), and we need no sanctuary for we are the sanctuary, “Christ liveth in me”! (Gal. 2:20).
A Living Sacrifice
It was easy to go to the “worship service” at the church to worship God for one hour each week, but the worship that God says is acceptable today requires nothing less than a total commitment. To present anything as a “sacrifice” means that we put it on the altar and leave it there (of course, the trouble with a living sacrifice is that the victim keeps trying to crawl off the altar. It requires constant vigilance). Now Paul tells us to present our own bodies, yet, in spite of the cost involved, Paul calls this sacrifice our “reasonable” service. It’s reasonable, not exorbitant, or excessive.
“You are not your own…for you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
To present ourselves to God is only to yield to Him what is His already. When the Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross for our sins, not only did He pay for our sins, but He paid for us. He “redeemed us from every lawless deed,” but He also “purified for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). From the moment that we were saved, we have belonged to the Lord, forever. Considering the fact that He died for us, that He gave Himself as the sacrifice for our sins, why should it be thought unusual, or excessive now to thank Him by putting our lives on the altar as a living sacrifice, why should it be thought unusual, or excessive now to thank Him by putting our lives on the altar as a living sacrifice to worship the Lord. What more could He do to demonstrate His love for us, what less can we do to say, “Thank you Lord for saving my soul”?
“And He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again” (2 Cor. 5:15).
A Christian singer says in her song that she wants “to use the very voice He gave to praise Him thankfully.” Acceptable worship takes that principle and applies it to every aspect of life. What do we have that we haven’t received? Paul writes, brethren, I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice; it is not excessive or beyond the bounds of what’s right, it is not too much, it is only your reasonable worship.
A Living Sacrifice
The Old Testament sacrifices were dead sacrifices, but there’s no need for blood dripping down the sides of an altar today, the Cross paid it all. Now Paul writes about a new idea, a “living” sacrifice. Paul had written about this kind of worship earlier in the letter to the Romans:
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life….present yourselves to God as being alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God” (Rom. 6:4,13).
Paul writes that we should present ourselves to God as those who are “alive from the dead,” a “living” sacrifice. Note that the life is not merely our mortal, human life, but the life of those who are alive from the dead. It is resurrection life. An unsaved person cannot worship God, for all he could present would be a dead sacrifice, but Paul says that we who have been baptized into Christ by the Holy Spirit should walk in newness of life, just as Christ was raised from the dead. That’s the life of the living sacrifice. It is the life of one who has been to the Cross, and there found forgiveness for sins and been raised with Christ into newness of life. Now it’s “not I, but Christ liveth in me.” When we worship the Lord by presenting our bodies a living sacrifice, it’s not what we can do for Him, but what He can do in us, through us. The worship is holy and acceptable unto God because it is the worship of His Son living in us. It is “worshiping God in the Spirit” (Phil. 3:3).
The Perfect Worshipper
We sometimes don’t realize that when the Lord Jesus Christ died on the Cross, not only did He pay the debt of our sins, but He was also offering a sacrifice to God. The Cross was His altar, His death was His worship.
“Therefore be followers of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma” (Eph. 5:1-2).
Because He loved us, He gave Himself to God. That’s worship. He gave Himself to God as an offering, a sacrifice, a sweet-smelling aroma. The perfect Man with perfect obedience made the perfect sacrifice, and God says that to Him it was a sweet-smelling aroma. God was pleased forever. That’s worship, and we can learn from Him how to worship. In fact, Paul writes, take Him for your example, “Be followers [literally: imitators] of God and walk in love.” Here is the ultimate example of worship, here is our pattern.
Just as the Lord Jesus Christ loved us, and gave Himself to God as a sacrifice, just as He worshiped God, so now we also. He did it because He loved us, He gave Himself as a sacrifice to God for us. Now Paul writes to those who know the Lord and says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren…present your bodies to God as a living sacrifice.”
Now as we follow the Lord Jesus Christ because of love, we present ourselves to God as a living sacrifice for others. We walk in love as He walked in love and gave Himself to God for us. And that sweet-smelling aroma of Christ living in us, and loving through us by the power of the Holy Spirit, rises up in clouds of worship to God. And He says it is sweet-smelling, it is holy and acceptable, and isn’t that the perfect reward for the worshipper? Just to know that He is pleased.
Getting our Terminology Straight
If we’re committed to learning how to worship the Lord in an acceptable way, we’ll begin by getting a clear understanding of what the Lord desires. Many of the common expressions that Christians use betray our lack of understanding regarding acceptable worship.
We so often hear brethren talking about “going to church,” and by that they mean going to a building. They set aside “the Lord’s day” to go to “God’s house,” and there they hold “worship services” in the “sanctuary.” All of these expressions show that we have not yet left Jerusalem and grasped the new revelation that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to the Apostle Paul for us today. In the dispensation of the grace of God, we are the church, God’s house, His temple, His sanctuary. Every day is the Lord’s day, and our worship service is not just one hour on Sunday morning, but ought to be a “living sacrifice” every day of our lives.
When the church comes together in one place, if it’s not for worship, what is the purpose? Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 14:26 that when the church comes together, “Let all things be done for edification.” The church does not meet for worship—for our worship is to apply Romans 12:1—but for the purpose of building up one another so that the members can go back to their homes, jobs, and schools, and worship the Lord there all week long. (Of course, an aspect of “presenting our bodies a living sacrifice” is to be present and participate in the meetings of the church for the edifying of the fellow members of the Body of Christ.)
He Is Worthy
As we have seen, acceptable worship in the dispensation of Grace is not the emotional experience of a person seated in a great “sanctuary” observing a ritual. Worship is not limited to a certain time, day or place, but is the constant opportunity of the believer. Every area of life and every activity of life becomes the worship service of the believer.
“Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord” (Col. 3:23).
The worship of heaven sounds the refrain constantly:
“You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power” (Rev. 4:11).
“Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!” (Rev. 5:13).
“Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen” (Rev. 7:12).
Our worship today has the same goal, the “glory of God”:
“To whom [God and our Father] be glory forever and ever. Amen” (Gal. 1:5).
But note how we glorify God:
“That you may with one mind and one mouth glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 15:6).
“Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s” (1 Cor. 6:20).
“Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).
Those glorious songs of praise in heaven’s worship today are sung not only by our voices, but by our lives, by our minds, mouths, bodies and spirits—in fact, by “whatever you do.”
