Feeding the sheep!

[votivesoul]

Originally Posted by Esaias

So, how best to fulfill the obligation to teach?

I find there is more good to be found in teaching by example and by letting the student learn by doing.

Devotional instruction is important. I don't knock it at all. But much of it goes to head knowledge only. That's only half the battle. The other is heart knowledge, getting the truths of God's Word down deep, and that only comes through experience.

Many saints read, study, and take notes, and can quote Scriptures all day, but don't know how to be led by the Spirit moment to moment. They have no functional awareness of the activity of God.

There is a difference, for example, in teaching someone a great lesson on prayer. A whole three month series could be taught. But that's theory only. It has to be applied and practiced. Beginning to pray, and leading a person to an awareness on how to serve the Lord in prayer, how to listen, how move and flow with the Holy Spirit is completely different.

I think oral, devotional instruction should be more about equipping the saints to feed themselves in that way. More should be taught regarding life in the Spirit. A teacher's main duty is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry for the edifying of the Body. Traditional doctrinal exegesis doesn't do a whole lot to accomplish that calling, in my opinion.

For example, I could put together a six week class on how to drive. I could go page by page through the manual, with some great anecdotes, slideshow presentations, and witty insights. But no one learns to drive a car by merely reading the driver handbook.

It's the same with the ministry of teaching. No one learns how to live for God just by reading the Book. A Christian has to get behind the wheel, so to speak.

Consider this: Jesus told Peter "Feed my sheep". But earlier in John, Jesus told the disciples "I have meat to eat you know not of...My meat is to do the will of the Father who sent me".

When we think of feeding God's sheep, we think merely of teaching them the Bible. We rarely think of teaching a saint how to seek, discover, ascertain, understand, and fulfill God's personalized will for their life. That's the true feeding Jesus wants us to do.