The Gift of Teaching

We're right back to what we've been working through in, First Corinthians chapter 12. So if you'll join me in First Corinthians chapter 12, I wanna kinda break the, break the mold a little bit here this evening, and, I really want you to think along with me as I, as I kinda lay the groundwork for what we're gonna talk about tonight. 

I want you to think along with me, okay? who among us have not,... Sam, can you pull that down, like just the volume down just a hair? I know it's screaming at me. It's, I don't know if it's screaming at anybody else, but it is me. That's better. Thank you, sir. Good. but, how many times have you opened the Bible Had a pretty good idea where maybe you were reading it, that type of thing. 

And when you did, you read it, you really took time to read it, like you really like, "Okay, I'm really focused here, I really wanna understand this," but you came away and just thought, "I have no idea what I just read." Like, I will readily admit, like, there are many times where I have opened the Bible, and many of those times the, like, the role that I've been fulfilling is that of a pastor. 

And I open it, and I get to the passage I'm supposed to try to understand, and I look at that, and I'm just sitting there thinking, "What in the world does that mean?" Well then, like, the pressure really starts setting in because I start thinking, "Oh, wait a minute, there's people that are gonna show up at different times during the week, and they're gonna expect that I've done the work to understand what's in that passage so that I can make it make sense to them." 

So if it's gonna make sense to you, it's gotta first make some sense to me. Now, full disclosure, there's been many times where I have, n- been a little shaky and, but I'm just looking to the Lord, and then all of a sudden, clarity hits in the moment of delivering it, and it's like, "Oh, that makes all the sense in the world now." 

so I don't, not telling all the secrets I guess, but at the end of the day you're kinda like, "Well, the Lord works in inspiration." But remember this, the greatest form of inspiration is perspiration. So mark that down. The greatest form of inspiration comes to you from perspiration. That means work at it. 

Work at it, work at it, work at it. Okay? So why am I saying that? We've been looking at these, spiritual gifts that God has given to the church for the church's benefit. Okay? And we've looked at two callings so far. One was apostle, the second was prophets, and we saw that the apostles were those that received the commandments directly from Christ and then passed them on to the church. 

The prophets were the ones that were, in those early days, receiving direct revelation from God, and they were making that revelation known, declaring it to the people. Then we come to this third one in Corinthians. Okay? So I'm in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, and I'm gonna look at verse number 29, and we're gonna bounce around to multiple places tonight. 

So kind of whether you got your phone or you got a Bible in your hand, be ready to kinda flip around a little bit and let's, let's talk through it, okay? But, I want you to focus in here. Verse 29. In this list as Paul is working through, verse 28 is where we're gonna go. he says, he says this, "And God has set some in the church," okay? 

So God has put some individuals in the church The first were apostles, okay? First meaning that they're foundational. Then he says secondarily prophets, and now we come to this one tonight, thirdly teachers. Teachers, okay? Now, what are these gifts of the spirit? We've talked about these gifts of spirit. 

These are divine enablements given to members of the body so that they can build up the body, okay? The body being all of us. God gives a gift, a talent, a divine enablement to individuals so that that individual can fulfill the task that God gave them in the body, okay? So in this church, there are divinely gifted people You say, "Well, who is that?" 

Look in the mirror. You're a believer and you're part of this church. God's, God's given you a gift, okay? And we understand what our gifts are, and then we begin using those gifts for His purpose. The one in focus tonight is this idea of the divine enablement to teach God's Word, okay? So, we've probably all been in a setting where we have heard somebody or been connected with somebody that was trying to explain something from the Bible, but it was missing the oomph isn't the right thing, 'cause it's not about, like, enthusiasm or passion, but the, there's just not the connection to pass on the truth. 

It just doesn't quite click, okay? Now, that can be a couple things. Number one, as the listener, my heart cannot be right. My mind cannot be engaged and the speaker, the teacher may be doing their part, but I'm out here in left field, and that's why I'm not getting anything out of this, okay? but there are many that have kind of taken to the job of teaching that the job of teaching wasn't the job that God assigned to them, okay? 

