The Source of the Confusion -- Wrongly Dividing the Word

I cannot blame only AA at this point.

Yet there were passages in the Bible which seemed to confuse me.

I was so mixed up about many things.

I did not know the Gospel in its fullest.

Here is the full message, delivered by Paul:

"38Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: 39And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses." (Acts 13: 38-39)

We are justified from all things, and that is the testimony of the Word of God.

The fault was never the Word of God, for there was nothing wrong with the message at all.

The real issue was the messengers whom I lived with, who were raising me.

My mother and father did not believe the Gospel.

They simply did not believe it.

Why did they not believe it? Because like many Christians, they understood salvation only as an initial reception, but that life after that is up to every person, on their own.

What does the Bible say about that?

"Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?" (Galatians 3: 3)

and also

"10For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:

 

11And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest.

 

12For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more." (Hebrews 8: 10-12)

 

He is a God for us, if we will let Him, and we can begin to let Him when we recognize that He remembers our sins no more, and that there is no more conscience of sins (Hebrews 10: 2, 14)

This statement I do not offer in order to justify bitterness or frustration with them -- no more, for as I had written earlier on this blog, I do not get to blame my parents and their parenting of yesteryear for my failures and the sin of Adam.

Besides, the grace of God super-abounds in the face of sin (Romans 5:  20)

My mother believed AA, and my father believed the traditions of his parents, his father particularly. The wisdom of men is foolishness to God. There is no nice way to put it.

My father told me: "Don't tell lies, because you cannot keep up with your lies."

Yet that does not stop people from lying. Not at all.

What does the Bible say about why we do not lie anymore?

"Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds;" (Colossians 3: 9)

We do not lie, because that is not who we are in Christ.

Paul also writes to the Ephesians:

"Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another." (Ephesians 4: 25)

Bam!

The Word of God speaks to every need in our lives -- and the redemption which we have received by grace through faith speaks all the more, because of Jesus' blood:

"And to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." (Hebrews 12: 24)

Wow!

Instead of listening to the blood of Abel, which cries out for judgment, vengeance, and death, let us listen to the Blood of Jesus, which speaks forgiveness, redemption, and favor.

I was wrongly dividing the word, though, in part because I was heeding the counsel of the ungodly, wisdom of man which is foolishness, which blends the Old and New Covenants.