A continuation of didasko
1)
Have we every thought about many things a person is
taught to do before they leave this life?
a)
We learn not hundreds, but literally thousands of
different tasks in an average lifetime.
b)
Some tasks are learned almost instantly; others may
take many years to learn well.
c)
In some respects most people never quite learning.
2)
Last Sunday night we examined a key New Testament word
translated “teach.”
3)
We explored some of the ways this word is used in
Matthew and Mark.
4)
Tonight we want to expand this study to this word in
the rest of the New Testament.
5)
We are going to take key passages from Luke through the
rest of the New Testament.
a)
We begin with Lk. 11:1.
b)
One of the disciples to Jesus, “teach” us to pray.
6)
In earlier lessons we have noted how we often have a
very narrow view of teaching people.
7)
We may think of teaching as being in a literal
classroom with a group of students.
8)
As we are seeing from the New Testament, teaching
involves several different things.
9)
It is impossible to say that we “teach” in one and only
one way.
10) There
are several way to offer instruction to people.
11) Luke
gives us a small but important point about teaching.
a)
People can be “taught” about things relating to
worship.
b)
Things like “prayer” can be taught and this is
important.
c)
In a local congregation we have people who help in
various ways on a regular basis.
d)
We have song leaders, people to help with communion,
the contribution, and people who pray.
e)
These people did not wake up one morning and have these
skills.
f)
These abilities are learned abilities; they do not
automatically come with age.
12) It
is a largely unseen work and not real complicated, but people prepare the elements
for the LS.
13) The
communion trays do not magically appear every Sunday.
14) People
have been instructed in that important task and they do it week after week.
15) My
family was not very religious, but we did attend a well known denomination a
few times.
16) One
of the things this denomination wanted my family to do was pass the Lord’s
Supper.
17) We
did not need to prepare it – just pass it.
a)
This group had communion once a month and they selected
my family to serve.
b)
For most of us that sounds like a small thing and it
is.
c)
For a young person who was not accustomed to religion,
it was a frightening thing.
d)
There was no training, no preparation—it was “here is
the stuff, get to it.”
e)
I was probably about 15 at the time, but I remember how
that experience felt.
f)
I suspect that others would prefer not to feel as I did
many years ago.
g)
People need to be taught about how to do the basic
things in worship.
18) The
way we teach people may vary.
19) Some
of the teaching may be done by a blood relative. It may be given in a Bible class.
20) Some
guidance may be offered by preachers, deacons and elders.
21) Some
insight might be offered by an older Christian who has been doing these things
for many years.
22) There
is teaching such as what we find in Lk. 11 that can be done and it needs to be
done.
23) A
time eventually comes when people can no longer do what they once did.
24) Every
moment of every day every single person ages.
25) Eventually
the time arrives when someone must stop doing what they once did.
26) Rather
than continue to help with worship, some men must eventually sit and
participate that way.
27) This
is the way that life works.
28) A
new generation needs to be ready to rise up and continue the work.
a)
We want to help prepare that new generation for their
work in the church.
a)
People will not be ready to pray or do much else unless
they have been taught.
29) The
word for “teaching” is used elsewhere in Luke, but we are going to move to the
book of Acts.
30) The
word we are looking at occurs in Acts 5:28.
a)
Early Christians were trying to teach the unsaved about
the gospel.
b)
Christians quickly realized there were officials who
did not appreciate their efforts.
c)
Some ews wanted to keep their religion of Judaism; they
saw Christianity as a threat.
d)
Because Christians were a type of opposition, God’s
people were persecuted.
31) Acts
5:28 – READ
a)
Some of the first century Christians faced intense
persecution for clinging to Jesus.
b)
At the present time this is not our situation; we
worship out in the open and are not bothered.
c)
This may not always be the case.
d)
A time may come when society say we are no longer
allowed to do what we are doing.
e)
In some respects a few liberties have already been
curtailed.
f)
Secular society call for tolerance and acceptance and condemn some of
the teaching that is done.
32) Some
may have seen the B&P devotional on the latest issue of Newsweek.
a)
This magazine has put forth information to say that
homosexuality can be justified by the Bible.
b)
One of the arguments is that Jesus would reach out to
homosexuals.
c)
Since this is the way Jesus would live, this is the way
we should live.
d)
This magazine got half the story right; Jesus would
reach out to people—all people.
e)
Jesus would not say, “stay as you are and men marry men
and females marry females.”
f)
Jesus would say (just as He did 2,000 years ago in Lk.
13:3), “repent or perish.”
g)
People in the world think that some of the Bible’s
teaching (instruction) is harsh and unloving.
h)
Secularists stand ready to oppose those who reason in
this manner.
i)
When we think about Christians and teaching, Acts 5 has
an important lesson for us.
33) We
will teach even when society says “don’t teach.”
34) We
will speak up even when society says “be quiet.”
