Paul has a God-given office of authority in your life and my life. When did that happen? It’s in your Bible. It’s not something that I am saying; it is written in your Bible that you open up for devotions every morning—the same Bible that the preachers on TV claim to be opening up and reading from. Funny, they don’t read these verses. God wants us to go verse by verse through the scriptures and do expository teaching like we here at Norcal Grace do so that you can’t skip verses and pick and choose what you like and pretend that the ones you don’t like are not there. You can’t avoid verses like this:
Acts 9:15
But the Lord said unto him [Ananias], Go thy way: for he [Saul/Paul] is a chosen vessel unto me,
(Who chose him? God did. What is a vessel? It is an instrument used to accomplish something. Paul is God’s chosen vessel. He is not here today, but his letters are God’s word to us. That is what he is doing today. That is why we need to rightly divide the scriptures. When we talk about right division it is not because we want to be special or different. I could misuse scripture and not rightly divide and confuse people like the TV preachers who make many millions do and I’d be rich (and popular) too. But I would rather speak the truth and get my reward at the judgment seat of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10).)
to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:
In other words, everyone on planet Earth. Paul is the apostle and the spokesman of God to every person on earth. Everyone is a gentile today.
Romans 11:32
For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all.
Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Greek [gentile], there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
To
be continued….
No comments:
Post a Comment