Learn and Teach

Hebrews 5:11-14 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
 
HEBREWS pauses in his teaching about Jesus the High Priest. He strongly encourages the church to mature in their learning, so they can teach the ways of righteousness, to distinguish good and evil. Teach God’s salvation. Teach people to know and obey God’s commands.
   Our Lord God is very adamant that each Bible learner be a Bible teacher. For example, in Deuteronomy Moses implores Israel that these commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:6-9)
   The commandments are the way of righteousness. They teach you to distinguish right from wrong. If you don’t know the commandments, how can you teach them to your children, grandchildren, friends and others who must know? Hebrews does not say you ought to be teachers if you are gifted. The result of our learning is to teach. Know God. Tell others of God.
   But they seem to have a learning problem. They need to get beyond the instructions from sermons and Bible studies to put their faith into action. Too often Christians define the depth of their faith by the  number of Bible studies they attend or books they read about the Bible. These are good and necessary means of learning. But the mature learning comes in living the Word. Living the Word grows the Word in you.  
   It is very disheartening as a teacher to ask a basic question of God’s Word in a Bible class and get no response. People either don’t know or they have no confidence to answer the question. If they are not sure of a basic answer among other Christians, how can they be sure of the answer when someone confronts them with a challenge to the Bible’s truth? How can someone unsure of the Bible live into what the Bible teaches?
   It is impossible to live God’s Word if we do not know God’s Word. It’s impossible to be the church if we are continually drinking milk, complacent in our pews, when we should be eating the solid food of faithful work in God’s commandments.
   Jesus needed his apostle to know and live the truth. Otherwise the church would go nowhere. He needs you to do the same today. Otherwise the church will go nowhere. What do you do with what you know?