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Teaching Them

The Christian Walk has been described as one beggar showing another beggar where to find food.  This illustrates wonderfully how one of our primary missions on this earth is to instruct others in the way of salvation.

I. Matthew 28:18-20.  Animals know how to live by instinct, but human beings need to be taught (Genesis 3:5-22).  God has given us the Bible to instruct us in the way of salvation (2 Timothy 3:16-17) and displayed His power in creation to know that He is God (Romans 1:18-22).  So, it is no wonder that Jesus seeks and saves the lost (Luke 19:10) today by equipping us to make disciples through teaching others the gospel.

II. Ephesians 4:11-16.  But, the teaching does not stop there.  After making disciples, we are to teach them to obey all of Jesus’ commands.  To do that, Jesus established His church (Matthew 16:18) as a center of learning, where the lost can hear the gospel, yes, but where the church, speaking the truth in love, can build itself up in love.  Our teaching should not be confined within the walls of buildings, however, but the church, attaining unity and maturity in Jesus, should go forth and teach.

III. John 13:13-34.  We glimpse Jesus’ great love that motivated Him to live a number of years in the flesh to instruct us in the way of salvation before going to the cross for us in love.  In Matthew 23:37, He laments that Jerusalem persisted in sin while so many prophets had come to teach the city and the nation throughout the centuries.  That same love is our motivation as we take up Jesus’ mission to teach others by word and by deed, by our very lives, the way back to God.

By learning do we now understand our world, and so God, in His infinite wisdom, taught us who He is and how to return to Him.  Then, having come to know Him, we are, in turn, told to teach others.

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Speaking the Truth in Love

What chance does the gospel have to be heard in a world that has become so competitive with waves of noise, each more flashy and entertaining?  So many have closed their ears.  How can we be God’s megaphone, speaking the truth in love, and get them to listen?  Should we beat the world at its own game in order to be heard?

I. 1 Kings 19:1-18.  After Elijah defeated the prophets of Baal on Mt. Carmel, he becomes discouraged by Jezebel’s death threats and runs away.  After refreshing him, God shows Elijah His power not in the wind, earthquake, or fire but in the gentle whisper.  Then, God shows him that He works in our weaknesses.  It’s the same with the gospel (1 Corinthians 1:18-31).  God’s grace is as sufficient for us as it was Paul (2 Corinthians 12:8-10).

II. Ephesians 4:11-16.  Jesus, our Head, supplies us with truth that equips us to attain to unity and maturity in Him.  This seems strange in the boisterous world that believes that truth is relative.  But, the church is the pillar and foundation of the truth, who speaks the truth in love.  That truth, His Word, is a living and active, double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12-13) that we wield as part of the armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18) as we wage war differently than the world (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

III. James 3:1-10.  So, in our weaknesses, Jesus’ body, the church, supplies the tongue.  What a difficulty this is with such an untamable appendage!  Yet, speaking the truth in love, we reach the lost with a low whisper and grow up in Him, working together to build ourselves up.  Much like an adolescent must choose healthy food for his various body parts to grow up correctly into his adult-sized head, so the church must commit to knowing and living out truth to grow up properly into Him.

It’s God’s power and work, but He entrusts His weak and fallible servants to speak His words of truth in love to lead the lost and strengthen the saved.

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Immerse Yourself in Them

There are two ways to enter a pool: cannonball or creep.  Those who creep endure a slow, inch-by-excruciating-inch torture of cold water on their feet, ankles, legs, knees, etc. and usually complain loudly at each step of the way until they finally put their heads under and exclaim, “It’s alright once you get in!”  Those who jump right in skip the torture in a split-second shock … and usually splash (and annoy) those creeping in.

This is how it is with a living out of our faith (1 Timothy 4:15-16).

I.  Revelation 3:15-16.  We’ve all been around those who have truly realized the gospel, obeyed it, and then been “on fire” for God.  If we’re ones creeping into our Christian walk, then we might have even found ourselves splashed with a little more church or Jesus than we’re acclimated to.  Paul’s advice to Timothy is immerse himself into His Christian walk.  God does not like lukewarm Christianity!