Notes:
- All references have been taken from the New King James Version.
When Did the Gift of Tongues Cease?
No one was more “charismatic” than the Apostle Paul. He wrote to the Corinthian church that “they came behind no other church” when it came to the gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 1:7)—no church had more of the gifts of the Holy Spirit than the Corinthian church, yet Paul says that he spoke in tongues more than all of them (1 Cor. 14:18)!
No one was more charismatic than Paul, yet the Lord revealed to him that those sign gifts were going to cease:
“whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away” (1 Cor. 13:8).1
Here Paul writes of the gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy and the gift of knowledge (see 1 Cor. 13:1-2) and states that the Lord Jesus had revealed to him (1 Cor. 11:23; 15:3; Gal. 1:11,12) that a time was coming when these sign gifts were going to cease to operate.
The question has always been: when? When would these gifts cease?
This study focuses on that question—when did the sign gifts cease?
Arranging Paul’s letters in the order that he wrote them
We begin by setting up a time line of Paul’s ministry. Paul was saved in Acts 9 when the Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus. Paul would go on to write 13 letters in the New Testament—from the Letter to the Romans to the Letter to Philemon. When we remember that Paul is the subject of at least half of the Book of Acts, we realize that half of the 27 books in the New Testament are either about him (The Book of Acts) or were written by him (13 letters).
Paul’s letters are arranged in our Bible by two principles: The letters to the churches are put first—nine letters from Romans to 2 Thessalonians, then the four letters written to individuals—from 1 Timothy to Philemon.
The letters are also arranged by length—Romans is longest and is first, then the Corinthian letters, then Galatians, etc. Longer letters are first, shorter ones later.
But to understand when the sign gifts ceased, we need to read Paul’s letters in the order that he wrote them. When we arrange the letters in the order that they were written, all becomes clear!
Paul’s Letters in the order that he wrote them:
The first 6 of Paul’s letters can be fit into the Book of Acts—we can read Acts and then read Paul’s letters and we can see where Paul was when he wrote these letters.
The Letter to the Galatians is first
In Acts 13,14 Paul and Barnabas went on their first apostolic journey which took them into Galatia—cities like Antioch, Lystra, Derbe, etc. Soon after Paul returned from this journey he wrote the letter to the Galatians (see Galatians 1:6 where Paul writes to the Galatians and says, you are “so quickly turned.”). Galatians was written soon after Paul returned from that first journey—soon after Acts 14:27. That makes Galatians the earliest of Paul’s letters.
1 and 2 Thessalonians
The next letters Paul wrote are the two letters to the Thessalonians. In Acts 17, Paul, on his second apostolic journey, came to Thessalonica and preached there. Many were saved, but Paul was driven out of town. Paul continued on to Corinth where he wrote the two letters to the Thessalonians. Timothy’s return from Macedonia mentioned in Acts 18:5 is also reported in 1 Thessalonians 3:6. And in 2 Thessalonians 2:5 Paul reminds the Thessalonians of his teaching, as if it had not been very long since he had been with them. So the writing of 1 and 2 Thessalonians can be placed into Acts 18 during Paul’s ministry in Corinth, and that makes them the second and third letters that Paul wrote.
1 and 2 Corinthians
The next two letters that Paul wrote are the two letters to the Corinthians. In Acts 18 Paul spent a year and a half ministering in Corinth—see Acts 18:11. He later returned to his home base at Antioch (Acts 18:22), and later in his third apostolic journey he arrived in Ephesus (his ministry in Ephesus extends all the way through Acts 19—a period of more than two years, see verse 10). It is here in Ephesus during Acts 19 that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians—see I Corinthians 16:19. Shortly after that Paul traveled to Macedonia (see Acts 20:1 and 2 Cor. 2:13) and that is where he wrote the second letter to the Corinthians.
Romans
In Acts 20:2,3 Paul arrived in “Greece,” i.e. in Corinth again, and spent three months there enjoying the hospitality of a believer named Gaius (mentioned in 1 Cor. 1:14). In Gaius’s home, in Corinth, Paul wrote the letter to the Romans (see Rom. 16:23).
This is the last letter written during the Book of Acts. In Acts 21:33 Paul was arrested in Jerusalem, and would spend the next 5 years in prison, right through the end of the Book of Acts.
So, to sum up what we have seen so far, from Acts 9 through Acts 28 we read of the earlier ministry of the Apostle Paul and find that during these years he wrote 6 of his 13 letters. The order of these first six books is:
- Galatians—end of Acts 14
- 1 Thessalonians—Acts 18
- 2 Thessalonians—Acts 18
- 1 Corinthians—Acts 19
- 2 Corinthians—Acts 20
- Romans—Acts 20
In Acts 21 Paul was arrested and remained a prisoner through to Acts 28, and beyond.
The Prison Epistles—Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon, and Philippians
Shortly after the end of the Book of Acts, while he was still a prisoner, now in Rome, Paul wrote four letters—the “prison epistles”: Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon and Philippians. In each of these letters he writes of his “chains”—see Ephesians 6:20, Colossians 4:18, Philemon 13 and Philippians 1:13.
The Pastoral Epistles—The letters to Titus, First and Second Timothy
Paul was released from this imprisonment and continued his ministry for a few years, perhaps 3 years. During this time he wrote the three letters known as the “Pastoral Epistles,” because these letters were written to Paul’s co-workers—Pastor Timothy and Titus. Finally at the end of his life he is again in prison. This time he anticipates being beheaded for the Lord and writes the last letter, Second Timothy.
Summary:
We have surveyed the 13 letters written by the Apostle Paul, arranging them in the order in which Paul wrote them:
During the Book of Acts—6 letters:
1. Galatians
2. & 3. The Thessalonian letters
4. & 5. The Corinthian letters
6. Romans
Then after the Book of Acts ends—7 more letters:
The 4 Prison Epistles:
7. Ephesians
8. Colossians
9. Philemon
10. Philippians
Then the 3 Pastoral Epistles:
11. Titus
12. 1 Timothy
13. 2 Timothy
Now let’s read the letters in the order Paul wrote them
Having surveyed the 13 letters and having put them into their chronological order, let’s see what they tell us about the question: when did the sign gifts cease?
