4
CHAPTER 1
RIGHT DIVISION
ALL SCRIPTURE
AND
(The reader must imagine two men engaged in conversation. One, whom we shall call B, is offering the other, A,
some literature. A is apparently refusing to accept it and we come within range of his voice just in time to hear his
reason for this refusal).
_____
A.- Thank you, No. I would rather not take the pamphlets, not because I doubt your honesty, but because I am
not sure that the teaching they represent is fundamentally sound.
B.- It is refreshing to meet with a refusal that makes some approach both to charity, in that you do not impute
dishonest motives, and to clarity, in that you will have no complicity with any teaching that denies the fundamentals
of the faith. May I ask what you consider to be fundamentals?
A.- I consider the inspiration of all Scripture to be fundamental, and I understand that you so divide the
Scriptures that only four or five small epistles are left for the Church today.
B.- It is encouraging to find agreement where we might have expected strife. I, too, believe with all my heart
that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. Shall we turn to the passage concerned and observe its context?
They turn to 2 Timothy 3:16.
B.- (Continuing): By the `context' I do not mean only the verses immediately adjacent, but the context of the
whole epistle. The same epistle that teaches the inspiration of all Scripture, also enjoins the principle of
interpretation expressed in the words `rightly dividing the Word of truth' (2 Tim. 2:15). You will see, therefore, that
Paul at least could stress the `dividing' of the Word, without departing from the foundation of our faith.
A.- Yes, I admit that the fact that the two passages come together in the same epistle shows that `right division'
need not be in opposition to the doctrine of the inspiration and profitableness of all Scripture; but what I have been
given to understand is that you cut out practically the whole Bible before you are satisfied that you have divided the
Word aright. It is to this that I object.
B.- I suppose I may take it that you are a Protestant, and a believer in the gospel of the grace of God?
A.- Praise God, I am.
B.- As a believer in the gospel of grace, you have been delivered from the necessity of endeavouring to keep the
law of Moses as a means of attaining righteousness. You have never felt the slightest inclination to submit to the
rite of circumcision, or to observe the Feast of the Passover, or to keep the Day of Atonement. And I presume you
have no qualms of conscience in working on the seventh day of the week and keeping the first day as a day of rest?
A.- All this is very true, and indeed is implied in the gospel by which I have been saved.
B.- Yet would it not be possible for someone who did not understand the grace of God, to charge you with
denying the law of Moses? Could he not say that you evidently do not believe all Scripture to be inspired, but have
limited yourself to the New Testament only.
A.- If such a charge were to be made against me I should consider that it sprang from ignorance. Because I do
not now attempt to keep the law, it does not follow that I do not believe it to be inspired and true; I simply do not
believe that the law was given to me.