Sermon: Rightly Dividing the Word?

First Presbyterian Church, East Moline, IL

October 12, 2025, Pentecost 18C

2 Timothy 2:8-15

 

Rightly Dividing the Word?

 

 

Study to shew thyself approved unto God,

a workman that needeth not to be ashamed,

rightly dividing the word of truth.

 

Where last week I ran into a verse I had learned from a gospel hymn refrain from my childhood, this week's reading contains this verse, rendered in the King James Version with which I grew up, that was imprinted on my brain from another source: Bible drill. (This is where I mention that in the Georgia Baptist Convention's competition in 1980, I finished second in the entire state...by one stinkin' point. No, I'm not traumatized by it at all.) I don't remember if this was a verse I was called upon to memorize or just one that came up a lot in the searching part of the drill, but it is still highly imprinted on my brain, idiosyncracies and all. That third word of the verse, that we pronounce "show," was in fact spelled s-h-e-w. That always freaked me out to no end; it was everything I could do not to read it out as "study to shoe thyself approved unto God...". 

The other part that weirded me out was the ending. I absolutely could not make sense of that verse concluding with the description of the "workman that needeth not to be ashamed" as "rightly dividing the word of truth." It was so strange to me that I couldn't even joke about it. I am so, so grateful for the NRSV's more comprehensible "rightlyexplaining". That I can understand.

This is, of course, part of the instruction here: proclaim the "word of truth" so that it can be understood. But there are other things that need to be addressed here, such as "what does it mean, this 'word of truth'?" And what about all that stuff that comes before that verse?

The passage begins with another reminder of the author's imprisonment, which also appeared in last week's reading from this letter. Again comes the reminder of enduring for the sake of those to whom God's call is extended, and that our ultimate salvation is in Christ Jesus. 

What follows is possibly an excerpt from a liturgical formula, or possibly a hymn, that was already in use in the churches of this period, again the late first or possibly early second century. It's a challenging read, one that would probably catch us short if it appeared in our liturgy.

"If we have died with him, we will also live with him"; a not-uncommon expression, especially when one remembers that baptism was in this era described with the metaphor of "dying with Christ." 

"If we endure, we will also reign with him"; again, not a new idea in the church. The New Testament letters instruct readers that their job is to endure or stand firm, such as 1 Corinthians 16:13 or Galatians 5:1 or Ephesians 6:11-14. The instruction to go looking for a fight, so much an emphasis in certain contemporary theology, isn't there; the call is to stand, to endure.

"If we deny him, he will also deny us" - wait, what? On one level this might seem logical; how can Christ claim as his own one who does not claim Christ as their own? 

And yet, we have right in scripture at least one clear example in which one who flat-out denied Jesus was still claimed as Jesus's own, no less a figure than Peter. It might be worth remembering that to deny with one's words, as bad as that was for Peter to do, is a different thing altogether than to deny with one's life. It might be that this is what is implied here; a life lived in rebellion against Christ will not be claimed by Christ. Or it might be that the next statement clarifies this:

"If we are faithless, he remains faithful" - it sounds possibly confusing again, but the added clarification makes a difference; "for he cannot deny himself." Christ cannot be unfaithful to Christ's own Christ-ness; our infidelity cannot sway Christ from being the Son of God. We do not change Christ, no matter how much we might test him. And part of that faithfulness to Christ is enduring with Christ.

Curiously, the lectionary reading straddles the boundary between two different strains of thought here, although the introductory instruction to "remind them of this" does at least offer a connecting thread. Here, though, the emphasis shifts from the author's own suffering and endurance to more direct and practical instruction to his readers. Verse 14, frankly, is just good advice, and not just in ministering to the church. Really, who loves "wrangling over words" at all, aside from some thoroughly unpleasant people? I'm not sure anyone would consider it an exaggeration to say that it "ruins those who are listening." 

And that brings us again to that initial verse.

No matter how I tried in my youth, I could not make "rightly dividing the word of truth" make a bit of sense to me. Dividing the word? To be honest, I didn't really know anyone who could make that particular phrase make sense. So yes, I am glad for a good straightforward word like "explaining". 

OK, all fine and good, but that doesn't quite answer everything. What exactly is it that we're "rightly explaining"? 

As much as it might sound all Bible-like and churchy, this phrase "word of truth" is not actually all that common across scripture. In fact, most of its use is right here in these three letters, 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus. So in this case it's probably best to look within this trifecta to understand just what is meant by this phrase. And when we do so, it doesn't end up quite meaning what I was taught in my childhood. 

