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[0:00] Okay, 2 Timothy 4, verse number 1. We're going to read the first five verses here to kind of dive into something.! Paul, one of the very last things he wrote, he says, I charge thee therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead, and is appearing in His kingdom, preach the word, be instant in season out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine.

[0:30] But after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears, and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make foolproof of thy ministry.

[0:46] And this little kind of close to this epistle, to the second epistle to this Timothy, his preacher, the one that he's groomed, and he's his own beloved son in the faith.

[0:56] He's begotten him through the gospel, and now he's trained him and taught him in his ways and in his doctrine. And he charges Timothy to preach the word, to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.

[1:09] We saw this last Sunday. I think it was last Sunday that he's to say these things with all authority. And over the years, it seems like Paul is putting an emphasis here on preaching at the close of this epistle, at the close maybe of his life.

[1:26] And over the years, we've certainly seen a decline in preaching. And in our churches around the nation, it's just drifted. It's turned to something different.

[1:36] It's become, in some cases, it's become just kind of a little talk with you from a stool that is surrounded in time by sets of music, like constant sets of music.

[1:52] And then a little pastor comes with his talk, and he comes with his tight, short-sleeved shirt and ripped jeans and cool look to him. And that's kind of the far end of where things have come or gotten to.

[2:07] But even in some conservative churches, some pastors have a style that is, it's not emphatically straight shooting, declaring the word of God, but it's become more of a just explaining the text all the time.

[2:22] And I think, I know Eric Peterson has discussed this, talked about the church he grew up in, in Grace Community Church with John MacArthur. And he'd say that they call him an expository preacher, but in his opinion, he is not an expository preacher.

[2:36] He's a teacher. He's always teaching, teaching, teaching, explaining, explaining, explaining. And it's a big congregation, and they boast how much they love the scriptures, and I believe they do. I wish they had the right copy of the scriptures.

[2:50] But nevertheless, what they believe is preaching is, I don't know, I don't know how they would react if some leather-lunged southerner came in there and just lit the place on fire.

[3:04] I don't know if they would even receive it as preaching. I don't know. And I'm not here to pick on one group or anything. I mean, it's all over. The church today is saturated with a lack of preaching.

[3:17] And in response to that, and here's where I want to start to open your eyes to something. While that is the case and the church is falling away and taking an emphasis away from preaching and anything that is cutting and dividing and maybe hurts your conscience or your heart, just making it easier and easier and more palatable, in response to that, some Bible-believing preachers have overreacted, and then they've come out with something even from this passage to say that Paul emphasized preaching, and he warned that settling for teaching was a sign of the end times.

[3:55] And they say this, verse 2, Preach the word. Reprove, rebrute, exhort. Verse 3, The time will come when, to the end of the verse, they'll heap to themselves teachers.

[4:07] And so men won't want preaching anymore. They're only going to want teachers, and they're only going to want to have these itching ears satisfied and enjoy their little talk at church. And that's some men.

[4:18] I'm just saying that this, I believe this is an overreaction to say that it's preaching, it's preaching, it's preaching. It's the foolishness of preaching that God chose to save them that believe.

[4:30] And then the emphasis in reaction to the way the church has fallen away and turned its ears away from the truth, there becomes this thing where preaching is the thing.

[4:41] It is the highest thing there is, and teaching is, it's secondary. And I don't think that's right at all. And I've heard some of them, there's a brother that I'd love to get out here sometime.

[4:52] He preached a message called reactionary theology. And he used that thing I'm telling you about teaching and preaching, this like overreaction. He showed it in like a dozen ways how Bible believers over the last 10 to 15 years have reacted to the way the church has gone, overreacted, and made things weird.

[5:12] And he says things like, and I couldn't even begin, I'd have to make the list and listen to it again. And, but he'd say things like, the church becomes effeminate, and like the culture says guns are bad.

[5:24] So over here you have this sissified group that thinks guns are of the devil. And then on this side, we have the Bible believe in militia, where it's just, you know, lock them up and keep the guns, and you're not going to take them out of my hand.

[5:37] And he says that the church has kind of overreacted in a lot of ways to the way society is, or just to the way the church has kind of slipped away. So I think the church has overreacted in this area as well.