In the first six letters, all written during the period covered by the Book of Acts, we find that the sign gifts were operating in all these churches. All through the Book of Acts we read of tongues, the gift of prophecy, the gift of healing, etc.—for example, tongues and prophecy in Acts 19:6, the gift of prophecy in Acts 21:10-14, the gift of healing in Acts 19:11-12 and 28:8,9, etc.
And in the “Acts Epistles” we read of the gifts operating in the churches that Paul founded. In Galatians 3:5, 1 Thessalonians 5:20, 1 Corinthians 12,13,14, 2 Corinthians 12:12, Romans 12:6—in all these letters we read about the gifts in operation right through to the end of the Book of Acts.
But, during this time in the Book of Acts, the Lord revealed to Paul that the sign gifts were going to cease—1 Corinthians 13:8-12. The gifts were all in operation all through the Book of Acts period and are mentioned in the letters written during that time, but the Lord had revealed that the sign gifts were going to cease at some time in the future.
When the gift of tongues ceased
Now we turn to the prison epistles, the four letters written shortly after the end of the Book of Acts, while Paul was a prisoner in Rome—Ephesians, Colossians, Philemon and Philippians…and we find that there is not one word about tongues, or the gift of healing. Even where we might have expected Paul to write of tongues in the passage about being “filled with the Spirit” in Ephesians 5:17, he has nothing to say about tongues. And as for the gift of healing, we read of a co-worker of Paul’s, Epaphroditus, who fell seriously ill during this time (Phil. 2:25-30) and Paul no longer had the gift of healing, and was no longer able to heal as he did only a few years earlier in Acts 28:9. The sign gifts were no longer operating at the time that Paul wrote the Prison Epistles.
Tongues in the Pastoral Epistles?
In the 3 Pastoral Epistles, as in the prison epistles, we do not read of tongues or the gift of healing operating at this time. We do read of prophecies that had been made about Timothy in 1 Timothy 1:18 and 4:14 and 2 Timothy 1:6, but these were given years before. So far as we read in these three letters, we wouldn’t even know that there had been a “gift of tongues.”
And, again, in places where we would have expected Paul to mention the sign gifts, he is silent. When Paul gives Timothy and Titus instructions regarding the choice of men to be elders in the churches, Paul says nothing about the desirability of these men having a gift such as prophecy, or healing, or other sign gifts (see Titus 1:6-9 and 1 Tim. 3:1-10). The gifts of tongues, prophecy, etc. were no longer in operation by the time Paul wrote the pastoral epistles.
It is clear that the gift of healing has ceased because, as in Philippians, Paul was no longer able to heal, even his co-workers. Timothy was suffering stomach problems and frequent infirmities (1 Tim. 5:23) and Paul can’t heal him, doesn’t recommend that he go to a healer in the church, doesn’t send a prayer cloth or a bottle of anointing oil (remember the miracles of some 8 years earlier in Acts 19:11-12). Likewise in 2 Timothy 4:20, Paul has to leave behind his co-worker Trophimus who had fallen sick on the last journey. Paul’s gift of healing (Acts 28:9) was no longer operating in Philippians 2:27, 1 Timothy 5:23 and 2 Timothy 4:20.
Summary
The sign gifts, tongues, prophecy, the gift of healing, etc. were operating all through the Book of Acts, and these gifts are mentioned in the letters that Paul wrote during the Acts period. But when we turn to the letters written after the Book of Acts—the 4 Prison Epistles, and the 3 Pastoral Epistles, we find that the sign gifts either aren’t mentioned at all or we see—as with the gift of healing—that they were no longer operating in Paul’s life. What he could do in Acts 28, he could no longer do in Philippians, or in 1 and 2 Timothy. He could heal all the sick on the island in Acts 28:9, but he couldn’t heal any of his closest co-workers—Timothy, Epaphroditus, Trophimus—after the close of the Book of Acts.
Arranging Paul’s letters in the order that he wrote them allows us to see the pattern of truth that is found in the Word of God:
The sign gifts were operating in Acts and in all of the Acts Epistles: Galatians, 1 & 2 Thessalonians, 1 & 2 Corinthians and Romans.
But in this time period, in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12, Paul tells us that the Lord had revealed to him that these gifts would cease some day. And they did, because in the letters written after the Book of Acts, the sign gifts had ceased, just as the Lord said that they would.
The pattern could not be clearer, and the contrast could not be sharper between the earlier letters and the later letters, between the time when all the sign gifts were operating, and the time when all the sign gifts had ceased.
We can now give a scriptural answer to the question that we started with: when did the sign gifts cease?
The answer: The sign gifts ceased at the end of the Book of Acts. There is no record in Scripture of any of the sign gifts operating in any of the letters that Paul wrote after the end of the Acts period, and it is clear that the gift of healing had ceased since Paul could no longer heal even his closest co-workers after the close of the Book of Acts.
Why did the sign gifts cease?
Having seen the pattern of truth regarding the gifts, we need to ask, why did the gifts cease at this time?
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:8-12—
“Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
“When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
The gift of tongues, prophecy and knowledge during the Acts period were only “in part”—they were incomplete, they did not communicate the full knowledge that the Lord had to reveal. But the Lord revealed to Paul that “that which is perfect” was coming. In English, as in Greek, this is a neuter pronoun—”that thing which is perfect.” Paul was not writing about the coming of “He who is perfect” but of the coming of a “thing” which is perfect. When it came, then the gifts which were only “in part” would cease.
It would be like the difference between being a child and becoming a grown man, or between seeing someone’s face reflected in a wavy ancient mirror, and seeing the person face-to-face.
Before the end of the Book of Acts, during the Acts period, and in the letters written during the Acts period, the Lord had only revealed part of the “dispensation of grace” (Eph. 3:2) to the Apostle Paul, but He had not yet revealed the entire message to him. It was still only “in part” during the Acts period, but with the close of the Book of Acts, the Lord completed the revelation of the “Mystery” (see Eph. 3:3,4,9 and Col. 1:26,27, etc.). “That which is perfect” was finally revealed in all its fullness to the Apostle Paul and at that moment, those things which were only “in part” passed away from God’s program.
Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12—
“Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”
When Paul wrote “now I know in part,” he used the common word for “know,” the Greek word gnosis.
But then, when he wrote “but then I shall know…” he changes the word from gnosis to epignosis, “to fully know.”
We could paraphrase Paul’s statement: “Now, as I’m writing 1 Corinthians in Acts 19, I have gnosis—I know, in part, what God’s message is for us today in the dispensation of grace, but then—when that which is perfect has come—I shall have epignosis—the full knowledge of God’s message of grace for us today.”