35) A
faithful Christian will refuse to keep silent, even when he knows people will
not approve.
a)
We want to be wise in what we say, how we say things,
and when we say things.
b)
Jesus and the apostles certainly used much wisdom when
it came to speech.
c)
If enemies are simply looking for ammunition against
us, we are not obligated to give them that.
d)
Christians stand up for the truth and they speak out on
what is right.
e)
We try to teach even when people do not want to be
taught.
f)
Sometimes this activity comes with a price—maybe a high price.
g)
The one we truly love and honor is God, not some man or
any secular power.
36) As
we teach, we want to be consistent in our instruction.
a)
One of the things that destroys a teacher’s credibility
is inconsistency.
b)
There are several ways to be inconsistent.
c)
The point I want to stress is found in 1 Cor. 4:17.
d)
Paul said he “taught the same thing in every church.”
37) Paul
did not have one message for Corinth, another for Thessalonica, and another for
Philippi.
38) When
he preached the gospel, it was always the same gospel.
39) Some
do not really know what they believe so what they say is incoherent and
inconsistent.
40) The
truth allows us to give a clear and consistent message.
41) We
will be consistent if we use the Bible and nothing but the Bible.
42) When
our teaching is based on the word instead of opinion, we will have the right
foundation.
43) Furthermore,
what we say is right for one group of people is right for all other people.
44) True
preaching and gospel teaching demands that we use the one standard that is
always consistent.
45) Next
on our list of places where our word occurs is Col. 2:7.
46) Paul
said the people at this congregation had been taught.
47) He
also said that this teaching should have made them very thankful
(appreciative).
48) In
life people sometimes have some great things and are not grateful for what they
possess.
49) If
we have been taught the truth, we should be grateful.
50) Let’s
see how Paul expressed the thought – Col. 2:7 – READ
51) If
we have been taught what is right, we should be some of the most grateful
people in the world.
a)
We are unlike those who are searching for the truth but
still have yet to find it.
b)
We are also unlike those who are blindly following
error.
c)
We are like the people Jesus described: ye shall know the truth and the truth shall
make you free.
d)
How great it is to lay the head on the pillow at night
and say, “I know what is right.”
e)
It is even better to go to sleep saying, “I have been
doing my best to do what I know is right.”
f)
Truth and obedience to it should be at the very core of
who we are.
52) If
we are grateful for the truth, we will follow it in every possible way.
53) This
means that we will be observing some restrictions, one of which is found in 1
Tim. 2.
a)
1 Tim. 2:12 says a “woman cannot teach or have dominion
over a man.”
b)
In recent times this passage has received a lot of
attention in the church.
c)
Some have said this means a wife could not teach her
husband.
d)
Others have said
“there is never a time when a woman could not teach a man.”
54) These
conclusions are not what Paul had in mind and we can prove this quickly and
easily.
55) Col.
3:16, which has the same word in 1 Tim. 2:12, says we “teach” one another when
we sing.
56) When
men sing in the assembly, they teach women.
57) When
women sing in the assembly they are teach men.
58) Singing
in an indisputable example of women teaching men.
59) The
prohibition in 1 Tim. 2 cannot refer to every type of teaching situation.
60) There
is at least some limitation on what Paul said.
a)
Here is something else to consider.
b)
Suppose a church bulletin has an article on how to
become a Christian.
c)
A woman hands out a bulleting (containing this article)
to a visitor.
d)
The non-Christian man reads that article and obeys the
gospel.
e)
In this case a woman is partly responsible for teaching
a man.
f)
She did not write the article, but the man would not
have had the article without the woman.
g)
Was it wrong it wrong for the woman to pass out the
church bulletin?
h)
We could also revise the point.
i)
What if a woman typed the church bulletin that had the
article that converted the man?
j)
The woman taught by her typing skills. Was it wrong for her to type the church
bulletin?
k)
What if a man typed the article and a woman printed the
bulletins?
l)
Women, in many different ways, can have a hand in
teaching men.
61) In
1 Tim. 2 we are presented with what we might call a mixed assembly.
62) It
is a time when people were “learning” (verse 11) and “praying” (verse 8).
63) Paul
said that in these assemblies men (a specific word for males) were to pray,
verse 8.
64) The
“teaching” in verse 12 that women cannot do is well defined by Thayer.
65) His
definition of “teach” is “deliver a didactic discourse.”
66) In
more modern terms this would be something like a woman preacher.
a)
Some religious groups have lady preachers and some of
them are really good.
b)
God has said this type of thing is wrong.
c)
There is to be male leadership in the home as well as
the church.
d)
Women
can and must teach, but there are not God’s choice for preachers/teaching in
mixed assemblies.
e)
Congregations that do use women in this way “go beyond
what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6).
67) We
want to be people who do our best to serve God and that means we try to teach
in every possible way throughout our lifetime.
68) Tonight
we hope this is the way we are trying to life.
The process begins with conversion.