Ephesians 4:7-16: Spiritual gifts –pastor teacher, part 12.

Tuesday December 7, 2021

Sound teaching from good teachers is the way towards wisdom and righteousness. Fortresses of lies crumble before the truth.

In the introduction to the Book of Proverbs, chapters 1-9, wisdom (Hebrew: chokmah) speaks in chapter 8. Let’s look at a portion.

Pro 8:8-14

“All the utterances of my mouth are in righteousness;

There is nothing crooked or perverted in them.

9 They are all straightforward to him who understands,

And right to those who find knowledge.

10 Take my instruction, and not silver,

And knowledge rather than choicest gold.

11 For wisdom is better than jewels;

And all desirable things can not compare with her.

12 I, wisdom, dwell with prudence,

And I find knowledge and discretion.

13 The fear of the Lord is to hate evil;

Pride and arrogance and the evil way,

And the perverted mouth, I hate.

14 Counsel is mine and sound wisdom;

I am understanding, power is mine.”

At the start, we find the reason for the problem of the rule of lies that eventually affects every society – either no one is heralding the truth or no one is listening. In our case, currently in America, enough are heralding the truth, but almost none of the media are carrying it, and a lot of people don’t care as long as their lives are comfortable enough and distracted with enough entertainment.

Pro 8:1

Does not wisdom call,

And understanding lift up her voice?

Fulfillment of life and completeness of purpose are both wrapped up in faith in God’s revelation of Himself and His will.

All of the achievements in the natural world add up to nothing in comparison to the person who has a real and personal relationship with God through knowledge of Him and faith in that knowledge. I would add that in our interaction with one another through our service; the use of our spiritual gifts, our knowledge of God grows, along with our growth through biblical studies, as we are challenged with one another and share our understanding with one another.

We noted Joh 17:3 several times in our study of the shepherd / teacher – that eternal life is the knowledge of the Father and His Son.

Teaching: the knowledgeable giving their knowledge to the less knowledgeable.

Tit 2:3-5

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips, nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, 4 that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be dishonored.

“Older women” (presbutis) is the feminine of its male counterpart you read in vs. 2 (presbutes). It is of the same root, obviously, as presbuteros, which is elder. It would be impossible to put an age qualification on the word, but Hippocrates uses the word for a person over 49. It should be looked at as our instinct tells us; someone with enough experience in life to be an old-hat at it.

Our point is that the older women are to be teachers of what is good. This is one Greek word, kalodidaskalos, which is the word for teacher prefixed with a word for “good.”

Teaching: knowledgeable to knowledgeable – reinforcing through reminder.

2Pe 3:1-2

This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.

Peter than goes on to remind them that the world will be judged and then destroyed. And knowing that, what sort of people should we be in holy conduct and godliness?

Also, knowledge is useless if it cannot be practically used. One must be skillful with knowledge.

If you do not apply what you learn, you will lose that knowledge.

The word of God is meant for application. Therefore, in some ways you are your own teacher. By attempting to put the truth into practice, you are discovering the depths of knowledge of God yourself, with the help of the Holy Spirit of course.

This knowledge is not like memorizing statistics, like baseball stats, because what we are trying to learn is about a Person. We must not get lost in the word of God, forgetting why we are looking into it in the first place, we are trying to come to know God.

A. W. Tozer writes about the failure of Christians to continue to pursue God, who are content to know little about God and pursue their own lives. “In the midst of this great chill there are some, I rejoice to acknowledge, who will not be content with shallow logic. They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, “O God, show me Your glory.” They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eyes the wonder that is God.” He continues, “I want to encourage this mighty longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our present low estate. The stiff and wooden quality about our religious lives is a result of our lack of holy desire. Complacency is a deadly foe of spiritual growth. Acute desire must be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His people. He waits to be wanted.”

He goes on to write about the many religious activities that the church involves herself in while forgetting to long after the heart of the Lord Himself. All the programs, events, schools, church buildings, and even the Bible itself is worthless if our religion is not making each of us like little Christ’s, or Christians conformed in mind, body, and soul into His image.

He also writes about seeking “God – and”. “In the and lies our great woe. If we omit the and we shall soon find God, and in Him we shall find that for which we have been all our lives secretly longing.”

By the and, I think he means the material things that we would like, that we think would make us happy. It might be the removal of an embarrassing habit or a someone to remove our loneliness, or physical health, or better circumstances. And we might agree that God will certainly do all of those things, but they are not the main thing. He wants us to know Him. He wants us to see Him and hear Him and walk with Him and to know that that alone is enough. If that is true then the other things will not matter.

God is a Person, and as such we can cultivate our relationship with Him.

It is inherent in personality to be able to know other personalities, but full knowledge of a person cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of a relationship can be explored.

“God is a person, and in the deep of His mighty nature, He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may.” [A. W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God]

Moses sought His glory, and God showed him what was possible. David sought to know God and so many of his psalms ring with the joy of discovery. Paul confessed that his whole life was the burning desire to discover Christ.

Phi 3:8-11

More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; 11 in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.