All through the Book of Acts Paul had only “gnosis,” partial knowledge of the message of grace, but when we turn to the Prison Letters we suddenly find Paul using that word “epignosis”—he had now received that “full knowledge” which he didn’t have when he wrote to the Corinthians:
“For I want you to know what a great conflict I have for you and those in Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh, that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge (epignosis—full knowledge) of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ” (Col. 2:1-2).
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge (epignosis—full knowledge) of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light” (Col. 1:9-12).
In all the seven letters written after the close of the Book of Acts, Paul uses this word “epignosis”—the full knowledge. What he had not yet received in 1 Corinthians 13, he now has. That which is perfect had come and so the sign gifts had passed away.
The “sign gifts” were signs for God’s “sign people”
The close of the Book of Acts was also the close of God’s dealings with the nation of Israel for now nearly 2000 years. Acts 28:25-28 stands as God’s last words to the nation of Israel for nearly two millennia. The Jews sought after signs (1 Cor. 1:22) so God gave them signs—among the Gentiles!—in order to provoke Israel to jealousy (Rom. 11:14). But with the close of Acts, God sets aside Israel for a time, and when God gave up on the “sign people” for a time, the sign gifts passed out of His program.
I speak in tongues, what should I do?
Many Christians today have had an experience that they think is the scriptural gift of tongues. After studying Paul’s letters and the scriptural teaching concerning the cessation of the gift of tongues, they ask, “What should I do now?” There are several possible explanations for the experience—it may be a psychological experience or even a spiritual experience, but clearly, from the Word of God, it is not the Spirit’s gift of tongues.
What should they do? Simply: Stop! Stop speaking in the tongue because it is not from the Holy Spirit.
For many this is a great relief. They’ve been taught that a person has to speak in tongues to prove that he is really saved, or that he really has the Holy Spirit dwelling within. So they’ve “learned” to speak in tongues, but when they see from Scripture that this gift is not in operation from the Lord today, they can at last cease their effort to prove their salvation and start to walk by faith and not by sight.
For some, Paul’s instructions to the prophets at Corinth will be pertinent:
“If anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints” (1 Cor. 14:30-33).
When we are having an experience that we learn from the Scriptures is not from the Lord, it is time to “keep silent,” and remember that our spirits are to be under our own control—”the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets.”
The Lord’s warning
The Lord warned that experiences can be deceiving:
“Many will say to Me in that day, `Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'” (Matt. 7:22-23).
Yes, they really had had these experiences. They had prophesied in Jesus’ name, they had cast out demons and done miracles in His name. The Lord does not deny that they had done these things. But then He tells them that even while they were doing these things, He had never ever known them. It is important that our faith be based on the Word of God and not on experiences because experiences can deceive us.
A note about the gift of healing
As we have seen, Paul was able to heal many sick people all through the Book of Acts. He healed every sick person on the Island of Malta in Acts 28. And he wrote to the Corinthians about the gift of healing that was operating in their church during the Acts period (1 Cor. 12:9). But we have also seen that with the close of the Book of Acts, the gift of healing ceased to operate. Paul could no longer heal anyone—not Epaphroditus in Philippians 2, not Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:23, not Trophimus in 2 Timothy 4:20. The gift of healing had ceased to operate, along with the other sign gifts.
Today God no longer gives the gift of healing, and there are no “healers.” But we should not think that God Himself no longer heals! In Philippians 2 we read of a healing that God did after the gift of healing had ceased to operate:
“Yet I considered it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, fellow worker, and fellow soldier, but your messenger and the one who ministered to my need; since he was longing for you all, and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick.
“For indeed he was sick almost unto death; but God had mercy on him, and not only on him but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.
“Therefore I sent him the more eagerly, that when you see him again you may rejoice, and I may be less sorrowful.
“Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness, and hold such men in esteem; because for the work of Christ he came close to death, not regarding his life, to supply what was lacking in your service toward me” (Phil. 2:25-30).
Paul commends Epaphroditus very highly for his faithfulness even unto death. But when Epaphroditus fell sick—near to death—Paul was no longer able to heal him because the gift of healing had ceased to operate. But we read that Epaphroditus was healed—directly by the Lord: “He was sick unto death but the Lord had mercy on him….”
There is healing today, but there is no gift of healing, there are no “divine healers.” There is no gift of healing today but God still heals… sometimes. He healed Epaphroditus, but He did not heal Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:8-9 or in Galatians 4:13-15, or Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:23, or Trophimus in 2 Timothy 4:20. He heals according to His will today. But the promise that He gave to Paul is still our promise today in the dispensation of grace:
“My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9).
Whether we are well or sick, whether we are like Epaphroditus or like Timothy, we can always claim this promise from the Lord that His grace and strength are sufficient for us. He never allows us to suffer something that He doesn’t give us the strength to live through.
Notes:
- All references have been taken from the New King James Version.
The Answer to the Problem of Unanswered Prayer
The phone rang right after the Grace For Today broadcast; the caller was a listener from Far Rockaway in Queens.
“I called just to let you know that I used to believe in God, but I don’t believe any more,” she said. I asked her why she had lost her faith and she related to me this experience:
A few years ago, she and her husband were attending a Bible believing church in Queens. One day her husband, who wasn’t feeling well, came home from the doctor’s office with some bad news. The doctor told him that he had cancer. They went to their church and told the pastor and asked everyone to pray for her husband’s recovery.
Their church prayed for him. Other churches prayed for him. The pastor prayed and the elders prayed. All the time they were praying, her husband was slowly becoming weaker as the cancer continued to spread.
But her pastor continued to encourage them, “Just have faith, God will heal.” The pastor quoted verses from the Bible:
“So Jesus answered and said to them, `Assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, Be removed and be cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive'” (Matt. 21:21-22).
So the pastor said, “Have faith and do not doubt; God will heal.”
“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you” (John 15:7).
The pastor said, “God promises, `You will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.’ Believe it; trust God and He will heal.”
As her husband continued to suffer and the sickness grew worse, she followed the teaching in the Letter of James and called for the elders to come and pray:
“Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven” (James 5:14,15).
Her pastor continued to encourage her, “You see, the Bible says that the prayer of faith will save the sick and the Lord will raise him up. Believe it, and God will heal.”
