Last
night I was in church and our pastor was reading a passage of scripture before
his message and one of the verses seemed to jump off the page at me. The verse
was 2 Timothy 2:2.
“And the things that thou hast heard of
me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be
able to teach others also.”
Here
Paul was instructing the young preacher Timothy that he was to remember the
things that he heard Paul teach and preach. Then Timothy was to teach others
the things that Paul had taught him.
I’m
afraid too many of us are living the Christian life like it is a sprint instead
of relay. A sprinter is concerned only about himself. The only concern that a
sprinter has is to make sure he gets to the finish line in first place. This is
the way that many Christians are living their lives. They are only concerned
about their own life, or only the life of their family. As long as they make it
to heaven, or as long as they understand the scriptures then that is good enough
for them.
From
Paul’s description in this verse the Christian life should be a relay. A relay
is run by a team of people who run as hard as they can, and then they pass on
the baton to someone else who can run after they are finished. This is the way the
Christian life is to be lived.
One
of the darkest times in history, in fact we refer to it as the “dark ages”, was
when the church decided that the average man should not be able to read or
understand the Bible. The church felt that it was better that the average man
just took the priest’s word concerning the scriptures instead of reading and
learning for himself. The church was so strong in this belief that they even persecuted
and even killed those who would try to translate the Bible into a language the
average man could understand. This brought on a great deal of false religion,
traditionalism, and false doctrine. The main reason that the church wanted
these people in the dark was because that means they could not be held
accountable for the things that they taught.
Sadly
this is the way that some so called “men of God” want their people to be. They do
not want their people to know as much as them, definitely not more. For if
their people knew the truths of the Bible this would mean they would be more
accountable for the things that they preached and taught. God help us when we
delight in the ignorance of the scriptures!
Paul
wanted to be held accountable for what he said. He said that the church who
studied the scriptures for themselves were “noble.” And in the verse I mentioned
earlier he wanted Timothy to teach others, so they in turn could teach others.
It
should be our desire to learn all we can about the scriptures, and then pass
that knowledge along to someone else. I want my children to be better
Christians than I am. I want my Sunday school class to study along, and be wise
in the scriptures so that they can teach someone else the things that I have
taught to them. In fact, when I am the most discouraged, regarding my class, is
when I feel like that those I teach do not fully understand what I have taught
them.
God help us to live our Christian life like it is a relay. Help us to pass along the baton of the scriptures to someone else, so they can do the same. How can the word of God live on if we are not teaching and training someone who can do the same? The answer is that it cannot.