Teaching
Christianity is a religion
that requires learning. Jesus said, “It is written in the prophets, And
they shall all be taught of God. Every man therefore that hath heard, and
hath learned of the Father, cometh unto me” (John 6:45). The existence
of Christianity depends upon the teaching of truth.
Jesus taught his disciples that “the truth shall set you free” (John 8:32).
The source of this truth is the teaching of Jesus as verse 31 reveals: “If ye
continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed.” When one learns
the truth as Jesus revealed it, and puts into practice (continues in His word),
one is set free from the bondage of sin. But it is important to note that
what one must do is continue in the teaching of Jesus. In Matthew 7:24-27,
Jesus spoke of the wise and foolish builders, to emphasize the importance of
learning and practicing what He teaches.
The learning begins when the church (you and me as members) take the message of
the gospel “to every creature” (Mark 16:15). When that teaching is
“gladly received” (Acts 2:41) people obey “from the heart that form of
doctrine” (Romans 6:17). Once this is done the teaching and learning process
is just beginning. The new Christian is, according to Peter, a new born
babe who must “desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow
thereby” (1 Peter 2:20. The goal is maturity as described by the Hebrew
writer in Hebrews 5:12-14. But the teaching continues beyond this point.
Every generation has the responsibility of training the next generation of the
church. Paul wrote to Timothy, “Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace
that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that thou hast heard of me among
many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach
others also” (2 Timothy 2:1,2). Paul mentions a chain of at least 4
generations all taught the same thing.
The need for this pattern of training continues today.
We alive today have not
heard Paul teach, but the ones Timothy trained may not have either, and the
fourth generation certainly did not. However, we do have the teaching Paul
received by revelation from Jesus and gave to Timothy and others. The teaching
is recorded in the epistles he penned by inspiration and in the public and
private teaching recorded in Acts under divine inspiration.
What are you doing to aid this process? Are you a newly born babe in
Christ needing to grow through the feeding on the milk of the word? Are
you striving to one day be mature enough to be a teacher? Are you
assisting in developing the next generation by teaching them the things you have
learned? Every Christian should be somewhere in this process. Where
are you today?
—Denton Landon