In journalism school, my old-time professors (most of which were retirees from major newspaper careers, including at the New York Times, London Times, Chicago Daily News) would always reinforce the old newspapermen’s adage, “Every word counts.”

We were reminded over and over through pencil scratch-out corrections on our homework that every unnecessary word ate up print space that would otherwise be devoted to advertising.

I had already started to learn this lesson as a pseudo secretary for my father during my high school years. As a family practitioner with a private practice, my dad sometimes had me do dictation for him in filling out patient charts. Using just the right terms, nouns, adjectives, etc., to describe the individual’s particular condition or illness was crucial in his mind. Brevity was king.

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When Oprah’s Book Club first put the mega-bestseller-self-help-New-Age book, “The Secret,” on the American household map, I immediately thought, “Aha, of course Satan was going to get around to making that word look like his invention!” (Remember, next to the Godhead, Satan knows the Bible better than anybody.)

“Secret” is the Bible word that’s hardly touched on in any theological commentaries, textbooks, dictionaries, etc. They don’t even try to examine it, even though it has absolutely everything to do with understanding God’s program for humanity.

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The passage the vast majority of Christianity doesn’t see for what it is is Romans 16: 25-26. Paul writes, “Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began,
[26] But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith.”

Jordan explains, “God the Father has made known to you and me the secret of His will; something that He purposed in Himself (Eph. 1:9). This is the wisdom that God ordained before the world unto our glory. This is the information that back here before the foundation of the world, before Genesis 1:1, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit—

the triune Godhead . . .

“Now, when He calls it ‘the secret,’ that means it’s something He didn’t reveal back here (before Paul’s ministry). Since the world began, He did reveal what the Bible calls ‘prophecy.’ It’s literally that God the Father takes us back into the board room of eternity past and says, ‘Here’s the original plan. Here are the minutes of what we plan to do.’

“I Cor. 1:21 says God back here before the foundation of the world, in His sovereign free will, determined to make (Believers) into the Body of Christ. In theology talk, they’re called the ‘eternal decrees.’

“My point to you is these decrees, these plans that God purposed in Himself back there, what does the verse say about them? He’s made them KNOWN. There’s no secret plan that God had before the foundation of the world that is still a secret. You got to get this!

“What was once a secret has NOW been made known. If He hadn’t made it known, you would have never known it was there because it was a secret.

“You see, we have secrets from one another, but you really don’t want a secret you haven’t told anybody, because if somebody doesn’t know I’ve got a secret, I get no jollies out of it.

“But if you know the secret, and you know I got a secret, and we know we’re not telling anyone else the secret, then you and I can have fun.

“God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit—THEY knew the secret! They had fun with it. They had their jollies but they just didn’t tell anybody else outside of the Godhead.

“That secret is what they purposed in themselves. Each one of these members of the Godhead purposed and came to an agreement about what they were going to do.

“If you’re going to have truth that’s going to pursue God-likeness, if you’re going to have truth that’s going to pursue a thinking that matches the thinking of God, you’re going to have to get it through Paul because that’s what his apostleship is for.

“Here’s what his message is founded in: ‘In hope of eternal life which God that cannot lie promised before the world began.’ God, before the world began, promised eternal life. Verse 3 says Jesus Christ reaches down, saves Saul, and through Paul the Apostle reveals this mystery that he kept secret since back here. That mystery was God promising eternal life.

“Now, that matches Ephesians 1:9 when He says this is information that He purposed in Himself. If I make a promise to somebody—‘I’ll promise I’ll do it’—who was back here for God to promise anything to? It’s before He made anybody. But was there anybody there?

“In Ephesians 1 it says ‘he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world.’ Before the foundation of the world, He predestinated us that we should be ‘without blame before him in love.’

“In John 7, Jesus prays to His Father, and He talks about the love they shared together before the world began. We know that the love God has for us today, when He puts us into Christ, is really the love He had for Christ before the world began. You see you share in everything that belongs to Jesus Christ!

“And when you go down through Ephesians 1, you’ll see that He put you back into this relationship that the Father had with the Son back here before any of this mess started.

“Well, who’s he promising things back there to? There are only three people back there. When Jesus Christ stepped out on nothing and created the universe, He had a plan in mind that among themselves (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) they were going to accomplish.

“Do you ever do that? Promise yourself you’re going to do something? If you were God, do you think you could accomplish it?”

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Perhaps the most crucial passage for a dispensational Bible student to fully internalize is I Cor. 2: 6-8: “Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this world, nor of the princes of this world, that come to nought:
[7] But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
[8] Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

Jordan explains, “There are these secret things God intended to do from before the foundation of the world, through the Crosswork of Christ, and the Corinthians at this point were not able to receive it. You see over in Chapter 3 Paul writes they are ‘carnal as unto babes.’

“In other words, there was some information they needed to get, but they couldn’t get it until they grew up to the place where they could handle it. ‘So we speak the wisdom of the mystery.’ What wisdom? The hidden wisdom.

“See how that verse there (2 Cor. 2:7) defines for you what the mystery is? What is the mystery? What is the secret? It’s the hidden wisdom. It’s hidden. It’s secret. But it’s hidden WISDOM. Now that wisdom aspect that is available for advanced understanding is what the Book of Ephesians is about.

“Romans lays the foundation of grace orientation. Ephesians is going to take faithful saints. Those who are able to bear the next step of the edification process. There comes a point in your life when you know you’ve reached adulthood.

“When you reach adulthood, then you keep growing; you keep maturing. I’m what’s called in social studies a ‘Baby Boomer.’

“One of the characteristics of Baby Boomers is they didn’t grow out of their adolescent stage until they were in their 40s. That’s the explanation for a lot of the stuff that’s gone on in the last two decades in American political and social life.

“You can chronologically be a lot older and yet you’re emotional and mental maturity hasn’t arrived. The point is, once you reach this level of maturity, there’s continuing growth for you to do. And the older you get, the more you realize how dumb you were five years ago. That’s called advancing in maturity toward eldership.

“It’s the same way in the Christian life. You move from milk to meat. You move from children to adults, but when you get to the meat in the adulthood, you don’t stop.

“Paul reminds in Ephesians 1:8, ‘Wherein he hath abounded toward us in all wisdom and prudence.’ This wisdom is for people who’ve gotten the foundational edification in their life established. They’ve grown to maturity. They’ve become oriented to the grace of God. They understand what it means to be a member of the Body of Christ and how they’ve been equipped to live on Planet Earth as a member of the Body of Christ in all the details of their life. They learn what the ministry of the Body of Christ is in time.

“Now, for that person, there’s some wisdom that’s an advancement on that. Prudence is a step beyond wisdom. You know there’s knowledge when you know things. Wisdom is not just knowledge; it’s how to apply that knowledge for the best advantage. But prudence is beyond that.

“Prudence gives you the lay of the land. It isn’t just that you know how to operate right now, it’s that you understand that what you’re doing gets into the Big Picture.”