ACCURATELY HANDLE THE WORD OF TRUTH
2 Timothy 2:15 challenges Bible students to be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth.
A simple understanding of this verse is that God approves of people who are faithful to read the Bible. This is a wrong interpretation because it puts the emphasis on reading the written words of the Bible and ignores God’s many commands to listen to his voice. It is a wrong interpretation because the most important meaning of the Greek word “logos,” which is translated as “word” in English, is the spoken word of God — not on the literal, written words of the Bible.
Reading the Bible for its literal content has negative value: It leads to religion. Listening to God’s voice while reading, however, is of great value. Therefore, to accurately handle the word of truth (i.e. God’s spoken word), we must listen to God’s voice while reading. If we do not listen, God does not approve (i.e. accept) us, and we have reason to be ashamed.
If we think of Bible study in terms of listening to God’s spoken voice, reading becomes a very weighty matter. We should want to take reading/listening very seriously. If we think in terms of accurately handling God’s spoken word, instead of accurately handling the written words of the Bible, we should be motivated to use great caution and discernment while reading. Just like we should want to be careful to listen to each word of a friend or loved one in conversation so that we understand them clearly, we should want to be careful to understand each of God’s spoken word. That requires that we understand each word as God means it to be understood. And that requires that we first set aside man’s understanding. This is in keeping with scripture that tells us that God’s ways are not man’s ways. In other words, God’s words are not man’s words.
God tries to make this point very clear when he says tells us to “accurately handle” his spoken word. In the original Greek text, the English words “accurately” and “handling” are the same Greek word Orthotomeo which means to teach God’s spoken word clearly and correctly. In other words, God repeats himself, saying “teach my words clearly and correctly” two times. When God repeats himself, we should always want to pay close attention. This is how we accurately handle his spoken word.
When God puts this special emphasis on clear, correct handling of his spoken word, he is also warning against handling his words carelessly and inaccurately. People who read the Bible without listening to God’s spoken voice handle his words carelessly and inaccurately. Judaism and Christianity handle God’s words carelessly and inaccurately when they interpret the Bible literally. They interpret according to their religious/cultural understandings of words instead of listening to God’s voice. Thus they lead themselves astray into deceitful religious doctrines based on those literal understandings. This is why it can be said that religion is deception.
The only truth that matters to God are the words that he speaks with his mouth. His spoken words are the only words that can be nothing but truth because God does not lie or change his mind. This contrasts with anything spoken or written by someone who presumes to speak for God. Such things spoken or written always have the potential to be falsehoods and not truth. Thus it can be said that God’s spoken word is the only truth that matters to us.
This condition applies to words written in the Bible as well as anything else written or spoken to represent God. Therefore, for 2 Timothy 2:15 to make any sense, we must conclude that there are parts the Bible that can be wrongly interpreted. Our challenge, therefore, is to discern which parts accurately represent God and which parts misrepresent him. This is how we show ourselves approved, unashamed Bible students.
Differentiating between truth and lies is the essence of choosing between the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. It is the essence of knowing the difference between clean and unclean food.
The problem is that the truths represented in the Bible began as God’s voice spoken to the hearts of prophets. Interpreting and translating spiritual words is not easy because man’s flesh can spoil both the interpretation and the translation. This process has been happening ever since God’s word was first spoken to all of the prophets whose writings are included in the Bible. To make matters worse, the potential for errors in interpretation and translation were and are multiplied every time someone goes back to the original writings, whether Hebrew or Greek, and attempts to re-write what was first heard and written into his or her personal interpretation of God’s spoken voice. Anyone who has ever tried to give a verbal report of a spiritual encounter with God knows the challenge of reporting spiritual events in human terms. We may try, but the result never seems quite equal to the spiritual understanding we had when we first heard God’s voice.
The way we see it, the potential for errors in hearing, interpreting and reporting what God has said is what God is referring to in 2 Timothy 2:15. If the process of hearing, interpreting and reporting with human words, whether written or spoken, did not contain room for error, there would be no need for God to caution us about accurately handling the word of truth. In other words, God is allowing in this scripture that there is some truth in the interpreted and translated words included in the Bible. But he is not saying that it is all true. He wants his people to be able to discern the difference between what is true (i.e. his voice) and what is not true (i.e. the voice or words of men).
God has made these issues a central feature of the New Covenant as we see in the following scriptures. Readers would do well to notice the many references to hearing God’s voice.
