0:31
intention to move on uh to the next of the of the four items that are listed in Acts 2:42 which is fellowship and I do hope we'll have a a good conversation regarding that word
0:43
and the meaning of it um but over the past few weeks it's um it's become apparent that in discussing the Teaching Ministry I kind of hit a hot button uh I
0:55
don't know that I've had nearly as many comments after class U and even from those who have have had to watch over the video uh or weren't able to watch
1:05
over the video but heard someone else talking about it so I wasn't really expecting this but then as I said last week one of the most important aspects of teaching is the
1:15
feedback and so um two issues that have come up consistently with regard to our discussion of the Teaching Ministry of the church have been uh questioned do
1:29
you need to go to Seminary uh to be a pastor to be an elder Fellowship Bible Church that was one kind of Avenue and the other had to do with teaching of children uh so we have kind of both
1:42
spectrums men who are considering a Teaching Ministry do I have to go to Seminary and then uh parents um who have small children and wondering you know how do I raise them
1:54
in the honor and admonition of the Lord uh both of which are are are great concerns and I'm not sure I can do justice to to either one of them but I'm going to try to touch on them and then
2:05
again very very open to questions and comments um because I think this is you know it's hitting near to home to some some folks uh on the issue of Seminary the
2:16
the the answer the the official answer is no uh there there's no requirement of Seminary to be an elder at Fellowship
2:27
Bible Church um and yet that there's there's a more nuanced more nuanced answer um that really says it's kind of up to
2:37
up to you uh I made the comment when we talked about that several weeks ago that I went to Seminary because I needed that external deadline that external
2:48
curriculum to to Really re retach me how to learn that is not something that schools teach children I don't know if you've noticed that but our public schools and
3:00
and our private schools they they really don't teach children how to learn public schools are essentially teaching to the test and the private schools are
3:12
teaching in competition with other the all the other private schools um but the interest of a learning generation is not really part of our educational
3:23
system it really hasn't been for quite a long time so when I went to high school I was not taught for example how many people know how to take notes is that something that we're just
3:34
born with you know this innate ability to take notes I taught a note-taking class as part of the Milton Academy and as I started the class I was talking
3:44
about the purpose of the class but as I was talking about the purpose of the class I was writing on the board Mary had a little lamb this much you've heard before okay
3:55
the but did you know that Mary went and had a little more um but I'm right wrting the little Mary Had a Little Lamb on the board as I'm talking about something completely different and then I stopped I said now what do you have in
4:07
your notebook Mary had a little lamb okay so our our innate understanding of note taking is to write down what the professor writes on the board okay and
4:19
often times that means you're not actually listening to what he or she is saying I think that's a little different now a lot of students are snapping a photo during or even audio you know uh
4:31
listen mhm it's a little different that's effective or yeah because if you've got I mean if you were in one of my classes you would see that the notes are in an outline format you know Roman
4:41
numeral 1 a 1 two 3 you know um when you pull that up three weeks from now to study for the exam there's no context so
4:51
some of them are actually audio you know they put their phone out and they they they record the audio now whether they have time to go back back and relisten to it is is suspect but at least it's an
5:03
attempt to preserve the actual event of the teaching um but nonetheless the point being that we're not really taught to learn in school um and so in my
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experience when I that was also true throughout College throughout my undergraduate um but I went to Seminary
5:25
at 30 something okay um at at that that point what was it 30 35 uh no it couldn't have been because I
5:37
went before I went to Seminary in 93 so 30 31 30 something like that uh there I just gave my age okay so those of you those of you who can do math um but at that
5:49
point having been in industry in a career you know I'm I'm now like I need to take this seriously how do I do this Yuri you had your yeah so my students
6:11
to I had two quizzes where it seemed like they were taking bad not and I deci they okay all
6:24
right why don't you give them quizzes with the answers already on them and see how they do okay maybe pass then um so I guess what I'm saying then is that we're
6:34
not we're not born it's kind of an an irony or or dichotomy here we are actually born natural Learners and the education system
6:45
destroys that so that by the time generally we by the time we graduate high school we're not really interested in learning anymore uh we think we know what we know we know enough to get a job
6:56
that's all we need or we know enough to get into college and then we're specialized into you know I'm I'm a I'm a doctor I focus on fingernails you know it's like the Specialties so we we lose
7:10
sight of the big picture there are very few people that you could call Renaissance men who or polymaths that was the word of the the the early modern
7:20
era somebody somebody who was um Adept in many different subjects rather than just focusing on one but our economy everything in our world kind of drives
7:31
us into a Nar narrower and narrower um SLO as far as what is what do we need to know for our job so we we begin life as
7:42