Eventually her husband died. The pastor had to try to explain this failure, and told her that it must be that she did not have enough faith, or maybe there was some secret sin in her life, or maybe her husband wasn’t really a Christian. Obviously something was wrong.
She had no explanation. She had tried her best to believe, she knew of no secret sin, and she always thought that her husband was a real Christian. She came to the conclusion that the Bible must not be true, that there really is no God and that all that she once believed was not true. At least it didn’t work when she needed it.
This sister in Christ is an extreme example, perhaps the most extreme that I have ever talked to, but there are many Christians who are quietly, in their own hearts, troubled about unanswered prayers. Why is it that these promises, “whatever you ask, whatever you desire,” do not work in their own experience? Some preachers keep saying, “Just have enough faith, and God will do it.” But many a Christian knows that it just doesn’t work that way.
What is the real answer to the problem of unanswered prayer?
We begin to find the Bible’s answer when we notice that all these promises are found only in certain parts of the Bible. In the Four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—there are many promises about answered prayer, “if you believe.” But we notice that in the Four Gospels, the Lord Jesus was only ministering to the nation of Israel. When a Gentile woman came with her request to the Lord, He wouldn’t even speak to her, and told His disciples that He “was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matt. 15:24). He had come as their Messiah, and to fulfill all the promises made to the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. God had promised them a kingdom in which there would be peace, prosperity, health, life, and no more fear. But when the Prince of Peace came, the nation of Israel rejected Him. From the cross, their King prayed for His people, “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” And so, in the beginning of the Book of Acts, we read how God offered forgiveness to the nation of Israel. In fact, in Acts 3:19-21, Peter tells the people of Israel that if they would repent for their sin of rejecting their Messiah, God would not only forgive them, but send Jesus back for them, and all that He had promised them concerning that Kingdom of Peace and prosperity and health, He would now fulfill for them.
“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21).
Yes, they had rejected their King and Messiah, but He had prayed for them, and God was giving them a second chance. How would they respond to the Holy Spirit’s offer of pardon and the coming again of the Messiah and His Kingdom?
We don’t have to read very far in the Book of Acts to begin to see that they would not repent, they would not accept God’s offer of forgiveness and the coming of the Kingdom. In Chapter four of Acts the Apostles are arrested; as we read on they are arrested again, threatened, beaten up, and finally Stephen, the Spirit-filled deacon, was actually murdered by the leaders of Israel. They had rejected the King, and now they rejected the message of forgiveness. As a result, God “cast away” the nation of Israel, for a time (See Rom. 11:15).
“For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?” (Rom. 11:15).
The nation of Israel was “cast away” for a time, and the Kingdom they waited for was “put on hold.” Those great prayer promises made to Israel would also be put on hold for a future time.
But then the Lord did something that had never been prophesied or promised. Instead of unleashing His wrath upon the world, He reached down in utter grace and saved the man who was leading the rebellion of the nation of Israel. He saved His greatest enemy, a man named Saul, who would now become the Apostle Paul. The enemy—he called himself “the chief of sinners”—was saved by the grace of God and sent to the Gentiles with a message that had never been revealed before. Listen to Paul explain what the Lord Jesus revealed to him from heaven:
“For this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ Jesus for you Gentiles—if indeed you have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which was given to me for you, how that by revelation He made known to me the mystery…” (Eph. 3:1-3).
The Lord Jesus Christ had a “mystery”—which simply means a “Secret”—and He revealed this new message, this “dispensation of the grace of God” to this new apostle. Paul often writes about this special ministry given to him, that he was not preaching the same thing as the others before him, but that the Lord Jesus had revealed something new, something different to him.
“To me, who am less than the least of all the saints, this grace was given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, and to make all see what is the dispensation of the mystery, which from the beginning of the ages has been hidden in God who created all things through Jesus Christ…” (Eph. 3:8,9).
The Lord Jesus revealed to Paul “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” The Kingdom blessings were promised and written about all through the Old Testament, but now the Lord revealed a program of blessings that were “unsearchable.” You can “search the scriptures” but you won’t find this new message, because it was “hidden in God” until the Lord revealed it to Paul for you and me today.
Now, let’s see what the Lord Jesus told Paul about how prayer works today in the dispensation of grace. Here’s where we find the answer to the problem of unanswered prayer!
We begin with a passage in Paul’s letter to the Romans where Paul begins to explain what the Lord told him about prayer today under grace, and why we don’t get everything that we pray for today:
26 “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
27 “Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:26-28).
For those of us in the dispensation of grace, God never promises that He will give us everything that we ask. You can abundantly prove this by simply reading through the letters written by the Apostle Paul. He wrote thirteen letters, from Romans to Philemon, and we never read a prayer promise like “Whatever you ask,” or “ask what you desire.” Instead we read that “We do not know what to pray for as we ought” (Rom. 8:26).
God has promised to “work all things together for good” in our lives, but He hasn’t revealed HOW He is going to do that. He has promised it, and we take that by faith and believe that He is working all things—even the “tragedies” of life—together for good for us; but we often don’t see it. But as Paul wrote, “We walk by faith and not by seeing.”
Since we don’t know how God is going to work all things for good, we don’t know exactly how to pray. How could God promise us that He will answer all our prayers, if He tells us up-front that we don’t even know what to pray for?
Paul’s letters contain many testimonies of unanswered prayers. People flock today to hear testimonies of answered prayers, but Paul writes of many of his unanswered prayers! He knew how to pray in the dispensation of grace, and didn’t become discouraged when he didn’t receive what he asked for. He believed that his Father in heaven had everything under control and was working all things together for his good. He gives us a great testimony of unanswered prayer in 2 Corinthians 12:8-9.
7 “And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure.
8 “Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me.
9 “And He said to me, `My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
10 “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:7-10).
We see in verse 7 that God allowed Paul to suffer with this “thorn in the flesh,” some physical suffering that even came from Satan, but God allowed it for a good purpose in Paul’s life. But Paul pleaded for the Lord to remove the problem. Don’t we always pray, “Fix it, Lord!”? We find Paul praying, pleading three times, for the Lord to fix his problem.
And then the Lord spoke, and He didn’t say, “Whatever you ask you’ll receive, if you have faith!” No! Not at all. The Lord told Paul that His grace would be enough, sufficient for him—and His grace means His power working in Paul’s life. “My power is made perfect in your weakness.” We always want the Lord to just fix the problem; He wants to show the sufficiency of His grace, and the magnificence of His power working in our lives so that we can “bloom wherever He has planted us!”