II.   James 3:1.  Even the first duty of someone seeking to be a shepherd over God’s flock is to watch himself first (Acts 20:28-31).  That is Paul’s next piece of advice to the young evangelist, but it is not just for ourselves that we pay careful attention to how we walk.  We also are to be careful of what we teach to make sure that whether in word or deed we do all according to God’s Word (Colossians 3:17).

III.  James 1:2-12.  Anyone can do right as an event (even a stopped clock is right twice a day), but it takes someone truly committed to walking as Jesus did (1 John 2:6) to persist in living out God’s Word.  If we persevere, Paul tells Timothy that he will save both himself and his hearers.

This doesn’t happen by those inching their way into their Christian walk.  It’s time to cannonball in!

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Command & Teach These Things

Timothy was a young evangelist, and yet Paul told him to “command and teach” the things that he had been writing to him about (1 Timothy 4:11-14).  The bigger issue was how could Timothy (or us for that matter) be the kind of Christian that when he would command and teach that others would want to listen and learn?

I. 1 Corinthians 11:1.  The first thing to remember is that we are not asking others to follow the best version of ourselves that we can put forth.  No, we want others to follow us as we follow Christ.  So, Jesus is the example to others that we must follow ourselves, so that others in our sphere of influence can listen and learn from us.

II. Acts 2:42.  To ensure that our example of Christ is one to follow, we must be devoted to God’s Word.  We have the example of the early Christians who, among other things, devoted themselves to the public reading, exhortation, and teaching of Scripture.  When others we hope to command and teach see our devotion, then they will want to listen and learn from us.

III. 1 Corinthians 12:14-31.  The illustration of the church as a body with all of its parts working together and arranged just where God has placed them is a powerful one.  When others see us encouraging and ministering in whatever way God has blessed us to work for the whole of the body and not just ourselves, then they will want to listen and learn from us.

Whether young or old, rich or poor, educated or unschooled, God has a place for you and work that He has prepared in advance for you to do (Ephesians 2:10).  When we are about it, only then are we in a position to “command and teach these things.”

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Bible.10: May Be Thoroughly Equipped

With so many translations of the Bible to choose from, how can a Christian know that what he is reading will make him or her thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17)?

I. Acts 12:4.  Recognize that the problem with every translation is that it’s a translation.  Therefore, the perfect translation does not exist.  Unless you can read ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek, you are reading a translation of copies of the originals that no longer exist.  An example is “Easter” in this verse of the often touted KJV of 1611 (language revised in 1769) but is rendered closer to the Greek Pascha as “Passover” in the NIV.  The NIV was translated in an era with more access to research but may have other struggles.

II. Genesis 6:13-17.  Three schools of translation put every Bible on a sliding scale.  Translations in the word-for-word school like the KJV, in addition to often challenging readability, will give us measurements like cubits while one from the idea-for-idea or dynamic equivalent school in the middle, like the NIV, will give them to us in terms we can better understand, like feet.  A thought-for-thought or paraphrase translation like The Message will be very readable but will melt Scripture down and present it in the translator’s own words.  That can be very interesting when looking at figurative language in the ESV, a very popular word-for-word translation known for its readability, in verses such as Amos 4:6.  Compare how the NIV and The Message translate this.

III.  2 Timothy 3:16-17.  The struggle today versus 1611 is too much access to information.  How does a Christian cut through the confusion to become thoroughly equipped?  Reputable study helps help, but so do some common sense considerations for choosing a translation.  The preface of any Bible will tell you how it was translated.  Those done by committee are preferred over an individual to help eliminate bias.  Those done by various groups are preferred over one group for the same reason.  How did the translators deal with various languages, thought patterns, syntax, figures of speech, etc.?  What was their use of early and ancient copies that are so available today?  And finally, how did they deal with thorny translation issues?

God preserved His Word throughout the centuries.  We have it available to us today.  Our job is to become thoroughly equipped by the most accurate portrayal as is possible.

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Bible.09: Carefully Investigated Everything

When I had to do research as a kid, I just hoped that the school library had something on my topic or could get it for me on loan in several weeks.  Today with the internet, the problem is access to too much information … yet we tend to be lazy and take the top three searches on Google!  A person may be confused today by all the Bible translations out there, but we have greater access to better research than ever before in history!

