October 31
The Continual Burnt Offering" I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in My flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which
I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God."
A dispensation is a stewardship or economy in God’s ways with men, in which He is dealing with them in a different way from that in which He has dealt with them before. Some people decry what is called “dispensational truth,” yet all Bible students believe in it to some degree. No one seriously contends that God is dealing with men today in the same manner as He dealt with them under law from Moses to Christ. And it is clear from Scripture that when the church age is ended and the kingdom age has dawned, man’s responsibility will be different from what it is now. The word “dispensation” is found four times in the King James version and five times in the RSV. It is a translation of the Greek word oikonomia, from which we get our word “economy,” and is translated also “order,” “administration,” and “stewardship.” It refers to the ordering of God’s ways with men.
Head of the Church, Thy body,
O Christ, the great Salvation!
Sweet to the saints it is to think
Of all Thine exaltation!
All power’s to Thee committed,
All power on earth, in heaven;
To Thee a name of widest fame
Above all glory’s given.
With Thee believers raised,
In Thee on high are seated;
All guilty once, but cleared by Thee,
Redemption-toil’s completed.
And when Thou, Lord and Saviour,
Shalt come again in glory,
There, by Thy side, Thy spotless Bride
Shall crown the wondrous story.
— Gilpin