Reasons for Hope

Wednesday, 11th July 2012

Biblical perspectives for living

THE PRIORITY OF APOSTOLIC TEACHING

In the Acts of the Apostles, Luke tells us that the early church had four great priorities:

"They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42). We submit that these must still be the priorities for the church Christ founded.The apostles had the unique privilege of hearing the teaching of Jesus firsthand, but Jesus also promised that after His departure He would send "another Counselor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth” (John 14:16-17).

Part of the Spirit's ministry to the apostles was to "teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you”

(John 14:26). This was fulfilled initially through the apostles' oral teaching but permanently through their writings, that is, the Gospels. Paul encouraged his young friend Timothy to "devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching”

(1 Timothy 4:13) since the Scriptures provide us with the unchanging truth by which we can evaluate all other teachings.

"All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). He challenged him to be diligent in studying the Scriptures so that he can handle God's Word accurately (2 Timothy 2:15), and must pass on this message unchanged to faithful men who would be able to teach others also (2 Timothy 2:2).

But Paul warned that false teachers would "arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:30), and many of the New Testament epistles were written by the apostles to combat false teaching that arose in their day. Paul warned Timothy:

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Like the early church, we must devote ourselves to the apostolic teaching as found in Holy Scripture and like the people of Berea, search the Scriptures daily to see if what we are taught is true (Acts 17:11).

D. Wilson