Paul’s whole attitude about suffering changed as a result of this prayer experience. He says that he learned to take “pleasure [!] in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
We need to learn that it is not God’s will to take away all our problems, to fix all our weaknesses, to remove all our needs, but it is God’s will in all the circumstances of our lives to give us all the grace and strength that we’ll need to live through the problems, and even to rejoice in them!
Paul prayed for the Colossian saints:
“For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding…strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy” (Col. 1:9-11).
He prayed that these saints would be “filled with the knowledge of God’s will” and the result would be that they would be “strengthened with all might [wow!], according to His glorious power [think of that!], for all patience and longsuffering with joy.”
“Patience” here speaks of endurance and perseverance in the face of life’s circumstances, while “longsuffering” speaks of having a “long fuse” on our tempers when faced with unpleasant people in our lives, and Paul says to do this all with “joy!” God doesn’t promise to take away all our problems, to answer all our prayers—we don’t even know what to ask for—but He does promise to give us the grace and strength that we’ll need to live under the difficult circumstances of life, and to live with the difficult people of life, and to do it all with joy.
That’s God’s picture of being “strengthened with all might according to His glorious power.” It’s living in the midst of trying circumstances and difficult people that would drive anyone else crazy, but instead of despair, there’s joy. That’s real power, and grace—and the Lord Jesus says to us today, “My grace is sufficient for you wherever you are, and whatever your problems may be, I’m working it all together for good, and My power is being made perfect. It reaches its greatest expression and demonstration when you are weak, but miraculously, you find that by faith you are `strengthened with all might…for patience and longsuffering with joy.'”
Paul never forgot the lesson that the Lord taught him from his “thornprayer.” Many years later Paul would write to the Philippians out of a prison cell—near the end of five years spent in prison for the Lord:
11 “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content:
12 “I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil. 4:11-13).
Paul says that he has learned the secret of contentment, he knows how to abound, and also how to be abased. God does not promise us today, living in the dispensation of grace, that He is going to fix all our problems, but He does promise us grace more than enough to make us able to rejoice through it all. So Paul writes that everywhere and in all things he has learned how to cope, and more, how to cope with joy. And the secret? “I can do all things through Christ who [constantly] strengthens me.” We can almost hear those words from years before still ringing in Paul’s heart, “My strength is made perfect in your weakness” as Paul writes, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
When the woman from Far Rockaway prayed for her husband and had everyone praying for him, if only her pastor had understood how to “rightly divide the word of truth” (2 Timothy 2:15), realizing that the prayer promises in the Four Gospels are not given to us today, living under grace in the dispensation of grace, but were made to Israel with their Messianic Kingdom in view. Even in the Letter of James where he writes about the “prayer of faith,” and how God would heal the sick, we need to read the first verse of James’ letter, and see that he is only writing to “the twelve tribes scattered abroad.” This is not “our mail” in the Bible. We can read it and study it and learn from it, but we need always to remember that the twelve tribes and the chosen nation are today “on the outs with God,” and these promises, their promises, don’t work today.
But the Lord Jesus saved a new apostle, the Apostle Paul, and sent him to us with a new message even more wonderful, the message of grace (Eph. 3:2). Should we pray today? Of course! Listen to Paul encouraging the saints to pray:
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thes. 5:16-18).
But we can only rejoice and give thanks always when we understand what the Lord is doing in the dispensation of grace and in our lives today. God’s people are destroyed when they are told that God’s plan is to fix all their problems, because the Lord never said that to the Apostle Paul for us in the dispensation of grace. There can only come disappointment, discouragement and spiritual ruin when we claim a promise that God never made to us. But what joy and what freedom there is when we begin to learn to hear the Lord’s promises for us today in this wonderful time called the “dispensation of the grace of God!”
We close this brief study of prayer in the dispensation of grace with one more prayer promise for us today found in Ephesians 3:20-21….
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”
We pray in our ignorance (Rom. 8:26), we do not know what to pray for as we ought. We ask and we think we know what would be best. But Paul says here that God is able to do above all that we ask or even think. In fact, He is able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think.” But notice carefully how God is going to do that in your life: “according to the power that is at work in us.” His power and strength and grace are sufficient for us in every circumstance of life. That power is available to work in us if we will only believe it and trust Him. He is able to do in us, above all that we ask or even think, for it is nothing less than “resurrection power” that is at work in us.
When we “walk by faith” and allow Him to “fill us with the knowledge of His will” and “strengthen us with all His might,” then Paul says, “To Him be the glory in the church by Christ Jesus forever and ever. Amen.” May He be glorified in your life and mine today.
What’s For Supper? — First Steps in Understanding How to Understand the Bible
As suppertime approaches at our house, I often wander into the kitchen while Barbara, my wife, is cooking our dinner, and I’m usually hungry. My question is often, “What’s for supper?”
In this study we’re going to ask the same question, but this time we’re going to ask the Bible—`What’s for supper?’—and we’re going to see that God has given several different instructions in the Bible at different times about the food that He allowed His people to eat.
Our goal is not just to learn about God’s instructions about food in the Bible, but to get an understanding of how to understand the Bible. What we’ll learn about food is applicable to many other questions we could ask of the Bible.
We’ve known Christians who “study” the Bible by standing the book up on its spine, then carefully letting go and letting it fall open to any page at random. Then, with their eyes closed, they run their finger down the page. When it seems like its the right moment, they open their eyes and read the verse their finger landed on. That becomes their verse for the day, or their verse for guidance, or their inspiration for the moment.
That’s one method of Bible “study” that’s sure to leave a Christian in a state of total confusion.
God wants us to have an understanding of His Word. The Apostle Paul often prayed for the believers that he was writing to, and one of his repeated prayers is that God would “enlighten the eyes of their understanding,” or that they would attain to “the full assurance of understanding.” If we don’t understand the Word of God, how can we believe it?
This study is about one of the most basic principles of Bible study. It is about starting to understand how to understand the Bible. We’ll start by looking at five men, five leading men in the Bible, and seeing what God said to them about food. The study is very simple, yet the implications are really profound in helping us to understand how to understand the Bible!
WHAT GOD SAID TO ADAM ABOUT FOOD
The first man we need to look at is the first man, Adam. When God created Adam, He told him what he was allowed to eat:
“And God said, `See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food'” (Gen. 1:29).
