You Ought to Be Teachers! (2)

For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. Hebrews 5.12

Getting started
Every person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ is responsible to teach other Christians the things of the Lord. You ought to be a teacher, just like every other Christian, using your words and conversations to build others up in the life of faith and urge them on to works of love (Heb. 10.24).

This is not an option, friends. It simply comes with the territory. Follow Jesus; be a teacher. We are all charged with the duty of teaching, first, one another in the church, for the edification its members (Eph. 4.29). The sooner we accept this charge, and quit rationalizing our way out of it, the sooner we can get on with understanding what this entails and beginning to practice it faithfully.

The writer of Hebrews goes on in this passage to say, albeit indirectly, that we only learn to teach by teaching; “constant practice” is what brings maturity in any area of the life of faith, including our calling to teach (Heb. 5.14, my translation).

So the sooner you get started teaching, the better you’ll become at it.

The goal of our teaching
There are a few precepts to keep in mind, however, as we begin to take up this task of teaching our fellow believers.

First, we need to make sure of our objective. Paul says we should use our words to build one another up in the Lord (Eph. 4.29; 1 Thess. 5.11). We don’t teach our fellow believers merely to impress them with what we know. Or just because we think we should say a few nice words about the Lord. Our goal is mutual edification so that we might continue to grow as followers of the Lord.

What does that mean? Well, we can’t build something if we don’t have a blueprint, or if we don’t understand what the finished product is supposed to look like. Unless we have a good understanding of what a mature Christian is, it’s going to be kind of hard to build up our fellow believers.

Peter commands us to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ (2 Pet. 3.18). Presumably, therefore, becoming mature in the Lord – a goal to which we want to contribute by our teaching – is the objective of Christian growth. So we will need to have a clear understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, one who lives as Jesus did (Phil. 2.1-11).

Sent like Jesus
Let’s remember what we said in the first installment in this series on following Jesus. Jesus is sending us, His followers, into the world the same way the Father sent Him (Jn. 20.21). This means looking to the Lord Jesus, taking up His agenda, and embracing the roles Jesus fulfilled while He walked among us.

The father sent Jesus to seek the lost (Lk. 19.10). We will be maturing in the Lord when we, like Jesus, have a mind to seek and save the lost as well. Our teaching should be aimed at building other believers up as witnesses for the Lord. One way to do this is to encourage your fellow believers to map out their Personal Mission Fields, as you have done.

Further, Jesus said that He came not to be served but to serve; He showed us how to be servants in that upper room, when He washed the disciples’ feet (Jn. 13.1-15). We should, therefore, be teaching one another to become servants of the Lord, people who set aside our own interests and needs to reach out and care for others.

But Jesus also declared that He was the “good shepherd” of His flock (Jn. 10.14). As such He worked hard to build loving relationships, to teach and care for His friends, and to guard them from danger. If we’re growing as Christians, shouldn’t we be shepherds, too?

And, of course, Jesus was a sower of God’s Word and a good steward of everything entrusted to Him. When, therefore, we think about using our conversations and other teaching opportunities to build-up and encourage our fellow believers, these are the kinds of roles we hope to help them fulfill.

Eyes on the prize
So we need to know what we’re trying to accomplish as we begin to teach our fellow believers. And what we’re trying to accomplish is that we might all increase in the upward calling that leads us into more of Jesus.

But we also need to know what’s available to us for teaching. Here the writer of Hebrews offers two categories of truth: milk and solid food. “Milk” relates to the basic doctrines of the life of faith (6.1-3) – the doctrine of Christ, repentance from sins, believing in God and trusting Him in all our ways, participating in the life of the church and following church leaders (“washings” and “laying on of hands”), the hope of resurrection, and the promise of eternal life.

It’s good to be reminded of these, but we must not be content with only these. We need to move on to “solid food” – the more difficult and demanding teachings of Scripture and the doctrines of Christian faith.

Our calling to teach other believers requires that we grow in both the milk and the solid food of God’s Word. Only then can we teach other believers so that they might grow to maturity in the Lord.

For reflection
1.  What have been some teachings that have been most important to your growth as a follower of Jesus? Why?

2.  How would you explain what it means to be maturing as a follower of Jesus?

3.  In what ways can you see that the roles Jesus fulfilled require us to be teachers of one another?

Next steps – Conversation: Talk with a fellow believer about our calling to be teachers. How has he or she tried to fulfill this calling?

T. M. Moore

This week’s study, You Ought to Be Teachers!, is Part 2 of a 5-part series on Following Jesus.Each week’s study is available in a free PDF which you can download by clicking here. Watch the video on our Mission Partners Outreach for more information about how you can begin to follow Jesus in your Personal Mission Field (click here).

Want to learn more about your Christian worldview? Our free online course, One in Twelve, is available any time, and at no charge. Click here to learn more about this helpful and challenging introduction to Christian worldview, presented by T. M. Moore.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.