natural Learners and then that's slowly beaten out of us actually ironically by our education system so when we want to
7:52
learn about God we want to be Disciples of Christ we have to realize that very few of us are naturally prepared to learn so you know how do we deal with
8:03
our children when they're at the age of naturally um wanting to learn I think one of the dangers is that we we want to give them too
8:14
much and the analogy I want to use is is um the advice I give to parents who are homeschooling small children and they're struggling uh with things like history
8:26
and geography um and my comment is is that it's very hard to teach anyone history who doesn't understand the relationship between their parents and their grandparents in other words they don't
8:37
they don't understand the passing of time yet anyhow right uh their concept of generations their concept of their concept of History has not yet formed
8:49
and we're trying to teach them about Napoleon it's just stories okay and geography is the same way you know um they if they don't know where they are
8:59
in the world themselves they have no context to know where anything else is in the world it might as well be Middle Earth or Narnia uh when you talk about
9:10
Ukraine okay it's a so there's a the point being is that there is a cumulative impact of learning and there are places to begin laying the
9:22
foundation before you begin building the house um and I I think that a lot of of even homeschoolers are following curricula that have been essentially
9:34
developed by the public education system modified to be Christian of course we take Evolution out put Creation in but if you look at the curricula it pretty
9:44
much follows the grade school system in the public education system and if we if we're homeschooling to avoid that education system that maybe we should
9:55
also avoid the pattern by which that education system operates okay and and really kind of come up with our own uh in the
10:06
in the church we do believe that it is important to offer um education opportunities that
10:17
are adjusted to age now I made the comment last week that an adult convert is as a child in the
10:30
Lord but that adult does have a lot more uh intellectual ammunition to work with than a than a four-year-old okay so I'm not suggesting
10:42
that if we have you know an adult new you know newborn Christian that we put him in Sunday school um you know with the with the that's not the point uh but as we teach our own
10:54
children it is it is very possible that as we're learning we're as I said last week we're putting meat on their plates when they should have a glass of milk and that in
11:07
learning the doctrines of Christianity I think it's it's important to establish the basic principles of sin and salvation of the
11:19
Holiness of God and of the sacrifice of Christ we can if they're old enough we can bring in the history of Israel which by the way in the second temple period
11:31
that was a common genre of literature was a retelling it's what Steven does in Acts 7 it's what Paul does in Romans 8 it's a retelling of the story of Israel
11:43
okay beginning with Abraham and going on through it was a maintenance of their National Hope was to retell the story um and we we can do that with our children
11:55
to solidify that Foundation before before we get into the doctrines of justification and of eschatology and things that are are
12:06
probably well beyond their natural ability to absorb and even for a new believer often beyond their ability to
12:17
understand um so we have to be careful in all in all age groups that we're not feeding meat to babes and causing them to choke it seems like School curricula are
12:33
very story but not in any kind ofad narrative context it's just story about I don't know Daniel and the lion Den about know
12:44
serving God and not down to idols and that's all it's about there's no yeah they're they're they're morality stories um and
12:54
um and when years ago back in the 90s um we were reviewing the curriculum that was used in the church
13:06
for years for the Sunday school and and it was put out by a by an organization called Gospel Light Li I
13:17
ght uh I changed that to Gospel Light lit te because it was a third less filling um reduce calories I mean most of the stuff that you buy what church
13:27
the churches Buy is really not even milk it's it's like colored spit and it's pretty
13:37
pictures but it really hasn't and often times the theology itself is wrong so I guess that's a that's a really good point at no point should our theology be wrong there at no point you can't say
13:49
and there are some who say Well they're too young for Calvinism now there you're you're never too young for the truth it's just how that truth is being
14:00
given I think it's notable and tting this by but I think it's not that most of your Bible isn't application heavy and it
14:10
and it isn't theology heavy most of your Bible is Nar right to to follow that
14:20
Faithfully is almost to it's like you're doing the work just by rolling along with the way scripture presents it to yes and no because that same story is
14:32
presented in many different ways in different denominations in dispensationalism of course presents it a completely different way by dividing up the history of God's Redemptive plan Roman
14:43
Catholicism sees in it the incarnational church okay church okay so that's an excellent point I mean if if you it is it is almost entirely
14:54
narrative um it's not a lot of application not a lot of of exhortation and even the paulan Epistles are mostly um
15:05
mostly um background and then issues that are going on in that particular Church um I do think that the the telling and retelling of God's Redemptive plan
15:15
should be a part of our curriculum and it should begin at the beginning and move all the way through um so that there is that that kind of repetitive Foundation of what God is
15:28
doing Ariel well that impera to tell the story properly which Aaron I think just brought up bringing out is not the child
