by Oscar M. Baker

Yes, I finally found the key to the truth and the reasons for my confusion. And, as I said before, it was hanging right at the door in plain sight. This seems to be the best place to hide something; just put it right out in the open and folks will not see it.

All those years, 2 Tim. 2:15 had been in my Bible and I had never really seen it there. If I did read it, it did not mean anything; just so many words. But one day light shone upon it just right and I saw it. "Rightly divide," that was the key. Simple, isn't it? Why didn't I see it before?

All that time I had not realized that I was not a Jew. My ancestors came from Japheth, not Shem. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were not my fathers. My fathers did not cross the Red Sea, waste 40 years in the wilderness, and then cross the Jordan into the promised land. My fathers were not at Sinai to receive the law. It was not given to Gentiles, but to Israel.

All this I did not know. No one had ever mentioned it to me that I can remember. And I began to realize that confusion is just plain ignorance, and I certainly had been ignorant. In that ignorance I had been trying to steal. I was appropriating to myself that which belonged to Israel, especially the blessings. As for the curses, I was willing that Israel should have them. I had used an old Bible in which all the good things in the Old Testament were related to the church, and all the bad things to Israel. I just swallowed all that without questions. After all, it was in print, so why should it be wrong?

I shudder when I think back to some of the early Bible teaching I did. Only wish there was some way of correcting it. But no way!

So I work all the harder in order that I may be approved of God, a good workman that need not be ashamed, now rightly dividing the Word of Truth as the Word says I should do.

As long as I did not know whether I was Jew or Gentile, the passage in John 4:22 which says that salvation was of the Jews did not bother me. But when I began rightly dividing the Word and found in Acts 28:28 that the salvation of God was sent to the Gentiles, I took another look, and made a great discovery. The promises made to Abraham are not valid today. They have been set aside for a time until Israel wakes up and is ready to receive them. And the kingdom is a part of this. The King was rejected, murdered, and rejected the second time at the end of Acts. That is why Israel is divorced today and the Gentiles have a salvation of their own.

I say, I was scared for a little while, knowing that although Moses had led the children of Israel out of Egypt and through the wilderness, yet he did not get to enter the land. And also Paul, during his kingdom ministry, was somewhat exercised lest he should become a castaway, that is disapproved. So I was worried a bit about that early teaching of mine.

(Reprinted from Truth For Today - Vol. 27, 1975)