Reaching Through Teaching
“And daily in the temple, and in every house, they
ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.”
Acts 5:42
“And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you, but have shown
you, and have taught you publicly, and from house to house.”
Acts 20:20
The progressive church is committed to training men
and women around the world to take their gospel to their own people. Rev.
H. E. Scism, the General Director of Foreign Missions for the United
Pentecostal Church International addressed the issue of “what should be the role of the foreign missionary in our future
foreign missions' operation?” in one of his newsletters. In the area of training it was concluded that
the training ministry needs to be accomplished on three levels.
Membership Level Training
Every member of the church needs to be mobilized for
evangelism through training in soul winning and the different areas in which
they can minister to the local church.
This is where Portable Bible Schools, and other efforts come into the
picture. Sunday School classes need to
be set up for the purpose of training people at various age levels. Bible Studies need to be prepared and taught
to teach our members in the fundamental truths of the Word of God, in doctrine,
principles, and Christian living.
Ministerial Training
The second level of training is preparing of the
five fold ministry (Ephesians 4:11).
This can be accomplished through establishing a Bible College. A Bible College correspondence program is
useful for students that can not attend full time classes.
Leadership Training
The third level of training is that of the
leadership of our church leaders in every nation.
Expanding Your Work Force
The training of laborers for the harvest is the
single greatest need and subsequent asset in reaching the world today. This was Jesus’ prayer request in Matthew
9:38.
Jesus said that the harvest is great and the
laborers are few. How do we increase the number of laborers? Through training.
Motivating the
Idle
In Matthew 20:6-7 we find that a householder had
already hired some to work in his vineyard.
He then found potential workers standing idle doing nothing. He asked, “Why have you been standing here so long doing nothing?” The answer
of unemployed laborers in Jesus’ parable was “Because no one has hired us.”
No one has motivated us. People
need to be motivated to become involved in reaching the world through
evangelism.
“Sometimes
people are doing nothing because no one has asked them to do something.”
W. E. McCumber.
Evangelism is making known the Good News. This can be done through several different
methods BUT let us not overlook reaching through teaching. The Gospel is “Good news” or “God’s News.” Evangelism is
everything the church does that aims at the conversion of people. It should not exclude teaching.
The entire purpose of our training is to disciple
men and women in the truth of God’s Word and to mobilize them as laborers in
world evangelism.
Therefore, we MUST emphasize evangelism from the very
beginning of our training program and find ways to involve our students
immediately in the task of fulfilling the Great Commission.
We must continue to strongly encourage them to
become involved in evangelism throughout the time that they are in the training
program so that they will be well prepared when they leave us and go into the
Harvest field.
Reaching Through Teaching
Jesus,
the Master Teacher Did It!
The word “teach”
appears 109 times in the Bible and
the word, “preach” appears 50 times.
Jesus Christ was considered to be the Master Teacher
and He spent a great deal of time teaching. (Matthew 11:1; Mark 4:1-2; Mark
6:2,6, 34; Acts 1:1; Luke 5:17; Luke 23:5)
Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, came to Jesus by night, and said, “...Thou art a teacher come from God, for
no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” (John
3:2)
Reaching Through Teaching
The
First Church Did It!
The first church ever established in the Word of God
began teaching almost immediately after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. (Acts 1:1; 4:18; 5:25, 28, 42; 15:35; 18:11;
20:20)
Reaching Through Teaching
The
Churches They Established Did It!
The churches in the Epistles continued to teach (1
Corinthians 4:17; 14:19; 1 Timothy 3:2; 4:11; 2 Timothy 2:2, 24; Hebrews 5:12)
Reaching Through Teaching
Jesus Christ Commanded It!
“Teaching” is part of the Great
Commission recorded in Matthew 28:19.
A New Look at the Old Commission
Matt 28:19-20
“Go ye
therefore, and
teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I have commanded you:
and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Go take a journey, travel
Therefore now
Teach to reproduce yourself
All anyone, everyone, everywhere; as many as
possible, whosoever
Nations non-Jewish,
pagan, Gentile, heathens, people
Who Should Do This?
YOU!!!
