Serving God’s People With the Word

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In case some of you were wondering...something that we had discussed was to come prepared with a passage of Scripture that’s been particularly meaningful to you. Something that God’s really lit up. Something that might be the type of thing that you might share and teach from. I’m sure that there’s passages like that, probably many passages.

We’ll get into the practical side of things of how to go about doing that in a way that can be useful on a broader basis than just your own personal relationship with God. Find a passage that does have some riches in it, that lights your fire, but maybe you have or haven’t mined it for that which can be spread abroad. Whichever way it is let’s talk about it.

Again, there’s an organic, Christ-centered life way to do that and then there is an academic, theologian’s nonsensical, unspiritual way to do that. Guess which one we intend to talk about? Many of us have been trained in the latter. I’ve found that appalling, but there is an alternative. Extracting the life of Christ for serving God’s people with the Word as opposed to approaching it on an academic basis.

By way of example, I regularly hear feedback from other places, as well as locally about the usefulness of the Romans evenings. I cite that as an example because it was very tempting for me, out of my own personal security needs, to fall back on an old way to approach such a problem as teaching from passages of Scriptures for an extended basis. The old way of handling something like that is to read a bunch of stuff that’s been written on it, to go into the commentaries, to delve into the Greek word studies, to try to build something and then somehow commit it to memory in some way or another. That comes out of either a misguided attempt to serve God based on our past experiences, or observations of other people or our education in seminary or Bible school. Or it comes out of flat insecurity, not being willing to trust God for insights and a comprehensible message from God’s heart centered around this passage of Scripture.

It was tempting for me, and I never gave into that temptation, but there was never one of those evenings coming up that I didn’t feel some tension. “God, I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t have a confidence that I’m going to be able to touch Your heart tonight in this thing coming up, if we even get into Romans at all tonight. I don’t have a confidence that I can touch Your heart and really extract from these things and present these things in a way that can be helpful to Your people in a way that makes sense viewed from the forest as well as from the tree. I don’t know how to go about that.”

Again and again, His answer was, “My strength is perfected in weakness. If you really want God’s people to hear from Me rather than from You, then shut up and trust Me.” Don’t handle this thing in the way you would thermodynamics or heat transfer or some other academic subject that you’re desiring to communicate to somebody else. This is meant to be a channel from heaven, not a bunch of thoughts being communicated from one mind to other minds. So, there’s a whole way of approaching this thing on a practical basis that involves a mind controlled by the Spirit, rather than the Spirit controlled by the mind. We’ll talk some about that and give examples from the passages you bring, whatever those may be. We’ll look at the right way and the wrong way to prepare our lives and hearts to handle the Word of God.

Again, in a practical sense as it relates to corporate gatherings or living room situations, the net result of this, I believe, ought to be that in addition to, “I have a song” before dinner or, “I have a song that I’ve been singing around the house a lot lately.” Or, “I have a reading from a Watchman Nee book that has really meant a lot to me.” Those are typical things that happen around dinners or around smaller or larger gatherings, right? In addition to those things, the net result of God helping us through all of this would be before dinner... “There’s a passage in Colossians 2 that I want to read and expound upon.” You may not use the word “expound.” I’m using that for your benefit here, so you know what I’m trying to say. “There’s a passage that I would like to read and (expound upon) for a couple of minutes before we eat. Man shall not live by bread alone.” And you will take the time to go through that passage and point out the things that are meat, the things that are potentially life-changing and apply them in a way that will change their life.

Remember it says in Romans 10, “How can one hear unless someone proclaims to them?” Remember the Ethiopian eunuch reading the book of Isaiah for himself, a very intelligent, competent man. “How can I understand unless someone explains it to me?” We’re talking about a process of explaining. Not simply reading, not simply talking about it, but explaining and expounding upon, to mine the depth and the riches, to be able to apply these things in practical and profound ways that touch the nerve of the heart in the people’s lives that are in the room where you are. That’s what we’re talking about.

So, that’s what I would anticipate a large increase in. Not just sharing songs that have been meaningful to us but sharing passages of Scripture and expounding. Or themes of Scripture, thoughts of God and being able to and desirous of “apt to teach, able to teach, skillful in teaching.” Skillful in teaching the Word of God. Apt to do it, anxious to do it, ready to do it, on the edge of your seat to do it. Apt to teach. These are marks of those that are overseers or those that are competent or responsible in God’s house, are those that are apt to teach. They’re willing to do it. They’re willing to offer a sacrifice, to bring service with the Word. They want to sacrifice themselves to do that.