Jeremiah 31:31-34 “The time is coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them, ” declares the LORD. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
Deuteronomy 6:1-11 “Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the ordinances which the LORD your God commanded me to teach you, that you may do them in the land to which you are going over, to possess it; 2 that you may fear the LORD your God, you and your son and your son’s son, by keeping all his statutes and his commandments, which I command you, all the days of your life; and that your days may be prolonged. 3 Hear therefore, O Israel, and be careful to do them; that it may go well with you, and that you may multiply greatly, as the LORD, the God of your fathers, has promised you, in a land flowing with milk and honey. 4 “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD; 5 and you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6 And these words which I command you this day shall be upon your heart; 7 and you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 And you shall bind them as a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 And you shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates. 10 “And when the LORD your God brings you into the land which he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you, with great and goodly cities, which you did not build, 11 and houses full of all good things, which you did not fill, and cisterns hewn out, which you did not hew, and vineyards and olive trees, which you did not plant, and when you eat and are full,
Deuteronomy 30:1-20 “And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse, which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the LORD your God has driven you, 2 and return to the LORD your God, you and your children, and obey his voice in all that I command you this day, with all your heart and with all your soul; 3 then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes, and have compassion upon you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you.
COMMENTARY: It is critical to notice that obedience to God’s voice is a key condition for these scriptures. See this link for more about hearing God’s voice.
God promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. Part of the curse is to exile Israel to other nations where they shall serve other gods. God’s idea is that while exiled Israel will remember the blessings it had before it fell into disobedience and then repent and return to God with all its heart and soul. This all describes a process in which Israel began in a New Covenant relationship, fell into serving other gods (i.e. Old Covenant), was cursed for disobedience and exiled, repented, and was brought back again to obedience and New Covenant relationship.
We see here that the New Covenant relationship is not really new at all. Rather it is a “renewal” of the relationship that Israel had but lost through disobedience.
4 If your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there he will fetch you; 5 and the LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, that you may possess it; and he will make you more prosperous and numerous than your fathers. 6 And the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live. 7 And the LORD your God will put all these curses upon your foes and enemies who persecuted you. 8 And you shall again obey the voice of the LORD, and keep all his commandments which I command you this day. 9 The LORD your God will make you abundantly prosperous in all the work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground; for the LORD will again take delight in prospering you, as he took delight in your fathers, 10 if you obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which are written in this book of the law, if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
COMMENTARY: Here again we read about hearing God’s voice. This is a clue that the scripture is talking about the New Covenant. The inference in verse 8 of again obeying the voice of the Lord is that Israel had backslidden into listening to a human mediator (i.e. false prophet).
Turning to the Lord (i.e. turning from listening to men) with heart and soul are also code words that refer to the New Covenant.
11 “For this commandment which I command you this day is not too hard for you, neither is it far off. 12 It is not in heaven, that you should say, ‘Who will go up for us to heaven, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 13 Neither is it beyond the sea, that you should say, ‘Who will go over the sea for us, and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it?’ 14 But the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can do it.
COMMENTARY: These verses say that it is not necessary to go anywhere to satisfy covenant requirements. The inference is that going to church, or synagogue or some holy shrine is an Old/First Covenant religious rule inconsistent with the New Covenant where the Kingdom of God is within — not in some worldly, physical location that is popularized by Old/First Covenant religionists.
15 “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil.
COMMENTARY: This is the same proposition that God made to Adam and Eve in the Garden regarding the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Tree of Life is the New Covenant and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is the Old/First Covenant.
16 If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you this day, by loving the LORD your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his ordinances, then you shall live and multiply, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land which you are entering to take possession of it. 17 But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, 18 I declare to you this day, that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land which you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, 20 loving the LORD your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life to you and length of days, that you may dwell in the land which the LORD swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”
COMMENTARY: The language here again parallels what God said to Adam and Eve. The basic choice is between spiritual life and death with the condition of obeying God’s voice. We also see the connection made between the Garden of Eden, obedience and the Promised Land.
Scriptural references to returning, restoration, gathering and fetching, confirm that the New Covenant is actually a renewed covenant to which God’s people are restored after a season of backsliding for which God has exiled them.
Life in a New Covenant relationship with God equates to eating from the Tree of Life. Death in an Old/First Covenant relationship equates to eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Just as eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil demands the consequence of exile from the Garden, participation in Old/First Covenant religion also results in separation from God. Returning to God, however, results in full restoration to the New Covenant relationship.