15:39
or the student imperative it is the teacher it's the teacher's imperative which is why we're told not let let not many of you become teachers you encour right it is the teachers imperative it is the parents imperative
15:51
it is the pastors absolutely it is not the student to and and this is true in our educational system you know it's not the students the students responsibility to to impart the
16:02
information in the proper uh order emphasis um and and it also with a with a parent as well as a pastor that order
16:13
and emphasis while it while it's objectively the same the order is the same because it's in our scriptures how we go about it is largely based on our
16:24
children or our congregants okay where where are they coming from from at Fellowship Bible Church 30 years ago 25 years ago just about everybody was
16:35
coming out of an Armenian dispensational background you know that's a different point at which you know that one of the first things you have to do in that narrative is to Tear Down the Walls that
16:47
divide the divide the abrahamic dispensation from the Mosaic dispensation you know you have to reconnect the narrative because these people have been hearing for
16:59
years that no we're not connected to Israel we're the church okay so you where you start and if your child has well none of your children are identical
17:10
in their learning abilities um and so you have to work personally with each one okay so yeah it's absolutely the imperative of the teacher to present it
17:21
to present the narrative and and this is why I talked about biblical theology which has greatly suffered within the Reformed Church tradition okay and and those of us who are from the reformed
17:32
tradition or from a more academic tradition are prone to being too academic everything is systematized okay today we're going to talk about
17:43
justification or we're going to talk about soteriology or we're going to talk about adoption we talk about individual theological points but all of those as Aaron was
17:53
saying they actually flow out of the narrative I mean the the doctor of adoption I will be their PE their God they shall be my people they shall be my sons and daughters you know is is the
18:04
story of God taking for himself a people and then Paul calls it adoption so it's the story that came first not the doctrine you know so um I don't know if
18:16
that is helpful in terms of teaching your children but from the perspective of Fellowship Bible Church the reason why we have the different um Sunday School classes is so that the teaching
18:28
is is more age appropriate biologically faced with those um shallow colorful store bought what we
18:39
did back in the 90s is we we wrote curriculum uh studying the gospel of of John for example and we would love for that to
18:50
that to continue you know if especially from the parents if if they you know want to take the time and and write a curriculum on on some aspect of the the gospel or the
19:03
biblical narrative for the Sunday School level that's exactly what Mark and Martha did back in the 90s was they just just took their time and and wrote this
19:15
um we have three we have three um acts Philippians and John yeah Sermon on the Mount yes that was actually
19:27
written for Women's Bible study um but it's still I mean these were unbelievers so it's more it is actually a little bit more Evangelistic so we've done this and these have been you know in the church
19:38
and we use them in the Sunday schools so that's good material but it's written for an age appropriate level and we would more than welcome any adults who wish to do that as well um that would be
19:51
fantastic uh it's it's not something that we find that we have the time to do anymore but it's necessary so it's really a congregation together type
20:02
thing we don't buy the curriculum anymore in fact we were challenged by that years ago why don't you just buy even when we did um our trips down to Miami back in the late 90s early 2000s
20:15
with we had a youth group at the time and we would do a VBS at a church in uh Little Havana Little Havana Cayo um and did that for four years and
20:28
then we also did construction work and helped them you know build dormitories and things like that but leading up to that in the months leading up to that trip the youth
20:38
group themselves prepared their own VBS and we were challenged why why do you do it that way why don't you just buy something well because our responsibility is to teach the youth
20:49
group at Fellowship Bible Church this this was not really about the church in cocho this was about the the the teenagers in our own
21:00
fellowship and so while they were going to teach and this is kind of a principle they needed to learn first okay and and teaching is one of the most
21:12
uh Dynamic forms of learning if you take it seriously the teacher is always learning because in order to be to maintain a position of the teacher you got to stay at least one
21:25
step ahead of the students okay Yu enous issue it's but people come to me them if you want to ever talk about
21:38
alternative theology you learn in chap or what you hear in your church I'm here and inevitably someone will say my P is going Revelation he's just reading it
21:50
he's not putting any of his own thoughts and he's just as he preaching a sermon he is he is if you're doing a Bible study from
22:01
anything any of the sets like Warby or whatever they're like but he's just expositing the Bible he's not putting any of his own I'm like there's a thing
22:27
notal don't know about H okay well I I'm sure I mean we we did have I remember years ago one of the elders instead of preaching a sermon just read a large section of the Gospel of John I don't think that's what he's
22:39
doing I think that's what he's convincing his people it's doing he's just giving the clear sense of the word in Revelation because Revelation is so clear we all understand what it
22:50
means um means um so in in terms of of teaching age appropriate I I do think it is like building a house we we need to lay