I.  Luke 1:1-4.  Starting with Luke, we can see that careful investigation has always been a part of good Bible study.  Before the printing press in 1455 a.d., the problem was not enough access to God’s Word.  But, once Erasmus translated the Latin Vulgate that had reigned supreme for over ten centuries into Greek in 1516 that was mass produced and read by the common man, the Reformation was sparked, and a host of early English translations came about leading to the King James Version (KJV).

II.  1 John 5:6-8 and notes.  Contrary to popular belief, the KJV did not “fall from heaven in 1611.”  It’s called the Authorized Version because King James, not God, commissioned its translation.  Borrowing its phrases and words heavily from Tyndale’s earlier work, the language of the KJV was updated in 1769 to how we know it today.  The KJV does have the distinction of reigning supreme for over 300 years and settled the New World and fueled the Restoration, but there are struggles with it as with any translation (see “Easter” for pascha in Acts 12:4).  With access to thousands of ancient manuscripts, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the rise of research in the 1900s and now the advent of the internet, many translations and study tools are available that are often based on better study.

III.  Acts 17:11.  So, are you noble-minded like the Bereans who examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was preaching was true?  Do you, like Luke, carefully investigate everything to have an accurate account of what is truth for eternity?

Or, is your salvation based on your top three Google searches?

 

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Train Yourself to be Godly

As Christians in the 21st Century, we have more leisure time than any other people living in any other time period in history.  Technology and inventions have drastically cut down what we need to do just to survive.  But, greater time doesn’t equal better choices.  If we’re honest, we’ve become spiritual couch potatoes–especially if we compare ourselves to the pioneers who worked fifteen hours a day cutting trees and pulling stumps just to plow the ground to grow food to eat.  It was only then by oil lamp that they would study God’s Word to know His will.

I. 1 Timothy 4:6-8.  The process to get into spiritual shape is much like getting into physical shape.  Just as we must choose to deny ourselves unhealthy foods and exercise regularly, so we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses, and follow Jesus (Mark 8:31-35).  Neither happens from the couch!

II.  1 Peter 1:13-16.  To get spiritually in shape we must be holy as God is holy–and this too is part of God’s spiritual training program.  Even though it’s hard, we must choose to be trained by it (Hebrews 12:7-13).  Sexual holiness is a big struggle for us today in this sin-soaked culture (1 Corinthians 6:12-20).

III.  Romans 12:9-13.  Someone who only works out at the gym serves only himself if he doesn’t use those muscles to help a friend move or carry in the groceries … so do those who only have a vertical relationship with God through prayer and study of His Word.  God wants us to serve others (Galatians 5:13).  What personal ministry does your spiritual training propel you to do?

We can either watch the spiritual Olympics from our spiritual couches with the spiritual remotes in our hands or we could participate in them.  Are you in training?

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With Fear and Trembling

With the invention of the printing press in 1455 a.d. there must have been a bunch of unemployed monks who no longer needed to painstakingly copy every jot and tittle of Scripture by candlelight in a dark monastery.  Suddenly, the common man had access to God’s Word.  Okay, it took a while for copies to no longer be smuggled into England in barrels of flour, but there was no quenching the thirst to know God’s will for mankind after fifteen centuries of spiritual starvation.

I.  Once Erasmus translated the Latin Vulgate that had reigned supreme for 1100 years in 1516 back into Greek, Martin Luther the very next year read God’s Word and nailed his 95 challenges to the establishment to a church door in Germany.  The Reformation had begun, and Tyndale published his English translation eight years later in 1525.  This and Erasmus’ work became the backbone of the King James Version in 1611 that reigned supreme for 300 years.

II.  John 4:24.  With greater access to God’s Word came a way to satisfy the spiritual hunger to know and live by the truth.  Contrast that to today with so much availability of God’s Word in stores, our homes, even our phones, and our excused for spiritual laziness fall so short.  Instead of squandering the leisure time that western culture has given us, we must once again recapture a hunger and thirst for God’s Word.

