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Teach The Same Things In Every Church
Teach The Same Things In Every Church
That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church (1 Corinthians 4:17).
Paul did not teach different things to different churches. There of course is ONE faith (Eph. 4:4-6). All basis of teaching comes from what was revealed by the apostles and prophets of the first century.
· They were guided into ALL truth (John 16:13) and they wrote what had been revealed unto them (Eph. 3:3-5).
· They instructed disciples to preach no OTHER gospel - Gal. 1:8-9
· They warned believers to NOT go beyond what is written - 2 John 9-10
· They demanded that teachers would speak as the oracles of God - 1 Pet. 4:11
· They affirmed that the scriptures provide all the basis for teaching, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness. 2Tim. 3:15-17.
· Disciples then are to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly, teaching and admonishing one another and whatever we do, in word or deed, we are to do it in the name of Jesus (Col. 3:16-17).
Hence there are repeated warnings against false teachers [cp. Matt. 7:15; Acts 20:29; 2 Peter 2:1-3; 2 Cor. 11:13-15; Colossians 2; 1 Tim. 4:1-3; 2 Tim. 3:1-9; Titus 1:10-11; 1 John 4:1; etc.].
Will always struggle as together we are growing in our knowledge and moral strength. Some will know and not do because of a weak faith. Some will not know because they are children in their knowledge. Some will strong in their knowledge and yet weak in their love and concern for their brethren. So it is that we as a group of people live and grow together in our faith.
We must both demand that each of us be growing in both our faith and knowledge yet we must allow for the time it will take for the process to work. We cannot demand that a newborn brother be full grown in his knowledge, but we can hold him accountable for growing. We may disagree on how much time to give for one to grow, but agree that the goal of each is to help EACH of us grow into the full measure of Christ.
There of course are things that are just wrong. There are lists of such things as the works of the flesh in Gal. 5:19f., the ‘such were some of you’ things of 1 Cor. 6:9-11; and the ‘for these things the wrath of God comes upon children of disobedience’ in Eph. 5:3-7. For such acts the church is to require repentance and restoration to a godly life.
That which we do together will require agreement. There are some things that we each can allow that, while we disagree with them, they do not cause us to participate and violate our conscience. In these areas we continue to teach and yet we are patient. Brethren, this is a difficult and dangerous balance that we try to hold to. It is easy to become too hard or too soft on each other and disrupt the unity of the church. Through the ups and downs of this we are to fervently love one another with a pure heart (1Pet. 1:22).
Hugh DeLong