Even as a child I knew enough to understand that the Bible didn't drop fully-formed out of heaven; a lot of different "books" - sixty-six in all - were compiled and gathered up across a lot of different decades and centuries. This book of 2 Timothy was part of that process, naturally, which made it hard for me to figure out how this verse could be talking about all of the Bible (which is what I got taught in Sunday school) when the Bible hadn't actually been "finished" yet (in fact 2 Timothy was probably one of the last books to be added).. 

What we're talking about here would be better summarized as "the gospel" or the good news of Jesus Christ - this is what is consistently proclaimed across all of the New Testament letters, including this set of three. Paul's letters are clearly focused here, as he describes in 1 Corinthians 2:2 where says that he "decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified." The other letters of the New Testament, while they differ from the Pauline body of writings in more than a few ways, are consistent on this message as well; what we proclaim is the saving work of Christ.

This leaves us with a hard question: do we "rightly explain the word of truth"? Do we tell the good news? Do we, to use a modern word borrowed from an old Greek word, evangelize?

Ooh, this gets uncomfortable. Talking about religion is so taboo, such a good way to get in trouble. Talk about "rightly dividing"? Trying to talk about religion is a most effective way to divide, and not in the way this verse means.

And yet, maybe that's the point. In an age where an awful lot of self-professed Christians or even self-professed leaders or teachers in the church have become quite proficient at "wrangling about words" and turning cherry-picked bits of scripture into bad news with which to bludgeon those they don't like, are we telling good news? Do we rightly explain the word of truth?

And if we don't, how do we start?

For a hard question to answer, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #453, How Firm a Foundation; #432, How Clear Is Our Vocation, Lord; #772, Live Into Hope

I don't think this is what that means...?

Sermon afterthoughts: The Deceptiveness of Light

What came into being in him was life, and that life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

--John 1: 3-5 (NRSV) 

"Very well then, we must corrupt it. No doubt you often practice transforming into an angel of light as a parade ground exercise, now is the time to do it in the face of the Enemy."

-Screwtape to Wormwood, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis

My sermon on John 1 today got hijacked along the way by the sentences above quoted from verses 3-5. Mostly this was because, as noted early in the sermon itself, I found myself wondering a lot about the particular ritual that closes so many Christmas Eve services involving the congregation holding up lighted candles in a darkened sanctuary. As written there, in cold hard computer-screen text, it doesn't look very impressive, does it? In practice, people tend to be transfixed. If other pastors are like me, they might worry that nothing else from the service will stay with anyone in the congregation once that's all over.

I couldn't let the sermon pass without noting how that light/dark dichotomy gets misused to treat, say, darkness of skin (or any other darkness) as tantamount to darkness of spirit or absence of light. There's a long history of that, behind justifying slavery and a whole lot of other civil rights abuses. What I didn't have time to get to, on the other hand, is the observation that the opposite can also be true; lightness of skin (or any other kind of lightness) as automatically good or perfect or right or holy. And goodness knows, that's just not true.

The quote lifted above from The Screwtape Letters riffs on Paul's admonition to the Corinthians about false teachers and deceivers. Goodness knows there's enough of that among us in the church, frankly pointing supposed followers of Christ towards all manner of falsehood and wrong theology and frankly evil-doing. We're only four days away from the anniversary of one of the most egregious and grotesque examples of such falseness in the 'Christian nationalism' that drove many participants in the attack on the Capitol.

'Christian nationalism' is particularly pernicious at the moment, but it is hardly the only false light luring people away from genuine faith, is it? The prosperity gospel has been eroding the church for decades. The strictures of "biblical manhood" and "biblical womanhood" have been breaking lives and hearts for at least as long if not longer. (Mandatory plug for Kristin Kobes du Mez's Jesus and John Wayne and Beth Allison Barr's The Making of Biblical Womanhood on those subjects.) The false lights, and the fake angels of light pushing people towards those false lights, are thick on the ground these days, and some of them are mistaken for real followers of Christ way too easily.

Light, indeed, can be deceiving, even without such false prophets and wrongdoers posing as angels of light. To bring in my favorite bit of Christmas-season public theology, A Charlie Brown Christmas, where do the brightest lights appear in that little parable? I think one might have to point to CB and Linus's journey to the Christmas tree lot, the one with all the big shiny aluminum Christmas trees. Remember the big spotlights that led the two to the spot? 

Or one might think of the brightly lit stage with all the kids dancing in lieu of rehearsing for the Christmas play:

This one stands out most in contrast to that same stage when Linus finally steps up with Luke 2 in answer to Charlie Brown's desperation:

John's seemingly simple dichotomy masks the much more demanding task of discernment that we face: which light is the true light? Seeking the "true light" as John calls it in verse 9 requires sorting out a lot of fake or artificial light. John doesn't really address that so much, outside of course of spending his entire gospel trying to portray that Light.

