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What the Bible says about The Way
(From Forerunner Commentary)

What is a way? A way is "a course traveled from one place to another." It is also "a manner of doing," "a method of accomplishing," or "a course of life." All of those are taken from a common English dictionary—Webster's. Synonyms include custom, practice, behavior, direction, method, manner, procedure, passage, or route, depending on the context. The word way can be substituted for any one of those words; and, in many contexts, those words can be substituted for the word way. In short, a way is a course, a route.

A way leads from—beginning at—one place, and it ends at another place. This means there is a specific direction in which the way leads a person.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Related Topics: Factions | The Way


 

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

The parental responsibility to provide correct guidance in leading their children is so important that God emphasizes it in Deuteronomy 6 immediately after Moses recounts the giving of the Ten Commandments and the formal ratification of what we know as the Old Covenant.

Child-training in the way of God is correct parental leadership. This passage establishes that God holds it to be a major responsibility not to be passed off to anyone else. To do this, the parents must practice the way of God to the best of their abilities in every aspect of life. In this way, the children are not only verbally taught God's way, but also witness it in action right in their own home. This is not happening in this nation, providing powerful evidence to all who believe God as to why it is crumbling from within. Godly leadership is produced within families practicing godly ways.

Most people are unaware that the word “leadership” does not appear even one time in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. “Leader” appears only three times, and all forms of “lead” appear only 81 times. There is a good reason for this: The focus of God's persuasion to live His way of life is on following it. The terms “follow,” “followed,” “follows,” “followers,” and “following” combined appear 258 times—three times more than all forms of “lead” combined. We are frequently urged to follow Christ, the way of God, or the examples of the righteous. We are also urged to imitate the apostle Paul and Christ (I Corinthians 11:1), another form of following.

What is most important about leadership is that leaders are in reality followers. They follow either some person who has set a pattern that brought him success or some way of doing things to achieve success in an endeavor, whether in business, athletics, scholastics, or a way of life that brings growth—and perhaps brings God glory.

This is God's concern. Christianity is a way of life that God greatly desires us to follow. In Acts 16:17, it is called “the way of salvation”; in Acts 18:25, “the way of the Lord”; in Acts 19:9, it is simply called “the Way.” Jesus was the greatest leader who ever lived, never sinning even one time, yet He declares in John 7:16, “My doctrine is not mine, but His who sent Me.” Jesus led. He was in fact the very pinnacle of leadership because He followed the way of God perfectly.

John W. Ritenbaugh
Leadership and Covenants (Part One)

Psalm 119:1

This scripture is saying that the way of God is defined by the law of God. This is not the whole picture, but it is a major portion of the package. This is one of the essential doctrines that cannot be left out.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Psalm 119:9-10

Verses 9-10 reinforce verse one—that the way is the law of God. Law refers to a broad number of laws. Commandments narrows matters down.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Psalm 119:59

He turned his feet to God's testimonies to get back on God's way.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Psalm 119:59

He turned his feet to God's testimonies to get back on God's way.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Psalm 119:105

God's Word lights the way to go, so that he does not trip or wander, so that he stays in the way.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Proverbs 16:25

"Way" can be understood both as a narrow, single issue within one event or an entire package of values within a course of conduct. The proverb's point is that humanity is frequently driven by blind self-deception or ignorance. It often has no absolute certainty regarding right and wrong because its standards have been merely absorbed and never seriously compared against God's. How do ours compare?

This is a fair question because, since our calling and the fact that we are no longer blinded, we have the opportunity to make a fair assessment of this. In one sense, God is challenging us in this proverb either to defend our body of beliefs and practices, or to drop them and change to His. He is also warning us in advance that our way of life—if it is wrong—is going to kill us.

Any system of ethics and morality is by definition an expression of religion because religion, again by definition, is a way of life containing some measure of worship. Worship is merely a respectful response to one's god. A system of morality concerns itself with values and the way one lives, even as God's moral code does. The major overall difference is that His way works because it leads to life, even though in a given instance it may appear more wrong than ours.

Because these principles are true, they lead to the fact that each one of us is technically the god of our system of values and its way of life in opposition to the Creator God, if our code of conduct is not in alignment with His. We are serving, and thus in a limited way, worshipping ourselves.

Law, therefore, is codified, enacted morality. Whether it is God's or man's does not matter. The difference is in what they produce. What does man's law produce on earth? History makes this obvious: confusion, warfare, constant competition, pain from all the collisions of values, and ultimately death.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The First Commandment

John 14:3-4

They did not know the way quite as well as Christ may have liked that they did. This is why Thomas asked in verse 5, "How can we know the way?"