And that's how we have to view it. God gives this gift. This isn't something that you're like, "Oh, well, I just feel like I want that job in the church, so I'm gonna go for it." no, it's a divine calling. God enables and calls people for what purpose? Well, something very important. To explain and apply His Word so that people can grow in knowledge, in obedience, in righteousness, and ultimately, Christ-likeness. 

So God gave His church individuals that had this gift to take in the truth and process it and organize it and put it out in a way to the body so that after they hear it, they've got something now they can hang onto, they understand what God wants, and now they can go about performing that. Now they can go living according to it, okay? 

Well, that makes all the sense in the world, right? If you were... Don't run too far with this too fast, but if you were setting a church up, if you were the Lord setting a church up, and you had a word, the Bible you wanted people to understand, you would probably want somebody that you'd put in that group to make sure that His Word is understandable to everybody, right? 

Well, that's what God was putting in the church in that day, and what God still puts in the church today, people that can take the scriptures and explain them so that people get a right view of the Lord, okay? Do we, you know, one of the words that gets, viewed poorly, though it shouldn't, is when somebody starts talking about the idea of doctrine. 

people think, "Oh, well, that just gets old and stuffy and tired, and who really wants to talk about doctrine?" Well, doctrine's really everything. The word just means teachings. So if we're understanding what doctrine is, we're just trying to unpack what's in the Bible, and what's in the Bible is pretty important, right? 

I mean, that's where we come to understand who God is and what He's done for us and what that means for us. So God, to make sure that the members of the body, all of us, have what we need to keep growing, God puts teachers with a gift in the body. He pu- He gives the gift of teaching to individuals in the body so that they can teach. 

This is not limited to men. This is men and women in this, that God gifts men and God gifts women so that they can communicate the truth of His word. All right? That's this gift. Now, we'll come to another variation of this in probably next week. we'll look at what the Bible talks about with the pastor teacher, okay? 

This is focused in on the gift of teaching itself, being able to pass on the information in the text. There's another aspect of that is the pastor teacher, that we'll look at next week, and I- I'll probably allude to some of the passages this week. But this is more like the divine enabled to do the task. 

The pastor teacher is the one that's watching for your soul and can give you counsel and can help shepherd you through the se- seasons of life. God gives multiple people in the body the, a gift to teach, to, the talent to teach, the ability to teach, because it's got to be more so than just any one of us. 

It's got, there's got to be multiple avenues and multiple ways in which the Word is being communicated. So let me put it to you like this. can you grow as a Christian without understanding the Bible? Can't, right? It's absolutely essential. Like, it's the foundational thing. If you don't understand the Bible, you're not gonna really grow as a Christian. 

You may get, like, your own ideas of what it means to be a Christian, or you may listen to somebody else and get their ideas, but if you're not hearing the Bible unpacked and taught, then you can't really grow as a Christian. You are missing, like, the primary nutrient source to grow as a believer, okay? So it is that essential. 

So if understanding the Word is that vital, and God puts gifted people in the body to help explain the Word, what priority should be on the being a participant in the teaching of the Word? Well, I think every believer ought to be making sure that they're putting themselves in the place where they can receive what's being taught, that they can get it, that they can, they can put it in their heart and mind and grow in their knowledge of the Lord It's always about priority. 

It's always about priority. So God gives teachers to the body to help explain and apply his word. Now, last week we looked at the idea of the prophet or prophecy, and we saw that that was speaking of direct revelation, but that that was only temporary until the scriptures were complete. Teaching remains, this gift remains, in the church because the church still needs to understand the word so that it can mature. 

The revelation part of God's work is complete. We've got the full Bible, it's done. Now we need to get in it and unpack it and have it explained so that we can wrap our heads and our hearts around it. So let me give you a little bit of clarity here. When it comes to how this, these two ideas are used, I said one is teaching, the other is the pastor-teacher. 

