Defining "Teach"
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What I want to add into that mix, because I believe that it’s God’s will for us, and I also believe that it’s essential for God’s people to prosper. What I want to add into that mix are a group of people, if not all -- you all ought to be teachers by now. If not all of God’s people, at least a starting place of God’s people that are committed to being workmen, approved by God, following God’s commission to us to go and teach. By “teach,” let me add in this lengthy description again: a comprehensive, thorough explanation of the counsel of God regarding a particular subject. A comprehensive, thorough evaluation of God’s heart and mind on a particular theme.
The only way that is ever going to happen…exhortation comes from the overflow of a moment, an admonishment, a prophetic utterance comes from the overflow of a moment. The only way THIS is going to happen, where things are stirring in a gathering and event after event is stirred, and one of the things that is stirred is a person that has stored up within themselves the counsel of God on a theme or a subject or a passage, with an eye toward feeding God’s people, not just himself. Being then a sacrificial servant with the word, devoted to prayer and service with the word. A sacrificial servant with the word of God as the tool.
If I’m a servant with a broom, I’m going to use that broom to sweep a floor to accomplish a task. If I’m a servant with a hammer, I’m going to use that hammer to accomplish a task. If I’m a servant with the word, it’s my task to accomplish a goal by using the word as the tool to accomplish that goal. Prayer and service with the word. That’s what I’m encouraging you all in, to view your lives, moving in this direction to go and teach. Don’t be afraid of teaching. As we’ve sought to understand the ways of God and to uproot and to oust the things that have been canned and inappropriate in the garbage of our pasts and religious things like that...I think there have been certain things that we’ve backed away from because they’ve been abused in the past. Surely, they have -- clergy-laity is a terrible abuse of this thing that we’re talking about, but none of us in here are clergy and laity. You know that already. You don’t need anyone else to convince you of that.
You know what Jesus said in Matthew 23 about we’re all brothers. I think we’ve learned to live that out well over the last decade, that we’re all brothers. But being all brothers doesn’t mean that He couldn’t say to the exact same people 5 chapters later, “Go and teach.” He told them to go and teach. He said don’t let anyone call you teacher. It’s not a position. But go and teach to the exact same people 5 chapters later in Matthew.