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

John 14:6

Jesus announces to them that He is leaving. Because they want to be where He is, they want to know the way to get there. When He says, "I am the way, the truth, and the life," He is basically saying that it is through a unique combination of a relationship with Him, which consists of being justified through Him, following His example, and obeying what He commands.

Christianity is a way of life. The disciples ask, "Show us the way." Where was Christ going to be? In the Kingdom of God. How does one get to the Kingdom of God? There is a way! It is not "all roads lead to heaven," but there is one way to get there.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

John 21:4-12

Verse 4 reveals that none of the disciples initially recognizes the Lord. In fact, all the disciples consistently failed to recognize the post-resurrection Christ (Luke 24:1-11, 13-16, 36-45; John 20:14). Physical and emotional circumstances notwithstanding, their failure was the result of weak faith or spiritual immaturity and the corresponding confusion and unbelief—spiritual blindness.

Following His resurrection, Christ changes (I Corinthians 15:44-45; Hebrews 6:20; Ephesians 4:9-10), but His disciples, still lacking understanding, have not. Verse 12 provides insight: “Jesus said to them, 'Come and eat breakfast.' Yet none of the disciples dared ask Him, 'Who are You?'—knowing that it was the Lord.” While they eventually figure out that their Master, Jesus Christ, is with them on the shore, there is something different about Him that they are unable to comprehend fully without His assistance (Romans 8:5; John 15:5; I Corinthians 13:12).

After John manages, however, to identify the stranger on the shore as “the Lord,” Peter immediately dresses and dives into the water to swim about 200 cubits (100 yards), eager to join Him on the shore. Contrast this passage with the first large catch miracle where all the disciples were “astonished” at the catch, while Peter, overwhelmed by the miraculous power of Jesus, begs Him to “depart from me” (Luke 5:8).

John's narrative indicates no hesitation on Peter's part to follow Christ's direction to cast the fishing net, this time on the right side of the vessel. This contrasts with the first large catch miracle (Luke 5:1-11) where a newly-recruited Peter resists His direction before submitting.

Subsequently, the fishing net is brimming with a massive catch, yet it does not tear, nor are any of the men anxious or overwhelmed. In fact, Peter jumps back into the water to finish dragging the miracle catch back to shore by himself. Conversely, during the first large catch incident, the net tears and the two fishing boats involved begin to sink (Luke 5:6-7).

Taken together, we see how the first large-catch miracle marks the beginning, while the second miracle signals the completion of the disciples' three-and-a-half-year education under God's direct tutelage. We also witness the disciples' efforts to overcome several challenges common to most Christians: learning to recognize or see God; following His commandments in faith, and learning how to remain steadfast in the midst of overwhelming circumstances (John 21:8-12).

The narrative of the second large catch begins with an anxious and bewildered—perhaps even backsliding—group of disciples that struggles initially to identify their Lord and Master. Nonetheless, even with their initial lapse of faith, by the end of this incident, we witness good fruit from the disciples' unique and uncommon apprenticeship: their weak faith buttressed, their unbelief dissolved, and their capacity to serve wholly enriched by the presence of God.

Because each disciple's flaws are compounded in his Lord's absence, each will soon receive the indwelling of His Holy Spirit (Acts 2). Christ's commission, then, recognizes and rewards their growth and points to the beginning of their new vocation (John 21:15-17). No longer will they be only “fishers of men” (Mark 1:17), but soon they will work as pioneering ministers in the nascent church of God, tending and feeding all who are called into “the Way.”

Martin G. Collins
The Miracles of Jesus Christ: A Second Large Catch of Fish (Part Two)

Acts 9:2

Christianity is shown here to be a way. Protestantism is hesitant to admit that Christianity is a way, a way of life, a path to a destination. Why? If one believes that Christianity is a way of life, he must admit the fact that he is obligated to obey certain things to achieve the end, the goal, of that way.

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Acts 16:17

Notice this very interesting source—a demon. They know that there is a way! It does not say "the ways"—plural—but "the way."

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Two)

Colossians 2:4-6

To paraphrase, Paul is saying, "You had better go back to what you first did, when you first learned the truth. Continue walking in that way, and don't deviate from that path."

John W. Ritenbaugh
The Covenants, Grace, and Law (Part Twenty)


 




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