Those are two gifts. We'll look at pastor-teacher next week. But teaching them, you could define it as this. It is spirit-given ability to understand, organize, explain, and apply scripture for your and my maturity. Okay? It is the ability to take the truth, put it in a, in a, in a, in a way that is digestible and understandable so that you and all of us can profit from it. 

All right? Now why is that so important? Remember why the Spirit gives these gifts in the first place. Why does the Holy Spirit give talents and gifts to individuals in the body? What was the purpose of it? Well, look back at verse number seven in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. Okay? 1 Corinthians chapter 12, same chapter we were in, look at verse number seven. 

He says, "The manifestations of the Spirit," okay, these different gifts, these different abilities, "is given to every man to profit with all." So in other words, these gifts of the Spirit are applied divinely to our lives and given to us so that you and I can be the benefit to the whole body that we need to be. 

So the question is, what's the benefit that's needed? Like, what do we need to get to? I wanna show you that. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 4. This is a passage we'll spend some more time in next week. But, like, what's the purpose of understanding the Bible? Why do you and I need it? Why does a believer need to understand more and more of the word? 

Well, that's what Paul has in his mind in Ephesians chapter four, and starting in verse number 11. He begins this, and it looks kind of fam- it sounds kind of familiar to what he wrote in Corinthians. It says, "He gave some apostles and some prophets," verse 11, "and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers." 

So take all those different functions that God gave to the church, all those offices, all those individuals with specific callings. He gave them to the church for what purpose? For the perfecting of the saints, for your building up, for the work of the ministry so the work can carries on, and for the edifying of the Body of Christ, to build you and I up, to strengthen us. 

God puts individuals in the church so that they can exercise the gift he gave them, so that individuals can get involved in that, and then gain understanding of the Lord. Okay? So case in point, God's put, at this point, what, three pastors. Ben has been a pastor in the past. four pastors in this church right now. 

Okay? Well, why has God put those in- them in the church? Well, it would just be fun to just put more pastors in the church. I mean, yeah, sounds good. But the goal is not to just, like, collect and say, "Oh, look at the pastors we have." No, the goal is that those pastors are using the gifts that God has enabled them with for the building up of the Body of Christ, to help you grow in your faith. 

But it's not just the pastors. It's those that he's gifted with the ability to teach. It's those that he's gifted with the ability to serve, and on down the line in all the different ways that we're gonna study as we look through these gifts, the ability to understand the scripture, the ability to apply the scripture, all these different gifts. 

It all exists for one purpose, to help believers grow in their faith, to become more and more like Christ. Right? That's, that's the goal. The goal is not to make, for the teacher to make replicas of themselves. The goal is for the teacher to make replicas of Christ by unpacking the word faithfully. So that's what Paul's highlighting here when he's, when he starts referring to that. 

Let me show you an example of this. turn back to Acts chapter 11, okay? I'll show you an example of a teacher in the scriptures, and, we've met him. We know his name from our study in 1 Corinthians. but we encounter him- In, let's see. I did not put the right reference here, so we'll just figure it out as we go. 

well, let's start with these two. We'll start in Acts 11 with, Paul and Barnabas, okay? two men, Paul and Barnabas, absolutely essential to the church, right? So what happens in Acts chapter 11? A church has gotten started in a town called Antioch. that church that's a gathering of believers, they need people to help them grow in the faith. 

So the church in Jerusalem sends a teacher. verse 22, "The tidings of the news of these things came to the ears of the church in Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas that he would go as far as Antioch, who when he had come and seen the grace of God, was glad and exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord." 

So this guy named Barnabas shows up at this church, this young church where they're, they're trying to grow in the Lord, and when he comes in, he sees it and he starts trying to build them up. He starts trying to teach them the word and bring them along. But he soon finds that he needs help. 

There's more to do. There's more teaching that's needed. Come down to verse number, 25. Says, "Then he departed, then departed Barnabas, to Tarshish," that's a town, "to seek for Saul," who is Paul, "and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch, and it came to pass that a whole year they assembled themselves with the church and taught much people, and the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." 