In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were vegetarians. God commanded that their food was to be the herbs and fruits, no meat. And this same instruction was repeated in the next chapter:
“And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, `Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die'” (Gen. 2:16-17).
This instruction about food was very serious, since it was precisely in this area that Adam sinned and plunged the entire human race into sin. He ate from the tree that he was told not to eat from!
I remember well the first time these verses came to my attention. I was in a Bible study group, meeting in someone’s living room. I was a very new Christian, and I almost went into shock. God commanded that man should be a vegetarian, and I loved pizza—pepperoni, sausage, double cheese, mushrooms. Now I thought I’d have to give up my favorite food…and I never knew that Christians were supposed to be vegetarians!
But someone in the Bible study group, older in the faith and wiser in the study of God’s Word, said that I should wait until I had read everything the Bible says about food before I gave up my pizzas. So, before we give up pizza, let’s read on….
WHAT GOD SAID TO NOAH ABOUT FOOD
The next man we need to look at is Noah. There were about 1500 years between Adam and Noah. In Genesis 9 we read about Noah, after the great flood, receiving instructions from God concerning the food that he was allowed to eat:
“So God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: `Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea. They are given into your hand. Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood'” (Gen. 9:1-4).
Here God changes the menu for mankind. “Every living thing that moves shall be food for you…even as the green herbs.” God had spoken of the “beasts of the earth…birds of the air…fish of the sea,” and then He says to Noah that all these are to be his food, along with the herbs, that is the vegetables and grains. For the first 1500 years of the human race, God’s instructions were that man was to be a vegetarian, now, after the great flood, God changes the instructions and adds meat, fowl, fish to the basic vegetable and grain menu.
I breathed a sigh of relief, after 1500 years, now pizza was OK. But there’s more….
WHAT GOD SAID TO MOSES ABOUT FOOD
The next man we need to look at is Moses, the Law-giver of Israel. In Leviticus 11, God gave Moses and Aaron a complete chapter of some 47 verses detailing which animals the Israelites could eat, and which were “unclean” and forbidden.
“And the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying to them, `Speak to the children of Israel, saying, These are the animals which you may eat among all the animals that are on the earth'” (Lev. 11:1-2).
Among the forbidden animals was the swine (Lev. 11:7) or pig, so pork was unclean. Forget about sausage or pepperoni pizza! The chapter lists the seafood that was allowed—fish with scales, and the seafood that was unclean—lobsters, shrimp, clams. The birds that were unclean—eagles, vultures, buzzards, even the insects that were allowed—the grasshopper, cricket and locust were kosher and allowed to be eaten!
The chapter ends with this instruction:
“This is the law of the animals and the birds and every living creature that moves in the waters, and of every creature that creeps on the earth, To distinguish between the unclean and the clean, and between the animal that may be eaten and the animal that may not be eaten” (Lev. 11:46-47).
Before we move on further, let’s review….
To Adam God said that his food was to be herbs and fruits. This instruction was in effect for about 1500 years.
Then to Noah God commanded that he and his descendants could eat every moving living thing: animals, fish and birds, meat, fowl and fish, along with the herbs. This instruction lasted about 1000 years.
In the Law of Moses God again changed His instructions concerning food—at least for the nation of Israel—now only certain animals, fish and birds were allowed to be eaten, the rest were unclean and not allowed for the Israelites to eat.
This instruction—the Law of Moses with its kosher and non-kosher food—was in effect all throughout the rest of the Old Testament, and all throughout the four gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and on into the early chapters of the Book of Acts. This brings us to the next man we need to study, Peter.
WHAT GOD SAID TO PETER ABOUT FOOD
In Acts 10 and 11 Peter received a startling revelation from the Lord concerning food. One day Peter was hungry at about noon time. So while lunch was being prepared, Peter was up on a rooftop praying when he received a vision from the Lord.
“…Peter went up on the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour. Then he became very hungry and wanted to eat; but while they made ready, he fell into a trance and saw heaven opened and an object like a great sheet bound at the four corners, descending to him and let down to the earth. In it were all kinds of four-footed animals of the earth, wild beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air. And a voice came to him, `Rise, Peter; kill and eat.’
“But Peter said, `Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything common or unclean.’
“And a voice spoke to him again the second time, `What God has cleansed you must not call common'” (Acts 10:9-16).
Something like a great white sheet descended from heaven in this vision and in the sheet Peter saw all kinds of animals, creeping things—insects, lizards, etc., and birds. Some were kosher, but apparently many, perhaps most, were not kosher. God’s instruction to Peter was, “Rise, kill and eat.” Peter was now allowed to eat any kind of meat, or fowl or insect, or other living thing. Peter, though, protests and says to God, “Not so, Lord! For I have never eaten anything unclean or common.”
From this statement we learn that Peter has kept the kosher laws all his life. When the Lord was with the twelve apostles for those three years of His earthly ministry, the Lord and the twelve apostles never ate anything that wasn’t kosher. And in Acts 10 more than a year after the resurrection and ascension of the Lord into heaven, Peter still was keeping the Law of Moses. He had never eaten anything in disobedience to Leviticus 11 which had been written by Moses about 1500 years before.
But now again, God was changing the command regarding food. Now God says to Peter, “What God has cleansed, you must not call common.” Now these animals, birds and fish that were once “unclean” have now been cleansed. Again, let’s review….
God commanded Adam that he could eat herbs and fruits only. This instruction stood for some 1500 years.
Then God commanded Noah that he could eat any kind of moving living thing along with the vegetables. This instruction stood for about 1000 years.
Then God told Moses that only certain animals, birds and seafood were allowed to be eaten by the Israelites. Moses’ law stayed in effect for some 1500 years until the middle of the Book of Acts.
Which now brings us to the last man we want to look at, the Apostle Paul.
WHAT THE LORD JESUS SAID TO PAUL ABOUT FOOD
What Peter didn’t know in Acts 10, but we do, is that a new dispensation had begun in Acts 9. One chapter before Peter’s vision, something even more startling happened one day on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus. The Lord Jesus Christ saved a man who later called himself, the “chief of sinners,” and appointed him to become the Apostle Paul. And the Lord Jesus began to reveal to Paul a dispensation called the “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2).
Just as Moses was the Law-giver for Israel, and his dispensation included instructions about food, so also Paul became the “dispenser” of the dispensation of the grace of God, and his dispensation also included instructions about food:
“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer” (I Tim. 4:1-5).