III.  Philippians 2:12-16.  Before this time when only some of the clergy had access to God’s Word, the people had no choice but to accept fallible human mediators for their salvation.  Greater availability to God’s Word meant that people could work out their own eternity with Jesus alone as their go-between.  Spiritual laziness again makes people today desire a return to such a system as they think the preacher is in charge of their salvation.

What a gift to have access to the Creator’s Word to us that tells us what we must do to find salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus!  How we squander that gift by not studying His Word to work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

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For Everything God Created is Good

“For everything God created is good,” 1 Timothy 4:4 begins.  Really?  What about mosquitoes?  Well, yes.  As much as many of us have wished that Noah had squashed those two on the ark, even mosquitoes have their place in God’s plan.  Even our smart phones can either be instruments of great good or great evil, depending on their use.  “… and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,” the verse finishes.

At first glance, this sounds like even sin is acceptable, but backing up to get the context of verses 1-5 makes us realize that the hypocritical liars who have abandoned the faith and are following deceiving spirits are being contrasted to “those who believe and who know the truth.”  It is how we interact with and use what good things God has made that is the difference.

I.  Romans 12:9-21.  We must reject sin and wrong doctrine.  We must hate evil and cling to what is good.  This is difficult in a sin-soaked world, but those who believe and who know the truth must make this choice, despite what those closest to them choose or the circumstances they are in.

II.  Matthew 18:15-20.  We’ve all heard the adage that we are free to bind or loose on earth as we please and God is okay with it–as long as we can get two or three to agree with us.  This is how a lot of denominations have developed.  But, backing up to get the context shows us that we are speaking about the status of imperfect people in this imperfect world who are calling themselves ‘brothers’ but are living in conflict with the Word of God.

We might at this point hear someone quote Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge, or you too will be judged,” to further push the idea that we are not to be our brother’s keeper in any way.  But, backing up to get the context shows that Jesus indeed tells us that we are to judge sinful actions in our brother in order to help him, but we can’t be hypocrites when we do it.

III.  Galatians 5:13-26.  Rather, we need to use the freedom we have in Christ to not indulge the sinful nature but serve one another in love.  We see that those who do indulge will not inherit the kingdom of God, but those led by the Spirit, who “believe and who know the truth,” grow the fruits of the Spirit.

God has given us a lot of freedom to interact in this world that contains things to be shunned outright or things to be used for the glory of His Name instead of for our own selfish and sinful pleasures.  Those who believe and who know the truth need to be watchful and carefully examine everything.

… but I still wish that Noah had squashed those mosquitoes!

 

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Bible.06: As They Do the Other Scriptures

The cross is the dividing line in history.  If the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, then the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.  So, how did we get the 27 books that fill the ‘canon’ or ‘rule of faith’?

I. 2 Peter 3:15-16.  God inspired and preserved the New Testament.  The new covenant was prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and spoken about by Jesus in Luke 22:20, but what a confusing time the 1st Century must have been for Christians wondering who and what to believe as God’s Word came first orally through various gifts of the Holy Spirit (1 Thessalonians 2:13) to its written form (1 Corinthians 14:37).  Peter calls Paul’s letters ‘Scripture’ along with other books at that time.

II. Matthew 13:24-25.  The enemy has always operated by sowing weeds, and so the time of confusion during the 1st Century was no different.  While Christians wondered what was from God and what was not, the enemy sowed perversions (gnosticism), false teachings (Acts 15:1), and heretics like Marcion who declared just the writings of Paul and Luke’s gospel as authoritative.  This, though, caused the church to re-evaluate what books they already considered authoritative and used in their worship services.  The declaration of later church councils on the 27 books we have in the New Testament today did not “give us the Bible” but rather confirmed what Christians had already been using for centuries.

III. 2 Timothy 3:16-17.  We have all we need from that which we know to be ‘Scripture’ as it thoroughly equips us.  God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness “through our knowledge ….”

This means we can study and obey the New Testament.  Let us not be ignorant or unstable, twisting them to our destruction.  Rather, let us let God speak to us about His Son on the cross who rose from the dead.