23:00
a solid a solid foundation and while we might be excited ourselves and and and this should be the case that you're constantly learning more from the word about God you're
23:12
learning from others who have written articles or books and you're reading and you know I never saw it that way it gives another perspective and you get to check it against what the scripture says
23:23
I I have the comment that um in the Thursday night class that the best theology is the one that uses the least duct tape and you can recognize if you read certain systems you can recognize
23:35
there's a lot of duct tape holding this together okay and you and you realize this is not biblical logic holding these principles together this is a a
23:46
framework covenantalism it might be that to me is a role of duct tape duct uh dispensationalism is just a role of duct tape holding together biblical
23:56
principles but not not in a not in a Biblical way and and so as you learn you're constantly learning you get excited and you want to you want to teach that you have to
24:08
remember like Jesus said of the disciples you're not prepared to hear you know there are many many more things I wish to say to you but you're not ready the writer of of Hebrews said You
24:19
by this time you should be teachers but you have need of milk so you have to be sensitive um to to the needs of your children while you're also and I guess this is
24:30
one of the problems that parents complain about and I I can understand it that when you have children there there is a danger of of
24:41
your intellectual level dropping to theirs and for a time that's going to happen just because you have to take care of them but there should be some
24:52
effort to maintain your own intellectual level and to increase it so that as they get older and start asking questions you can answer them
25:02
okay that's kind of the thing you get the you get the learner to the point where they want to learn and then the process kind of reaches critical mass and every statement leads to
25:15
another question or another line of investigation and you get to the point where you spend more time in the footnotes than you do in the text because you read what the person is saying and then you and then there's a
25:26
little footnote you go down all right that's a good book Amazon send me that you know um well not at that price don't send me that I'll get it out of the
25:36
library uh library uh so you you you get it it does it kind of takes on a life of its own and but what that means is is that when your children are starting to ask questions you can
25:48
give answers okay so any comments Aon just made think of of Jesus
26:10
right AB already that's already there there's a treasure and and we're told by Paul that the that that in Jesus Christ is the treasury of wisdom and knowledge so and in Romans 11 where he just kind of erupts in oh the depths of the
26:22
knowledge of the wisdom of God who can fathom I mean so we're not I love the statement in job when he talks about all the things that God has done and then says these are but the fringes of his
26:33
ways so we're not going to we're not going to Plum the bottom The Depths other end of the spectrum I guess a question it is the teacher
26:46
responsibility to teach their students from their you know from the correct position in the scriptures but teach them at the level they're at um
26:58
what do you do how do you approach a group of students who persistently only want milk and we we
27:09
don't have that situation now but we have in the past where when presented with meat there was a rejection of of that meat they just said you know
27:20
I'm not yeah that's a good point difficult or they said that's heresy yeah I don't agree with that that's not my God yeah what what are you do with people who who want a diet of milk uh
27:30
who do not want meat or reject well I mean people have the right in within a church to reject the teaching and at which point they move on to to a different Church where they're teaching
27:42
what what they want to hear what they think is correct their motives are between them and God whether they are open to actual teaching or simply just want to hear what makes them feel
27:52
comfortable or what they're used to hearing often times people do not want their cages rattled they're used to hearing a certain thing or they're used to hearing it out of the King James that that's the way it needs
28:04
to be or they're it's just too unsettling and that has happened especially when Fellowship Bible Church transitioned from Armenian dispensationalism to reformed theology
28:16
that was a very tumultuous time on many levels but one of the primary levels was doctrinal disagreements and often times it was just I I don't want to hear that
28:27
that's not my God but you know you're going to have children that way too we're not guaranteed that every one of our children just because we're Christians is going to be a child of God
28:40
we pray and hope that that's the case but there will be you'll have children who don't want to hear it and so how do you deal with that well one thing you don't do is is um Retreat from the
28:55
truth that's what so many churches do do um it is very hard to find a church I'm going to I'm going to use the number 100
29:05
maybe 150 it's very hard to find a church larger than larger than 150 that has a discernable doctrinal position and I mean that in whatever
29:17
Doctrine it may be okay now there are some that are definitely I guess more popular but even dispensationalism is not terribly popular anymore you mean if you were just to talk to the
29:32
Pi a person from would no no I mean from the Pastoral staff I mean from the pulpit okay um because I mean we do live in a postmodern contan Society where everyone is his own
29:43
expert and so essentially large churches are large because of something other than Doctrine they're large because of programs or they're large because of of
29:55