Now, why is that significant? You got two men that are highlighted here that spend a full year in this town called Antioch, and they are teaching believers the word, okay? And that becomes the place where this moniker of Christian is first attached to believers. Well, what's the direct connection in the scriptures to what made these people be identified as Christians? 

Their connection to teaching. The teaching that's happening from the gifted individuals of the word of God that they're receiving, and as they're receiving it, they're growing and developing and maturing, and their lives so become so distinct from the world that they live in that now the community around them just says, "You guys just represent this Christ who you claim to follow. 

Everything we heard about him, we find it true in their life." Well, how did that become a reality? Because they got near a teacher. They got near teachers, people that would bring them along in the word, okay? - Th- this is, this is the core of what it means to really grow in the Lord. Because I wanna s- I wanna say it like this, and, give me a little room to say it, but, a believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God. 

Okay? And by having the Holy Spirit, you have everything you need. Let me say it like that. You have everything you need, okay? However, in how the Holy Spirit works in our lives, he has directed a path that you develop as you are under the teaching of the Word. Okay? So part of this whole thing is, yes, the Holy Spirit is within you, and you have everything you need. 

But you also need teachers, which is part of why he has gifted individuals with that ability to explain and apply God's Word to our lives. Okay? So you see that there. Let me show you another one. Go to, Acts chapter 18. Let me show you another one here. We know this guy, because we met him in, Corinthians because he was so profound at teaching the Bible that he gained a following. 

All right? He gained a following. We find him in Acts 18:24, and his name is Apollos. All right? Apollos. verse 24, Acts 18 starts off with this: "A certain Jew named Apollos was born at Alexandria. He was an eloquent man and mighty in the scriptures, and he came to Ephesus." All right, now we know Ephesus, that's the, that's the city where, Paul does a ton of his ministry. 

And, what do you find about him? It says he's an eloquent man. It means he can speak well. But what about him? He's mighty in the scriptures. Okay? So he knows the Old Testament. Like, he knows it. This man has done the work. He has studied. He has, he has come to understand what's in there. So what does it say about him? 

It says, "This man was instructed in the way of the Lord and was fervent in the spirit, and he spoke and taught, diligently the things of the Lord." Well, what does that identify him as? A teacher. He's a teacher. and what's the result of his teaching? Look at verse number 28. "For he mightily convinced the Jews, and publicly showing by the scriptures that Jesus was the Christ." 

That kinda jive with what I'm trying to communicate to you? Like, what was he teaching? He was... The subject of his teaching was the Lord Jesus, and he was so powerfully teaching that the Jews in these areas were turning to Christ. Well, that sounds exactly what we would hope would happen. The Bible's being taught, Christ is being magnified, and the gift of teaching is at work here through this man named Apollos. 

And people are... The lights are coming on. They're understanding who Christ is, and now you got people getting saved through his teaching ministry. All right? Let me show you another example. come to, Acts chapter 20. So just another couple pages over, Acts chapter 20, and let me show you an- another example of someone with this gifting of teaching. 

Okay? Acts chapter 20, and, there we get this scene of the Apostle Paul is headed... He's traveling to Jerusalem, and he's got thousands of miles to go. But he's traveling by or close to Ephesus, that city we just talked about, and that's where he spent three years teaching, and he calls for the leaders of the church to meet him in a place called Miletus. 

All right? While they meet him there, he has one message to pass on because he's never gonna see these people again. So their teacher wants to explain something to them for the final time. This is the last time he's gonna say it. All right? that is what begins in verse number 17. His speech begins in verse 17. 

It goes all the way through verse 38 at the end of the chapter. Okay? That's one message that Paul has for these leaders. Well, what's the core of this message? Let me allude to a little bit of it in verse number 18. He says this. "When they were come to him, he said to them, 'You know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, with many tears and temptations which fell me by the laying in wait of the Jews.'" 

So what's he saying? You know the disposition I've had towards you. You know the persecutions that I endured from the Jews and how they were trying to stop me from preaching the gospel. In other words, Paul's saying, "I taught you and you know everything about my life. We lived life together, but you know me." 