Paul warns Timothy that in the latter times there will be teachers who will command the Christians to “abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving.” Paul says that this will be evidence of a departure from the faith, for in the dispensation of the grace of God, “Every creature of God is good [meat, fowl, or seafood] and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving.”
Today, for us living under grace (Rom. 6:14) and in this dispensation given to Paul by the Lord from heaven (Eph. 3:2), all animals, birds, and seafood are allowed to be eaten as food. Nothing is forbidden. For the past 2000 years, ever since the dispensation of grace began in Acts 9 with the salvation of this new apostle, godly people have been permitted to eat sausage and pepperoni pizzas with double cheese and mushrooms!
WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED ABOUT “HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE?”
Back to our purpose in this study …how do these things we have seen about God’s food laws in the Bible help us to understand how to understand the Bible?
First, we need to realize when we’re studying the Bible, that God has given different commands to different people at different times all through the Word of God. In regard to food, God gave one initial instruction to Adam and his descendants, then changed the instruction when He spoke to Noah. Then again a new set of instructions for Moses, that were completely changed when he called the Apostle Paul and revealed the dispensation of grace to him for us today.
The instructions would even seem to contradict each other…to Adam: herbs and fruits only, then to Noah: any living thing—animal, bird or fish—then to Moses: only some living things, then for us: “every creature of God is good [for food].”
Unless we realize that God has different instructions for different people at different times, we would have to conclude that the Bible is full of contradictions.
Second: When we study the Bible, we need to be careful to “rightly divide the Word of truth” (II Tim. 2:15) to be sure that we are applying God’s instructions for us today, and not God’s instructions to someone living in another dispensation. Just dropping the Bible open and randomly putting our finger down on any verse is not “rightly dividing the Word of truth!” and is a good way to become very confused about how to understand the Bible.
Of course, the instructions about food are only part of the Word of God. But many other teachings in the Bible also have to be studied “dispensationally.” For instance, the Lord’s teaching about prayer for us in the dispensation of grace is vastly different from what He gave the twelve apostles during His earthly ministry in Israel.
To Israel the Lord said, “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.” And, “And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive” (John 15:7 and Matt. 21:22).
Many today have tried to “claim” these prayer promises, only to be sadly disappointed when they didn’t work—they didn’t get “what you desire” or “whatever things you ask.” Some have even lost their faith in the Bible at this point. They tried the “prayer promises for Israel” and found that they didn’t work, and so concluded that the Bible isn’t true.
What they failed to realize is that God’s instructions to different people living at different times have changed, about food and about prayer and about many other things. When we want to know what to eat, or how to pray, under grace, we turn to the letters of the Apostle Paul. And when we do, we learn that even the Apostle Paul did not get everything that he asked for—see II Corinthians 12:8-9 for one good example, and there are a number of others.
Third, we see that a Bible teacher may be “biblical” and “scriptural” but he will be wrong if he is not “dispensational.”
Biblical, in the sense that he is quoting Bible verses and passages, and teaching some portion of the Word of God and applying it to believers today. And scriptural, in the sense that he is quoting Scripture to prove his point. But if he is not dispensational, he will be teaching wrong doctrine for believers today.
Example: A preacher could easily preach that we should be vegetarians today—he could find several verses to base this doctrine on in the first few chapters of the Book of Genesis where the Lord commanded Adam to be a vegetarian. The preacher would be biblical and scriptural, but he would be wrong, because he wouldn’t be rightly dividing the Word of truth. Yes, Genesis is God’s Word, but not God’s Word to us today!
We live in a time of great confusion even among Bible believers and Bible teachers. In some neighborhoods there’s almost a church on every corner, and they’re all preaching something different, yet they all have their verses in the Bible to prove that they are right and the others are wrong! And because they disagree about how to understand the Bible, and how to apply the Bible to us today, they are divided into thousands of different denominations and groups. We have seen in our simple study about foods in the Bible how it would be very easy to become confused—and then become divided from other Christians.
One church may be following Adam’s instructions in Genesis 1 and 2. Another may focus on Noah’s, or Moses’, or Peter’s, or Paul’s—they would all have verses to prove that they were right, yet they would all disagree with each other, and none would be able to eat with the others!
We’ve been focusing on only this one area, foods, but the same principle applies to many doctrines in the Bible: salvation, eternal security, prayer, speaking in tongues, healings and healers, the Lord’s coming again, and many other areas of teaching. All of these areas of doctrine must be studied, not only biblically and scripturally, but also dispensationally—”rightly dividing the Word of truth”—if we really want to understand what God’s instructions are for us today.
Here is the simple answer to all the confusion that we find today in the Body of Christ, and the only way of having unity among all the members of the Body of Christ. We need to realize that the Lord Jesus Christ saved a new apostle, the Apostle Paul, for a special purpose, to reveal to him a new program called the “dispensation of the grace of God” (Eph. 3:2). Here is the key that opens up the Scriptures to our understanding.
PAUL’S LETTERS ONLY?
Does this mean that we only read Paul’s Letters in the Bible? Some, who first hear about studying the Bible dispensationally, draw the false conclusion that we should only be reading or studying Paul’s letters today. Paul himself wrote to Pastor Timothy:
“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness…” (II Tim. 3:16).
The whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is the inspired, God-breathed, Word of God. We are commanded to study the entire Bible because there are principles in every part of the Bible that teach us doctrine, or reprove us when we are disobedient. The whole Bible is profitable for our study and learning. But the way to get the profit out of the Bible is to study the Bible the way God said to study it, “rightly divided” (II Tim. 2:15), recognizing that the Lord Jesus revealed from heaven the dispensation of grace to the Apostle Paul for us today. If we forget this basic principle, the more we study the Bible, the more confused we will become!
This has been a very simple study in the Bible, that began with a simple question, “What’s for supper?” Yet the principle that we’ve discovered is profound in helping us to start to understand how to understand the Bible.
As we have surveyed God’s different instructions to different people at different times throughout the Bible, the answer to the question—What’s for supper?—has seemed to be obvious, yet, sad to say, most Christians today have never seen this principle in the Bible. We hope that our study together has been profitable to you…that you have not only seen something new, or clearer in the Bible, but also will apply this simple Bible principle in your continuing study of God’s Word, and that you will want to share it with others.