Maybe the difference is that the "true light" is the one that actually does shine in the darkness, that isn't unplugged or turned off so easily. The "true light" is the one that the darkness did not, could not, cannot extinguish.When other false lights have shorted out or burned away, the true light still shines. 

One of my former seminary professors, when the occasion arose, frequently (OK, almost always) pronounced a benediction that included something along the lines of this: "and may light, love's own crucified, risen, incarnate light guide each and everyone of us out of every darkness and all the way home." What does a "crucified, risen, incarnate Light" look like? Maybe more to the point: what does a "crucified, risen, incarnate Light" not look like? Perhaps in the end this is the thing that points us towards the true light and away from all the parade-ground devils practicing their transformation-tricks on gullible souls.

Sermon afterthoughts: the "Get Out of Hell Free" card

 There's a lot of stuff to think about in Mark 10:35-45, and especially in that last verse. It's a verse that has been appropriated for the development of a theology of atonement, even substitutionary atonement, in a way that doesn't really work with the material Mark has given us here.

The sermon for this scripture explores this challenge to a degree. Much of that atonement talk hinges on how modern users ("modern" here applying to several centuries' worth of interpreters, not just us "modern" American types) apply a definition of "ransom" that doesn't really fit. The "ransom" in Mark's usage doesn't imply anybody getting paid for the release of those held captive, which doesn't fit with the notion that some price had to be "paid" for our release from sin, that price being Jesus's life in such theology. (Really, though, would not Jesus's resurrection somehow equate to a breach of contract in such a theology?) 

An awful lot (yes, there are two possible ways to interpret that, and both are valid) of theology has been spilt trying to fit this passage with other bits of scripture, such as some of the "suffering servant" verses from Isaiah, to flesh out this theology of a price to be paid. I'm not sure, though, that it's this bit of interpretation that causes the most damage. 

It's possible to be incredibly narrow in defining the word translated "life" in this verse. As noted in the sermon, the word in question (ψυχην, "psuxen") goes far, far beyond any definition of "life" that can be reduced to "not death." The word wants to embrace all the stuff of living, not just a biological definition of being alive. And this is the biggest problem for a lot of theologies out there.

Like John and James in this passage, it's easy to talk tough. When Jesus challenges their seating request, asking if they can really endure all the suffering he's about to endure, they have the cheek to respond "we are able." Were they counting on some kind of divine intervention to head off the very suffering and death Jesus had tried to teach them three times now? Were they just stupid? What is it? 

Like many of the January 6 insurrectionists, who are now sounding a lot less brave with prison time looming as a real possibility, one can't help but notice that these two brave-talking disciples have, later in this gospel, bolted and deserted Jesus by the time he is nailed to the cross. Eventually the book of Acts reminds us that James, willing or not, did eventually drink from this cup of suffering; he is noted as the first of the twelve to be martyred (of course Judas died first, but not a martyr's death). John apparently doesn't die such a death, but the tradition that he spent years in exile does suggest suffering did come his way. 

Even so, for an awful lot of human beings, giving up being alive is a far easier promise to make than giving one's life, particularly in the way Jesus gave his life, particularly in the way Jesus came to serve and not to be served. Being "manly" or "tough" or a "warrior" has become the default way of being "Christian" for an awful lot of men who claim that name. (Many, but not all, of such men are affiliated with church traditions that can be described with a five-syllable word starting with "e".) If you're willing to twist your brain enough I suppose that can be passed off as a kind of "service," but let's get blunt: there's nothing Christlike about it. 

Right there is a word - "Christlike" - that needs to be recovered and put to work a lot more than it typically is in the church of whatever stripe these days. In the current state of society, where the word "Christian" as adjective has been so stretched and distorted as to be nearly useless for anything meaningful, I still say it's worth breaking out "Christlike" in its place and seeing just how much of what we describe as "Christian" really measures up. 

Following a Savior who steadfastly refused to rack up power on earth loses its luster real fast for a great many people. Signing up for a fight sounds better. Even better is the promise of being "ransomed" - getting the great "get out of Hell free" card - without having to follow the example of Jesus, to give your whole life, your inner self, your soul, your everything. Talking as if your "salvation" is in the past tense is a lot easier and more fun than talking about your service, your following Jesus, as an ongoing everyday thing. 

Resist this. 

It might just be that the allure of the "get out of Hell free" card is the biggest problem with the misuse of verses such as this one. Anything that implies that the Christ-following life, or any part of it, is an over-and-done thing is a disaster for actual discipleship and Christ-following. And it's not just those e-word people that are the problem; all corners of Christianity, including the mainline, have severe problems grasping all this. 

The call is not to volunteer to die; the call is, like Jesus, to give your whole life, your inside and out life, all of you. And that goes on every day of your life. 

And that's really hard.

Ugh.