camaraderie or the music um a Winter Jam uh we just got in the mail today and invited to to Christian Winter Jam um we've done this over the year no we haven't we've never
30:09
never no not that jam Winter Jam would be lingonberry yeah no rock rock m Christian rock music um so I think one thing is you don't
30:22
retreat but I do think even as a teacher in a school setting you realize that maybe you have to to change try to change your method you
30:34
know are you are you in fact teaching this material at a too high a level can I somehow repackage it and teach the same truth in a in a manner
30:46
that's more understandable and that often does work and then often it doesn't work I mean if a person is not willing to willing to learn you can't make them Lear learn I
30:57
mean Abe you made the point that that you know I'm I can't make you learn I can't M I can't make you grow that's something that as a disciple you desire
31:08
to do okay but if you have the Holy Spirit within Spirit within you how can you not have the desire to know more about God I mean he is the one
31:20
who searches the Deep things of God Paul says and he reveals those things to us and we are again one of the most common descriptions of Believers is disciples
31:32
which is which is Learners that's what that word means it's a different issue but one thing I remember from growing up in in Sunday
31:43
School classes it does seem like children in Sunday schools can become very competitive that their their structured to be like a you know a school school
31:56
classro memory vers and you're competing with other students your knowled and I I think that probably
32:10
of understanding on the part of the teachers is what they're trying to do we're not trying to instill Bible knowledge in these children we're trying to reach the heart and create disciples
32:20
right so I'm not exactly how does that yeah that that's a good point even Sunday schools can be even with the best material they they can be essentially uh little competitive Arenas uh I do think
32:32
we should try to avoid that memorize the letters of the Greek alphabet and I was so proud that I was able to do that you know among the few who could do that what's the point of that there is no
32:44
biblical relevance that taught me nothing in my heart well but that verse I am the Alpha and the Omega just takes on new on new life all the letters in
32:55
between I I think that's what what we're getting at is as we are teaching our children whether in Sunday school or at home or as we're teaching from the pulpit or in Sunday school there needs
33:06
to be a dynamic critique um one thing that that Abigail has has discovered you know as a as a professor is that many professors
33:17
will teach through the first few years and then the same thing the rest of their tenure you know there's there's no
33:28
nothing new it's the same same course same curriculum all the paperwork is done they exchanged the mograph machine for The copier you know but other than
33:39
that there's no difference and I think that's not that's not healthy um and and I don't I think it can it's I don't know how many of you I hope it doesn't offend anybody um but it
33:50
reminds me of Professor bins the history professor at professor at Hogwarts who had actually died years before but was still teaching history class all right some of us probably can
34:02
remember some Professor bins from our school experience I was thinky
34:17
to and know's Cal op yep like you didr with and I I would tell her I aming my brains to come up with a way to present this that makes sense I've never Tau this you've never learned it before
34:28
we need to be gracious while I try to meet you the best I can and Well on a uh on an adult level analogous to that and and
34:41
many of you know Clint Hunter but Clint was was raised in a Armenian dispensational environment for his entire adult life he first started coming to the plum line classes when he
34:53
was in his 60s so he was well set in his ways but he was also vigorously desirous of learning the
35:04
will of God from the word of God he was willing to lay aside is if he could be proved through scripture that something was but that's not something you can do
35:15
you know just sitting down with your Bible proof texts it takes time Paul Paul talks um in Ephesians I think there's a very significant passage in regard to what we're talking about
35:27
um he talks about the washing of the water of the word that's a that's a beautiful metaphor I think about how you you wash
35:37
a newborn you know I don't know if it's still done the same way but basically what we were told to do is just squeeze the rag over the child not don't don't scrub the baby leave the brillo pads
35:49
under the sink um but because they're they're so sensitive at that young age that the water washes them clean because they're not out rolling in the mud
36:00
anyhow you know and and so the gentleness of it um but there are times also water is the most powerful force on Earth give enough time it will erode
36:11
anything else except perhaps Diamond I don't know but um so you have this you have this spectrum of washing that goes from just gently ringing the rag out
36:23
over the child's body to uh you know a pressure washer I think that a parent most
36:51
right but that's the most important thing for a pastor too sure or for a Sunday school teacher yeah um thank you that that's uh and I think that's what Jesus assures us that he will the holy spirit will guide us into all truth so
37:03
the I appreciate that comment because we don't want to we certainly don't want to leave the Holy Spirit out of this entire picture because if he's not involved then what we're doing uh is is a a labor
37:16
of futility you know we're we're trying to build the house and we labor in vain um so I think that the holy spirit will also give us
37:28
wisdom I guess what I struggle with it it is it has amazed me more and more as the years go
37:39
by I know the holy spirit is omnipotent but it amazes me how able we are in screwing up in his
37:49
