LABORING IN THE WORD AND TEACHING (2)
First Timothy 2:4 tells us that God desires everyone to be saved. In addition to this, God desires that every saved one have the full knowledge of the truth. But it bothers me that we are not like this. In the past twelve years, as a farmer I have grown a lot of groceries for all of you, and thank the Lord that you have bought them and stored them. However, the only sad thing is that you do not cook them much, and you do not eat them much. This is not proper. We have the groceries, but we do not have sufficient cooking, and we do not have enough eating. All the groceries are lying there as a waste.
Learn to handle the word of Christ, which is the word of life. First, we have to let the word of Christ, the living person, dwell in us. Then we speak by teaching. Ephesians 5:19 says, “Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” but Colossians 3:16 says, “Teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.” Speaking is somewhat liberal, but teaching is with regulations. We all have to pick up the living word of the living Lord and then teach one another. Learn this. This is a word not only to the leaders, the elders, but to all the saints. Let the word of Christ dwell in you, teaching in all wisdom…In order to teach in all wisdom, you must first learn the word in all wisdom. If you do not study the Bible with all wisdom, how could you teach it with all wisdom? In John 6:63 the Lord said, “The words which I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.” Whatever we teach, whatever we speak, should be words of life.
The elders should be apt to teach and should labor in word and in teaching (1 Tim. 3:2; 5:17). All these words should be the healthy words (6:3; 2 Tim. 1:13), and the teaching should be according to godliness (1 Tim. 6:3). In 1 Timothy godliness simply means God manifested in the flesh (3:16). This means that you have to practice the principle of incarnation. When you speak, when you teach the healthy words of the Lord Jesus, you must exercise yourself to such an extent that people can see God manifested in you. This is to teach, to speak, according to godliness. This requires much learning and much practice.
We should not be that ignorant, remaining in the darkness of today’s Christianity. Today there is just darkness, but the light is shining here in the Lord’s recovery. We should get into the light so that we could be enlightened, rescued, and delivered from our ignorance. I surely look to the Lord that you would take this word and have a turn to practice what the Lord is doing today. (CWWL, 1985, vol. 3, “The Home Meetings–the Unique Way for the Increase and the Building Up of the Church”, pp. 173-174)
The church in Zamboanga 