Tradition stacks archbishop over bishop and a clergy over the laity. Paul is simpler: two offices, bishop and deacon; bishop, elder, overseer, and pastor are one man and one work; the qualifications are for entering the office, not a standing audit; and ordination is the recognition of a proven man, never a sacrament.

The church is called the body of Christ, never the bride. Ephesians 5 ends not in betrothal but in one body, His own flesh and bones. The bride, the Lamb's wife, is the New Jerusalem, the covenant people of Israel married, put away, and brought home. Rightly divided, the wife is Israel and the Body is nearer than a bride.

Philippians 2:14-15 rightly divided. The command to do all things without murmurings touches the walk, not the standing. You are a son of God and a light already, by grace. Murmuring cannot dim the light; it only gives the world a complaint and muffles the word of life you hold forth.

Right division is not the discarding of Scripture but the right placing of it. Three tiers — present truth, dispensational truth, and universal truth — and two plain questions sort any passage: does it govern or describe, and does it reach every age or belong to a program. Keep all of Scripture; obey only what is addressed to you.

Matthew 10:33 and 2 Timothy 2:12 sound like the same threat to a trembling believer, but rightly divided they stand worlds apart. The Lord's warning belongs to Israel under the kingdom program; Paul's word to the Body touches the believer's reward, the reigning with Christ, never his salvation, which rests on One who cannot deny Himself.

Why would God create man, knowing he would fall — and would it not have been kinder never to create at all? Answered on the only ground where it can be answered, the revelation given to Paul: God made the world to display the exceeding riches of His grace, and grace must have something to redeem. The fall was man's, not God's; the cross is God ente…

Did the Body of Christ and the dispensation of grace begin together, or did the administration start later with the prison epistles? Scripture's answer is that they began together at Acts nine, by the same revelation committed to Paul — the administration of grace cannot be dated apart from the people it governs.

Can a saved person go on in the works of the flesh and still be saved? The question is really two: is he still saved, and what does it cost him? Paul's own warnings, the carnal Corinthians, and the answer to the Lordship lifestyle argument give a clear, rightly divided reply — security intact, walk and reward addressed honestly.