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A few weeks back I taught out of Habbakuk, and the more I thought about it the more I realized just how much of the Bible we miss most of the time. I know that Habbakuk, and those books right around it (Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi) are called the Minor Prophets, but that does not mean that they are less important then the “Major Prophets” as ALL scripture is good for teaching, preaching and changing lives. Of course you probably know that the Minor Prophet’s are far from really being minor, but many times with the exception of the story of Jonah and the whale most of the teachings out of the minor prophets are missed. We even skip a lot of Jonah after he (Jonah) is thrown up on the beach and preaches to Nineveh. Even I have been known to say “Here we are stuck in Obadiah again” as a joke to it’s brevity when I teach a single week lesson out of it. Though I also have to say that fewer and fewer students seem to get my joke about Obadiah, oh well I am just old.

My point in this is that we all, but especially teachers / pastors , need to be careful of not fall into a pattern of only studying certain parts of the Bible. God gave us the WHOLE Bible, inerrant and perfect, to use, study, learn from and teach out of. However, we Christians have make a habit of taken parts of it, usually the ones with the simplest stories and easiest application to our lives, and created a loop or series of lessons from those parts only. We may vary the lesson a bit, and even move between a few different scriptures to make it, but basically we stick to a similar series of lessons and teachings week after week.

This is not to say that I think you need to change your Sunday AM lesson this week. Actually I would discourage that as you are probably working systematically through a topic at the moment, as that is how most people teach and most people learn better that way too. I know I personally learn better that way. Brick on top of brick helps me much more then brick here, brick there. All I am saying is that after you finish this series or topic consider moving outside of the norm because at times we all can become creatures of habit and familiarity if we are not careful.

I personally think that the majority of those lesson patterns come from the New Testament because many choose to solely follow Billy Sunday’s advice to find a scripture and then go to the cross with it. Now there is nothing wrong with that as the cross is key and vital to real faith, but sometimes we need to stretch a bit and go into other less popular parts of the Bible. Preparing a lesson is harder to do when the cross is just a foretold event in the old testament, was Jesus is still in the future, or when Christ was already in heaven. That is not to say that it can not be done, it just makes it harder, and today for many Christians if it is harder then they will not even attempt it.

I believe that we have large cache’s of reference material, teaching material and lesson outlines for probably 40% of the Bible. For the other 60% there is material, but you have to work a bit harder to find it and then you have to work a bit more to build a lesson around it. Most people will stick with the 40% and add little of their own flavor as that allows for easier prep, etc. Today, this type of laziness is easily excused by both ourselves and other believers due to our rushed lifestyles.

Now that I have pontificated on the issue of missing many lessons in the Bible because their texts are less popular I am going to get to the real point of today’s note. I completely understand why what I discussed above happens, and I will even say that I understand why it must occur at times. As with many things, the problem I am talking about is simple to identify, but has a complex solution. Generally Christian worshipers, attendees, and students are not maturing, growing, etc, because they have yet to get past the basics of understanding their faith. Until we / they do that we can not / will not dive into places that require additional work. Basically the problem I am describing in the churches of today is the same one that we see described in Hebrews 5:11-14(NIV) -

Hebrews 5:11 We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. 12 In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! 13 Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.

For me it is at least reassuring to some degree to know that this situation is not a new thing in the body. Even more assuring is the fact that God does have a plan and way for us to get out of the situation, so let’s look a bit deeper and see if we can find it.

This problem is sometimes related to the laziness of Christian leaders (the actions of leadership tend to dictate the actions of followers), but not always. Many times the leaders / teachers are trying to go deeper, study more, teach better, etc but their students will not go with them. You can not lead a man (woman), or a mule, where they do not want to go. So, though the real beginning of change must occur at the leadership level, the followers have to be willing to go along for the leader to succeed.

Great leaders can be undone by bad followers, and bad followers can / will flourish beneath both good and bad leadership. So, the problem may or may not be with the leadership, and it may or may not be with the followers. The solution, and the responsibility for providing it, does rest with the leaders though. In many places, there are be followers that yearn for more, but do not know how to go there, or do not have the leaders around them to take them there. So, wow, after all of this what I am saying is one simple thing - we all (regardless of our position) need to pray for a revival of God’s people within the body and a deeper personal walk both for ourselves and our leaders. We can not and will not change on our own, we all must have a heart change from God. If that occurs, as either a individual or as a local body, then we will be able to move into learning / teaching new and different things, while being able to learn / teach deeper points and ideas on the things that we current know.

As much as we miss great parts of the Bible’s lessons due to laziness and convince, the body must mature on average before we will be ready to move to those areas. The majority still yearn for milk when they should be on meat by now. The fact that many are not maturing does not mean that we individually, or even as a local body, can not go deeper though. We just have to be ready and willing to do the required work for us to be successful in our endeavors in “the deep end of the pool”.

Staying with along the same lines, that is praying for a new direction and being willing to do the work it takes to take a new path, maybe try something revolutionary. Again after you have had time to pray and finish your current series, maybe try to teach / preach a lesson about maturing and growing - i.e. life application - instead of one that is mainly focused on salvation. Now do not misunderstand me, salvation is EXTREMELY important and should be the root of all lessons, but it does not have to be the sole focus of the lesson. The habit of teachers / preachers to solely focus on salvation at the exclusion of lessons to mature and grow followers eventually results in what we have today - churches filled with immature Christians.

Today I am not encouraging you to change your pattern of teaching / preaching or study merely to push others to go deeper. No, I am encouraging you personally to no longer be satisfied with the spiritual milk just because it is readily and easily available. I am encouraging you to yearn for the deeper things. It should be the goal of every Christian to always work to improve your own personal studies and your own personal knowledge of God. Do that and the meat will come eventually. Man can not provide this meat, it requires God. All we humans can do is to prepare like the change will occur tomorrow and be ready when it does, be it tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, or in a decade. Stay strong, be courageous and know that God is with you no matter the situation.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 28th, 2005 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Faith, Misc, Personal. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.