Author: Jamerson, Frank

The rapid growth of the early church was the result of “teaching.” Those who were scattered from Jerusalem because of persecution went everywhere “preaching the word” (Acts 8:4). This is what they had been doing before they were scattered too! One of the greatest needs of the church today is for brethren, all of us, to get busy teaching God’s word to those who know it not.

The things written before were written for our learning (Rom. 15:4; 1 Cor. 10:6), but we do not live under that covenant. God spoke to the fathers through the prophets, but today He speaks through His Son (Heb. 1:1,2). The “word spoken through angels” (Acts 7:53; Gal. 3:19) is contrasted with the “great salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him” (Heb. 2:2,3).

Brethren, if the priesthood did not change and Christ did not give a new covenant, how are we going to look to the New Testament as a pattern for our worship, organization or work? This theory is indeed the “new hermeneutics” in different attire, and like any other rejection of New Testament authority will result in total departure from God’s pattern.

The fact that there are many similarities between the two covenants does not prove that we live under the old covenant. (There are many similarities between my right hand and my left, but they are two different hands!) Have we forgotten: “God, who at various times and in different ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds”? (Heb. 1:1,2). If it is not in the New Covenant, we cannot do it and please God.