In Genesis 13, in the last verse, God tells Abraham to walk the length and breath of His Earth, as it is God's intent that that entity, God will give to Abraham and his descendants. In Genesis 12, God tells Abraham to walk in His Earth, that He will show him. Later, in this chapter, God Promises that He will also give this same entity, His Earth, to Abraham's descendants, and else were in the scriptures we are told that we can chose to be grafted into the same vine as Abraham's descendants.
In 2 Tim 2:15 we are told to correctly expound God's truth on how we can journey from where we initially establish ourselves in man's world, to the place in God's earth, which He created, as His desired place for people to reside.
Providing accurate information on the starting and finishing locations is very un helpful unless the story of the journey from the starting point to the finishing point is also told or given by those who are Christ's.
Sadly in todays world, the starting and finishing points are GPS defined, but knowing these co-ordinated does not help us to walk through the maze of many pathways to finish up at the entity place in God's earth that is His desire for us.
People who practice the "art" of surveying today are only recording the outcomes of their field work with out recording the journey between their way points along the way. The accuracy for their "work" today is provided by their "DGPS" stations as a means of protecting their "Copy right" of the generated "maps/plan" of what they have recorded. The old methods of surveying the lay of the land meant that there was found to be vacant and overlapping land areas in their recorded journey between their respective way points on their "map/plan" when all the sources are compiled into one model compilation of the many surveying works undertaken by all the surveyors over time. Sometimes the way points were corner wooden fence posts, or blazed onto a tree, but these were not permanent way points and they can disappeared with the ravages of time. To overcome this issue, way points often had hidden secondary points around them which would allow the way point to be re-established if it was disturbed.
Surveyors also understood that there would be/are errors in their observations, so they built into their models, areas, where their errors could be absorbed for the tenure titles they were defining. Some of these internal areas were roads, paths and permanently flowing streams and the external surrounding area was the encompassing seas and oceans.
Of particular concern were land shear occurrences, where relative shifts of up to 10 metres or more could occur along the basic line of the land shear. If we know the story of how the way points on either side of where the land shear occurred are related, then the legal title along the shear line can be reasonably repaired within acceptable limits.
This same understanding can be applied to our understanding of scripture and the "rightly dividing the word of
{God's} Truth."
Many surveyors believe that their efforts are beyond reproach, while others are happy to admit the limitations of their understanding of their journey along the way between their way points.
God is interested in the story of our journey towards going to the place that He is drawing us to. He is continually showing us where that place is.
Many people attempt to tell/rightly divide the word of God's truth, but as God complained in Ezekiel : -
Ezekiel 34:17-19: - 17 'And as for you, O My flock, thus says the Lord God: "Behold, I shall judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and goats. 18 Is it too little for you to have eaten up the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the residue of your pasture — and to have drunk of the clear waters, that you must foul the residue with your feet? 19 And as for My flock, they eat what you have trampled with your feet, and they drink what you have fouled with your feet."
I wonder how may of us will be found guilty of trampling and fouling that which was God's word to His flock through us.
Shalom