The Key to Growth
Multiplication
“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 2:2)
This verse of Scripture deals with the
multiplication of the minister. When we
begin to multiply ourselves by teaching others we will begin to see spiritual
maturity in the lives of our people and also great church growth. The things that we have learned from many
people who have given their lives for the Gospel we should impart to others. These people need to be faithful,
trustworthy, and trained to pass on what they have learned to others and to the
next generation. This will bring about
the propagation of the truth to people everywhere.
If you were to win one person to Jesus Christ each
year for the next forty years you would have forty converts. That would be great, wouldn’t it? If you would disciple a new Christian every
year, instead of making a convert, you would have 1,099,511,626,175 disciples
in forty years. God’s method for reaching the world is this principle of multiplication.
This illustration points out a major difference
between addition and multiplication. We
learned addition as little children. It
gave us the basis for other steps of higher learning including multiplication
but few Christians get beyond the simple addition in their lives.
…More on Multiplication
A story is told of a poor wise man that lived in the
Orient. He invented the chessboard,
which is a board that has sixty-four squares.
One day the old man was playing chess with the king. The king became so excited that he told the
man, “I am so happy with the chess board
that you have made for me. Ask whatever
you like and I will give it to you, even up to half of my whole kingdom."”
The old man said, “Give me one piece of grain on the first square, and double it and put
two on the second square, and double it and put four on the third square, etc.”
He asked the king to double it all
the way up to the 64th square.
The king thought that the man was very foolish. “Why
are you asking for just a few grains of wheat?
You could have asked for anything.
Why just some wheat?”
When the king tried to grant the request he suddenly
realized that he was dealing with a very wise man after all. By the time that the king would have gotten
to the 64th square it would have been enough grain to cover the
entire earth many feet deep.
You could easily become a very rich man or woman in
just thirty days using the same principle.
If you were given one dollar
today, doubled to two dollars tomorrow, doubled to four dollars the next
day, and so forth you would have $5,379,000
on the 30th day.
If you were to go out into the congregation on Sunday and
put one person beside you, you are now two.
If you trained him and the two of you went out and each got one you
would have four; then eight; then sixteen; then thirty-two. In just a short
time you wouldn’t have anyone left in the congregation to win.
Teach
them to WIN them.
Teach
them to SEND them.
The future of the church is secured when we take those
things that we have learned and pass them on to others who will be faithful;
thus, producing church growth. Teaching
is a process of taking the knowledge that we have and investing it into the
heart and mind of our students. This
gives the students we teach a foundation to build on.
“I teach, therefore, I touch
the future.”
The early church at Jerusalem did this and the
resulted testimony was “Did we not
straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? And, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with
your doctrine...” (Acts 5:28)
Tips for Teaching
Biblical
discipleship is the act of being taught by someone, learning for ourselves,
passing it on to someone else.
Jesus called his disciples and told them “Follow me and I will make you fishers of
men.” (Matt. 4:19) The call of Jesus included training the
disciples to be fishers of men. He
served as their teacher. A “teacher” is one “who imparts and transmits, in order to bring a reformation or a
change.” Jesus knew that the only
way to make his disciples like Himself was to spend time with them, teaching
them; imparting himself into others.
After training His disciples, “…They
took knowledge that they had been with Jesus.”
“A student...
who is fully trained
will be like his teacher.”
(See Luke 6:40)
How
Do I Become an Effective Teacher?
1. I must
know my subject.
2. I must
believe what I am teaching.
3. I must
obey what I am teaching.
4. I must
spend time in prayer.
5. I must
spend time in preparation.
6. I must
teach in love.
Teaching material should be something I know thoroughly, feel deeply, and do
consistently. (Hendricks)
Four Steps to Learning
John Milton, in his book, “The Seven Laws of Teaching” gives four
steps to learning:
1. The teacher presents the
material.
2. The student repeats in
his own words what he has been taught.
3. The student uses the
information and gives it to someone else.
4.
The
student absorbs it into his daily life.
Carl George and Robert Logan in Leading and
Managing Your Church outline four steps in effective teaching and learning.
1.
I
do, you watch.
2.
I
do, you help.
3.
You
do, I help.
4.
You
do, I watch.
Proverbs for
Daily Living
“I hear, I forget;
I see, I remember,
I do, and I understand.”
(Chinese Proverb)
“If you give a man a fish,
you will feed him for a day.
If you teach a man how to fish,
you will feed him for a
lifetime.”
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