He says, verse 20, "How I kept back nothing that was profitable to you but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from hes- house to house, testifying to the Jews and also to the Gentiles repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ." Okay? So what's Paul's focus in his teaching? 

That this three-year period, he has taught them who Christ is. He has taken the scriptures, and he has explained who Jesus is and what that means for them and what Christ accomplished for them. And in explaining this to them, a church was built up in Ephesus, and they went, and they reached an entire continent from that, just from the teaching of the word. 

Okay? So he goes on, he's got some other words to say, but I want you to... Let's pick up in verse 28. Because in 28, he gets very serious with the leaders and the elders of the church there. This group of elders, he gets very serious with them. He says this: "Take heed therefore to yourselves, and to the flock of God, which the Holy Ghost has made you overseers." 

Okay? So in other words, all of you elders, God has placed you in a position of leadership in the congregations that you're in, and you have a responsibility. What is your responsibility? Look at the next phrase. To feed the church of God To feed people. Well, is he talking about like literally like put food like in front of them so they can physically eat? 

No. That's not the emphasis he has here. He's talking about feeding the body of Christ that you've been given to serve with the Word of God. How do you feed people with the Bible? You teach it to them. You explain it to them. You get them in it so that when the Word is explained, the Holy Spirit turns the light on in their hearts, and when that light comes on it's like, "Oh, I get it. 

I know." Look, how many times have you been listening to somebody teaching the Bible and that light bulb come on and you're like, "Oh, I, that, yeah, that clicks. That gets..." The glory doesn't go to the teacher, because all the teacher was just being a vessel. They're just doing their job. The glory goes to the Spirit who turned the light on. 

But to be prepared to get up and explain the Word, it takes preparation. It takes study. It takes digging into it. This is why at, with the first controversy that blows into the church, early in Acts, the very first controversy, was when there was a group of widows that were being neglected. And it wasn't because somebody said, "Well, we don't really need to care for the widows in the church." 

It be- it was because the church had exploded with growth. There were so many things that were going on. So this is brought to the apostles. "Look, these people are being neglected. They need to be cared for. They need someone to feed them. They need someone to care for their needs, because there's no one else to care for them." 

And the apostles do the wise thing. They said, "We cannot leave studying, digging into the Word so that we can be the ones to go serve the tables and put food on, physical food on tables." That's not the gifting and calling that God has given us. I don't think that means if like they were having fellowship after church, Peter wasn't gonna go set the chairs up or something like that. 

But what I do think it means is that they set a priority on being in the scriptures so that they could dig out the truth and then teach it to those that were gathering. That's why, throughout the series as we work through this, remember, like not everybody's a hand, not everybody's the ear, not everybody's the eye, not everybody's the foot. 

But God has set everybody in a place in the church so that the whole church can profit together. Now, the people with the more, most noteworthy or visible gifts, they're no more important than the people with the less noteworthy things. Th- this is not a level of value here. It's just a role that God gives for the benefit of us all. 

He says, "Feed them." Why do they have to feed? Why do they need to know the word? Verse 29, he says, "For I know this, that after my departing will grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock." In other words, there's coming false teachers that will, if you don't teach the word as it needs to be taught, there will be false teachers that come into your congregations who will be more than happy to take on the responsibility and lead people to follow themselves and not follow Christ. 

People have to feed on the word so that they're prepared that when somebody teaches something that's not scriptural, they don't embrace it. They turn away from it. The- 

You can't just turn on TBN or one of these channels and just be like, "Oh, somebody's teaching the Bible. Let me just follow all that." No, it's, it's, it has to be compared from the scriptures. You can't just listen to anybody and everybody say they speak for the... A lot of this is... Controversy broke out just the other day of this pastor, I guess he called himself a pastor, and his wife. 

They both did all the preaching in their church, and the controversy was that these people have decided that they wanted to have a polygamous marriage. So this man has now married another wife, and they wanted the church to just say, "Oh, that's good." My friend, where can we go to find the answers for that? 

