Multiplication

2 Timothy 2:2 represents 5 generations of Christians.  That was the keyhole text for our study of Spiritual Multiplication at the Nav Training Center at Michigan State.  We traced generations from Genesis to Revelation.  During that study I discovered what unlocked the Old Testament for me, Psalm 78:5 - 8.

Our mentor, Larry, gave me a small bit of chain with four links on it.  That was to remind me that the focus of my ministry was to be multiplication.  I was not doing my job if I did not see the men I was equipping, equip others in a way that would equip them to equip others.  I still carry that chain on my key ring.

With tongue firmly in cheek a friend sent me the above picture a couple of days ago.  It is a joke I shared with him in 1978, so what, 36 years ago.  He has since shared it with numerous students and this picture was sent to him by one of those, it is that student's children passing on the joke to someone else.  5 generations of a bad joke.

This morning I sat in a Sunday school class and observed one of the men with whom I have been studying lead a class through an overview and application of Jeremiah, in 40 minutes.  If you haven't checked lately Jeremiah has 52 chapters.  That is no mean feat.  He was applying that on which we have been working for the past three years.  Applying it masterfully.  That however was not multiplication.  It will be when the person he shows how to do that has equipped someone else to do so.

In 13 weeks I will be in a village on the east side of Nepal.  I will be working with people who are planting churches, to date 400, in the remote villages in that region of the world.  I will be equipping them to study the Bible more effectively.  My aim is to do so in a way that they can reproduce in the villages where they minister.  The potential for multiplication is enormous.

The way I read the Bible, our charge is not to teach what we know.  Rather, it is our charge to equip people to dig out for themselves what we have from God's Word.  When they do that, it is theirs.  It is not my idea, my study, my expertise, it is fresh insight for them into the riches of God's Word and thus His nature and character.

I cannot imagine a greater privilege.

Growth Impacts Understanding and Application of the Bible

Psalm 46:10 is a passage that has impacted my Christian experience throughout my journey as a believer.  The way it has impacted me has changed.  The changes are not because the meaning of the passage has changed.  The changes are because of my growth as a believer and the changes in my experience.

As a young believer I was striving to know God.  It was a passion.  I have shared in this blog that within six months of trusting Christ I was leading 7 Bible studies a week – I do not recommend that.  The point was that I was striving to gain God’s approval.  All of the environments in which I had lived thus far in my experience were competitive.  Academically, athletically, socially, I had to prove myself to my mentors and peers.  At the time I was in Air Force pilot training, yet another highly competitive environment.  So my natural response to any challenge was to dig in and perform to the best of my ability, so 7 studies.

Years later I was confronted with Colossians 2:9 – 10.  I am complete in Christ.  One does not compete to become more complete when one is already complete.  That wrenched my entire understanding of my relationship with Christ sideways.  I realized that I was striving to do something that Christ had done for me.  Rest, abiding, waiting not competing or performing became the new basis of my relationship with my Lord, there were major and minor relapses into performance – a reality with which I continually battle to this day.

My drive has always been to help others in their Christian life, but now the focus had shifted from getting people engaged in performance to resting in their completed position in Christ.  Part of that has been striving – oops there is that word again – to equip people to know Christ through His Word.

I have taken on that burden.  Shouldn’t have, but did.  I have led workshops internationally on how to more effectively study God’s Word.  I have three international trips on the books in the next six months.  I meet with men weekly on this, and I have a 10 week workshop scheduled to start at the end of this month.  Striving?

Psalm 46:10 tells me that God is going to be exalted.  So how do I rest, in that and still engage, steward, and equip and not segue into performance in the process?  First I have to, like the passage commands, know that He is God.  Second, I have to embrace the reality of the attitude Paul expresses in 1 Corinthians 15:10; Colossians 1:28 – 29; and 2 Timothy 2:24 – 25.  It is my responsibility to engage.  I rest in the fact that it is God who will grant the acceptance and application of what I share.

That lifts the burden.

Fight Fair, Listen

I mentioned earlier that I am preparing for a Sunday school on a controversial topic, the Sovereignty of God verses the free will of man.  Thus far it has been an interesting time of preparation.  I mentioned this earlier when I shared my experience on a website that was essentially taking up the free will side of the argument.

On that site one book in particular was repeatedly referenced.  I obtained the book.  As I have read through the first part of the book, as I mentioned in another post, there are multiple factual errors.  Errors crediting positions to people who did not take those positions, as well as getting historical events radically out of sequence.

I have been in conversations about this topic many times over the years.  The errors in the book are duplicated in the conversations.  I have made some of them myself.

Personally, when a position I have developed over years of study is challenged I find I have to fight to listen well.  Especially when I have heard the argument previously.  This is not limited to this particular theological arena.  It is true of political and social views as well.  I tend, and it seems others do as well, to get into a, “I have already thought that through, and I do not care what you think,” mode.

I impatiently wait for the other person to finish their spiel so I can dazzle them with my brilliant response.  But they are usually in the same mode, so it falls on deaf ears.

Deaf ears.  That is the problem.  We do not listen – well I don’t – well to those with whom we disagree.  Further, we do not take time to understand how each side is using key terms.  There are some people with whom I have debated that when they said the words, “Jesus Christ,” they meant something entirely different than my understanding of what those words describe.

To fight fair, to be in the same arena, we have to listen well.  We have to be able to articulate accurately the position with which we are taking issue.  Not to do so raises the probability, if not the certainty, that we will address issues that are not even being stated.

I must learn to listen better.