When you're studying the Bible and go to go to Ephesians five, when you're studying the
Bible, you've got to differentiate between different things.
You've got to rightly divide the word of truth.
The Bible says, study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
So the Bible says that we need to rightly divide the word of truth, meaning that we need
to differentiate between different things.
There's three ways we need to divide it.
First of all, we need to differentiate between the Old Testament and the New Testament, right?
Because there are differences between the Old and New Testaments.
So when we're studying our Bible, we need to differentiate, wait a minute, is this a
New Testament passage or is this an Old Testament passage?
Now, here's how we rightly divide.
Wrongly divide, well first let me tell you how we wrongly divide.
Wrongly divided says, oh, it's Old Testament, I don't want to hear it.
That's the wrong way to divide.
And believe me, there are a lot of people who think that.
Throw out the Old Testament.
That's wrongly dividing.
Here's rightly dividing.
Understand that God has made specific changes in the New Testament and that if something
in the Old Testament has not been specifically changed and specifically altered and specifically
repealed that it is still enforced today.
Did you get that?
If God didn't repeal it, it's still there unless God specifically said, hey, we're not
doing this anymore.
You better be doing it.
Now this, what are the specific things that God repealed in the New Testament?
Well, he mentions in Hebrews a list.
He says, meats, drinks, divers washings, carnal ordinances imposed on them until the time
of reformation, but Christ being come and on and on.
So he says there were certain things that were only imposed upon them until the coming
of Christ.
The meats, the drinks, the divers washings, and the carnal or fleshly ordinances, okay?
The rituals, if you will.
Also in Colossians 2, he has a similar list where he talks about those things and he includes
the Sabbath days, the holy days, and the new moons.
So we don't celebrate those holidays and those feasts and those new moons and so forth
that were all symbolic and they were things that were specifically for that time.
God has specifically repealed the dietary laws of the Old Testament.
He has specifically told us in numerous New Testament passages and again, here's where
you could have two verses that seem to contradict.
You got one verse telling you, do not eat the shellfish, you know, do not eat the pig
or swine as the Bible calls it.
And then you got New Testament passage saying every creature of God is good and nothing
to be refused if it be received with Thanksgiving.
And all kinds of scriptures that say that it, like in Genesis 9 where the Bible says
everything that liveth and breathe this shall be meat for you.
So we've got scripture saying that we can eat everything and then scripture saying don't
eat certain meats.
Don't rightly divide.
That's a specific thing that's been repealed in the New Testament.
That is a difference there.
And so if it has not been repealed, it's in force.
So when God said the woman shall not wear that which pertaineth to a man, neither shall
a man put on a woman's garment for all that do so or an abomination unto the Lord thy
God.
Tell me, has cross-dressing, the prohibition on cross-dressing, has it been repealed in
the New Testament?
Did Jesus say, you know, well in the New Testament, cross-dressing is now permitted?
No.
But when you try to show people that passage, what do they say?
Oh, that's Old Testament.
What are you going to say next, that we can't eat shellfish?
What are you going to say next, that we can't wear cloth that's of a diverse mixture of
woolen and linen together?
Look, we're not talking carnal ordinances.
We're not talking meats and drinks.
We're not talking about holidays and Sabbaths and new moods.
We're talking about a principle that runs throughout the entire Bible that a man should
look like a man and a woman should look like a woman.
And that principle is taught in the New Testament when he says that a man should have short
hair and a woman should have long hair in 1 Corinthians 11.
And so, you know, by the way, the prohibition on marrying your sister, that's still in place
too.
And yet people think, oh, if it's in the Old Testament, I don't want to hear it.
Listen, thou resident of Kentucky, you know, or thou resident of West Virginia.
Sorry about the people that are from there, you know, you know, that is still in place.
These states need to get into the, you know, the Old Testament scriptures and figure this
out.
I'm just kidding.
I'm just picking on them.
Anyway, so we've got the, uh, if it's not been repealed, it's still in place.