Why is that even wrong? How would we know whether that's something that is true or not? Because I read something about... I wa- s- how do... Like, I looked into this to see, like, what was actually happening, and this dude said God told him it was okay. God told him he could do this. But wait a minute. Let me, let me, let me just... 

Where would this idea be turned away from? Where would that concept be rejected? Can I show you? Go to 1 Timothy chapter number 3 Is there a scripture that we could turn to that would explain to us that that behavior, that action is not God ordained? Because if it clearly violates something that's in the word, God's not changing. 

He's not schizophrenic where he says one thing here and one thing at another time. That's not how he operates. So what do we have here? 1 Timothy 3:1, it says this: "This is a true saying that if a man desire the office or calling or the place in the church of a bishop, he desires a good work." So what's that bishop? 

That's that idea of the elder, pastor, teacher, okay? That we'll look at some next week. Verse two he says, "A bishop then must be blameless." No, you know, the character is of high value, okay? But then here it is, "The husband of I mean, one still means one, right? Yeah. One still is one. That's... But this dude's getting up and leading people to think that God has endorsed what he's done. 

But if we just take the word as it's taught, we understand that there's no place for that type of thing, and God's not changing his mind on these topics. He spoke it. He settled it. It's done. He... So, but if we don't have solid teaching that we're engaging with, you say, "Well, oh, yeah, I'll never embrace something like that." 

Listen, even people that don't have, like, crazy stories like that, sometimes you listen to what comes out of their mouth of what they think is the truth, and you're just like, "Huh?" Like, "Are, where did you get that concept?" "Oh, well, I heard it over here and then this over there," and before long, it's like you formed this yourself, and it's just twisted. 

How do we get away from that? How do we get our knots untied? How do we get to the truth of the word? We get under the teaching of it that's done line by line, in the context, considering the historical and grammatical structures of it. We let the word be the word, and all we try to do is just unpack it for people. 

So this gift reveals the real need, okay? It reveals the real need in the church. You saw you had apostles, and we looked at them and the role they had. We saw the prophets, and we looked at them and the role they had. But then the third thing that he mentions is teachers, because you have the pro- the apostles who took the message and took all the teachings of Christ and put them to the church. 

Then you had the prophets, who we saw last week, who were giving specific messages in Revelation to the church, but the prophets weren't unpacking what all that meant. Now we come to third, teachers, because somebody's gotta be in the congregation explaining the word to people, and it should be multiple people. 

It's not just a one-off. You know, "Oh, we got one teacher in our church." We need mul- God brings it along. We all ought to be growing to be a communicator of the word. So God has set these teachers because receiving the revelation was different than understanding it. These prophets spoke it, but just because they spoke it didn't mean people really understood what was there. 

Perfect example just popped in my head. Back to Axe Acts chapter 21. We'll go back to what I talked about last week, okay? And this will be the end, 'cause we're about out of time. but this is the example, okay? The... I think this will illustrate the point that I'm trying to make here tonight. Acts chapter 21, remember last week we saw that prophet that shows up throughout Acts, and his name was Agabus, okay? 

We talked about Agabus last week. And when you come to, Acts 21 and you look in verse number nine, you... or verse 10, it says this, "And as we tarried there many days, there came down from Judea a certain prophet named Agabus." Okay? We saw him last week, and he has a message to deliver from God. Verse 11, "When he was come to us, he took Paul's belt, and bound his own hands and feet, and said, 'Thus says the Holy Ghost, "So shall the Jews at Jerusalem bind the man that owns this belt, and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles."'" 

Okay? So the message that's been given to this prophet by the Holy Spirit is, to take Paul's belt and to tie your hands with it, and in doing so pronounce that whoever owns this, when they get to Jerusalem, they're going to be arrested by the Jews, okay? That's the message. That's the... That's clearly the message, all right? 