work I mean Paul says we can grieve the Holy Spirit we can resist the Holy Spirit um we can disobey the the Holy Spirit we can lie to the Holy Spirit these are things that that we can do
38:03
ourselves so I I don't want to take for granted the role of the Holy Spirit but let's say we are immersing this in prayer and we are trying to listen to
38:15
the Holy Spirit there's there's still almost u i I hate to use the word a human wisdom because it's not from within us
38:27
within us but I mean more of a wisdom that enables us to deal with the human that we are and the humans that we're dealing with I think that's what you're saying is that
38:37
it's the holy spirit that will give that wisdom to know how to deal with different members of a congregation or of a family I think often times we have a hard time
38:48
accepting the will of the Holy Spirit yes so that we see our child
39:05
wait Willow another accept it I don't know right wait it I don't know well one of the one of the reformed principles I think is is um
39:16
both biblical and abiding is that our heart's desire should be more to the glory of God than to any other thing even to the Salvation of our
39:28
children that's a hard thing to to say but Jesus did say that if you love father mother sister brother or child you know more than me and he he said I
39:39
have not come to bring peace but I will set a father against his son and a daughter against her mother and sister against I mean there's there is no
39:50
guarantee of biological regeneration you know the fact that our children are from our bodies does not guarantee us we have a great hope I
40:01
think Paul lays that out in 1 Corinthians 7 but we have no Assurance so we do have to constantly be in tune with the Holy Spirit but I think
40:12
we also have to meditate on the glory and Majesty of God that that becomes our ultimate priority and I think that will that will actually benefit our children
40:24
more than if our emphasis is on their salvation I guess a question then to the teachers in Fellowship especially you
40:34
and Mark as you're teaching not everyone my opinion not everyone will be at the end of their life in Christ at
40:46
the same level right and yet often especially as reformed it's like we got to get you all to this you know
40:57
great so what is your goal in teaching well that's a good question what is our goal in teaching um well anybody's goal in teaching should be to
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impart knowledge sometimes your goal in teaching is just to teach without any consideration of whether anybody's getting it I think our
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goal in teaching is to as as Paul says to equip the Saints to to give what everybody needs to then
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be what everyone is called to be within the body of Christ that's that's the emphasis we're we're not to be every part of the body Mark and I are not every jointed ligament you all are all
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of us are Mark and I with all of the other believers but we have been called to equip and our instrument of equipage is the word of God
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I think the way we look at what we're preaching is what we're hearing back in our personal conversations in Sunday
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school Thursday school Thursday evenings where is the congregation in terms of uh of their ability to digest process
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and apply what we're teaching I I don't think I would have taught Roman preached from Romans 10
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ago I think 10 years ago I might have been in the Gospel of John or maybe that was 20 years ago I don't know you already preach R I taught Romans so one of the things we do have and that's that
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that's the level um the Sunday School the adult Sunday school ranges far and wide it touches upon Doctrine and history but also um
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ethics so it's it's kind of a because we're we're hoping that that in the Sunday School there's a there's a wide range of maturity the sermon is also a
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wider range of maturity because children are generally are generally listening so but then there's the Thursday night that's that's supposed to be meat okay so you might teach Romans
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on Thursday night but that's that's not how do I say it that's not necessarily as the Presbyterians would say that not a a stated time of ministry okay but
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you're saying it is well I'm saying that time of stated Ministry I'm I'm saying that it is a Ministry of worship that it is a time that we are uh gathering in
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his word I'm not saying that everybody in the congregation should attend okay I think any the greatest compliment for any teacher is for the student to want to know more right and I would imagine
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that's true for preachers yes it is and will be at the same level but everyone can want to know more yeah and and it's very important to listen to the
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feedback from the sermon from the Thursday night from the Sunday school that that that that indicates you know the teacher needs to stay ahead of the students but it's
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possible to be so far ahead that the students can't even see them anymore okay and that's no good so the to summarize the Teaching Ministry is just
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to say we do have uh multiple levels of of teaching in I guess teaching intensity uh that includes the subject matter as well as how deep we dig into