All right, verse number 12, "And when we heard these things, both we and they of that place be- besought him not to go to... up to Jerusalem." Now, I looked at this last week, but I'm, I'm trying to make another point here. Here comes the revelation. The revelation is, Paul, when you get to Jerusalem, you are going to be arrested by the Jews, okay? 

That's the revelation. Well, the immediate interpretation of that revelation by the people that are gathered listening and by Luke, who is the writer of the gospel book that you're holding, and others with them, the immediate interpretation of the revelation was, "Well, that means Paul, don't go. Don't go, Paul. 

That's what this means. Don't go." Until the teacher gives the clarity of the revelation. Verse 13, "Then Paul answered, 'What mean you to weep and break my heart? For I am ready not only, not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.'" Paul gives the in- the proper interpretation of this revelation that came from Agabus. 

Now, if you'd have just stopped it without the teaching, Paul doesn't go on to Jerusalem. Well, why is that such a problem? Because Paul knew the word of the Lord. I'll read you that. Back in Acts chapter 9. You can turn there if you like, but what was the word of the Lord in this? Acts chapter 9 is Paul's conversion passage. 

It's his conversion passage. And, After Paul encounters Christ and he's blind and he's sitting in the, a home, the Lord speaks to a man, verse 12. sorry I'm trying to get my eyes... verse number, let's beginning of verse number 10. it says, "There was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias. 

And to him said the Lord in a vision, 'Ananias.' And he said, 'Behold, I am here, Lord.' And the Lord said to him, 'Arise, go into the street which is called Straight, and inquire in the house of Judas for one called Saul, of Tarsus. For behold, he prays. He has seen in a vision a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him, that he might receive his sight.' 

Then Ananias answered, 'Lord, I've heard many things of this man, and how much evil he's done to the saints at Jerusalem.'" Why is Ananias kinda pushing back on the Lord? Because he knows what Paul has been. He's the biggest terrorist of the church. And he says, "Lord, are you sure that you want me to go to him?" 

Well, let's keep reading. Verse 14: "He is here. He has authority from the chief priests to bind all that call on your name." But the Lord said to him, "Go your way, for he is a chosen vessel unto me to bear my name before Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel." Verse 16, "For I will show him how great things he must suffer for my name's sake." 

Why when Paul is confronted with this revelation from the prophet, which is a God-ordained message, why is Paul not like, "Oh, I'm not going up there. I'm, I'm gonna get arrested. You, I'm not doing that"? Matter of fact, if a similar revelation came to you and I that we were gonna get arrested if we went to do something, probably we'd be like, "Well, I mean, I gotta go to work, provide for my family. 

I got, I gotta pay the bills. I..." Prudence would say, "Just don't go there." But that was not the proper interpretation of the message. The proper interpretation of the message was he already knew that this was coming. This was just the fulfillment of what God had already promised. But if you don't get the teaching of the word You stop at the hard things. 

You just stop. You just say, "Nope. No, I'm, I don't go there." That's why we gotta have ourselves under the teaching of the Word. If the goal is to grow in Christ, and that happens through the Word, we all of us, have to make it our priority to put ourselves under the teaching of the Word Well, Jake, you're talking to the Wednesday night crowd and people watching online. 

It's the Wednesday night crowd. Yeah, we know this. Yes, we do. But we have to so much the more as we see the day approaching. Like we have to give ourselves to being in the word to reprogram all the stuff that's in there that needs to go. All right, it's time to quit. Father, thank you for this opportunity to look at this and so much to keep working on and to dig into. 

But I pray that the thing to take out of this is just how much we need the clarity of your word explained to us all and illustrated for us and applied. We desperately need it. And we thank you for how you have brought teachers to all of us all throughout our development. You have placed us in the hands of those that have been faithful to teach your word. 

And we pray that you would continue to raise up folks in this ministry, this church, that will be faithful teachers of your word so that what is happening here is able to go on and to go on and to go on for your glory. But also for those that are searching for the truth can find a place where they can come and get the word and get your message and understand who you are. 

So make us that place, I pray. In Jesus' name. Amen.