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that subject hopefully it's it's all needs to be guided by the same Paradigm of the Redemptive plan of God as it's unfolded in scripture so I think I find that
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biblical theology is more important than systematic that puts me at odds with the Seminary that I attended um but I I think that Systematic Theology has the
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the great danger of categorizing what God has done into neat little compartments and it has a danger of Pride that we know that this eye gets
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dotted this way and this tea you know we we know all of that uh we know our jots and our titles but we don't really know what God has done and what he's doing it
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also the systematic framework often practically that well as long as I know that I can I can pretty much accept
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whatever else I'm either unable or unwilling to learn and that's right that just encourage you encourages you to stop at a certain it does biblical
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theology you never stop now very quickly I do want to say though that there is a place for Systematic Theology because we do live we do learn systematically I think that it it is
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important for people who men who aspire to be Elders at Fellowship H church and I don't have much time but to go back to the question do I need to go to Seminary Paul says to Timothy study to show
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yourself approved a skilled Workman able to handle the word of Truth well the idea there um is a Craftsman who is able
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to put all the pieces together in both a sturdy and usable format a chair or whatever he's he's building I don't know that every
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believer is called to that level of study I can't say that they're not I think they're all we're all called to be learners but we're not all called to be
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the skilled craftsmen who were then to hand the doctrine down to the Next Generation knowing the doctrine of justification the doctrine the the
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doctrines of soteriology christology eschatology patology all of those ologies know knowing the languages at least to the point where you can discern
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whether a commentator is taking you into the paths of Truth or falsehood you know you know being able to use the instruments is largely what a Craftsman
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learns they know which lathe blade to use in the particular application and there's even hammers you know ballpen and pin hammers you know they're claw
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hammer they're you don't take a 12b Hammer to do your trim work so knowing how to use the different um aspects of
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of the Teaching Ministry often times a seminary will help us learn the use of those tools and if you're able and encouraged to keep a
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good solid Biblical theological perspective you can even survive Seminary I've seen it done when I was taking Greek uh the
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question came up of natural language learning Dr Dyer's point was yeah kids learn naturally but at a certain point you sit down and you do the alphabet you do grammar yes have both yeah you have
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both you have the natural learning of your language that you because you speak it at home and that's true but I I've made the comment that we've had second gener or first generation uh Hispanics
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taking Spanish at Milton Academy and when we ask the parents why is it because they need to learn the grammar you know there's a point at which you need to learn the grammar in order to be
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skillful in the language and maybe that's a good analogy is we need to learn the grammar but not necessarily every one of us needs to learn the grammar so whether it's Seminary or
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whether it's plum line or whether it's self-directed uh Mark and I are more than willing to help guide in self-directed study I do think that men who aspire to
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the eldership do need to study to show themselves approved they need to become skilled Craftsmen because in order to to
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to stay that framework that AR was talking about that that the teacher is responsible for the teacher needs to know a lot more than he's actually
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teaching well let's close in prayer father we do thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit and the promise that he will guide us into all truth
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we also pray that he would warn us and prevent us from falsehood and that we would be beread that all of us and each of us
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would search the scriptures to see if these things be so that we might have that Noble mindedness that recognizes truth in your word as your
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Revelation and takes everything that we hear that we learn to the bar of scripture to see if it is true and so we
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pray father that you would be ultimately our teacher that you would guide us into all Truth by your holy spirit that we may worship you in spirit and Truth for we ask in Jesus name