[5:51] And I know that this isn't everywhere you go, but it's out there, and it's a thing where guys will rear back and spit about preaching, how that's the greatest thing. They get red in the face. And what they do, though, is they overreact and they try to show, or at least try to imitate that teaching the Bible is for sissy, scholarly men that sit in offices.

[6:21] But real men are out there preaching the Word of God. And if you don't agree with that, then you're, if you can't say amen to that, then you're probably run by your wife. And you wear lace and your britches, and they say things, just outlandish things that make them sound retarded to me, and sorry, but they sound just so far over here, and they make the church look like a bunch of nuts.

[6:44] Because they say stupid things, they're overreacting to something of the culture, or something the church has done. Now, these preachers, in my opinion, they're without a balance.

[6:55] A balance that is necessary when it comes to leading a local church and a congregation. A lot of times these are evangelists. Nothing against evangelists. I think that's a gift and a calling of God.

[7:06] God has gifted some men to preach. Like, they are gifted to preach. They could just walk into Walmart and see something on the floor and have a five-point outline about it, and they could rip it up and down, and you would be like, oh my goodness, we should keep these places clean.

[7:22] You would, I mean, they have a gift. It's the Lord gifting them to preach. But the problem they have, I think, I've seen it, I believe, is that they're not pastors.

[7:34] They're preachers that come and go, and they view things, they say things through their own lens of what they see. And they believe that they need to correct this sissified, non-preaching generation by saying crazy things that undermines teaching.

[7:54] And I don't want to, my goal here is not to compare the one against the other, really. That's not it at all. But a man that can come in and just say some wild things and try to really stir up a congregation is not a man that is called to pastor a local church for 52 weeks out of a year.

[8:13] They can stir you up and get you fired up, but if they state, look, the church is not built. Christians are not built to have their faces beat down and drug through the dirt 52 weeks out of a year.

[8:26] You wouldn't come back for that. You wouldn't be able to sustain that. There's a whole other level to this than just a stirring, powerful preaching remark.

[8:38] The attitude, though, that preaching is what we need and the teaching is for the sissies or for those compromisers, that attitude is in Baptist churches today and I wonder if our beloved King James Bible would bear that out and would allow that concept to live and last.

[8:57] I wonder if that doctrine is of God or if it's just a reaction to the falling away of men. Now, before we leave this passage, let me point something out because I know I brought this to your attention.

[9:09] Somebody else didn't, I don't know if you've ever heard people talk like this. I've heard men go to this passage and declare this more than once. And so that's why I'm pointing this out. Before we leave this passage, the teachers in verse 3, it's for the time will come.

[9:26] The teachers that will come at this time are not teaching how to rightly divide the word of truth. They're not teachers that are dispensational in their theology and they're not concerned that the gospel's being watered down.

[9:38] These are not teachers that are defending the King James Bible. These are teachers turning away their ears from the truth unto fables. So they're people that you would want to avoid completely.

[9:49] They're not holding the word of God. So to say that Paul is charging Timothy to stick to preaching because teaching doesn't get the job done, that's not at all what the apostle Paul is saying.

[10:03] Therefore, my statement would be shame on anybody to go to this text to try to make this case or overreact to what they see as missing in churches today. So my question is, is it true that a pastor should put more priority on preaching the word than he does on teaching it?

[10:21] That's a question I want to ask and I want to kind of start down a road and give you a little bit of a thought along these lines. Again, I'm not trying to point to pin preaching and teaching against each other.

[10:32] I think that's dead wrong. They don't belong compared one to another. It's often been said that teaching is aimed at the head while preaching is aimed at your heart. And that's fine.

[10:42] I would agree. I'd say that too. I think a lot of that's a true statement. But if saying that means that teaching is inferior to preaching, well then I think that's wrong.

[10:54] And I don't know that we could even go to the word of God to even suggest that that would be true. I would say I have a problem if that's the statement. If you're saying preaching's at the heart, teaching's at the head, therefore preaching's better, I don't like that statement then if that's your point.

[11:09] My belief is that the two complement each other. That both are necessary, that both are important in their own way, and that you should never, ever, ever have one without the other.

[11:20] You should never have preaching where you don't have teaching, and you should never have teaching where you don't, I don't think you can. I think they go together. I think they, if you get to that end where you're just going to say preaching, preaching, preaching, preaching, it's preaching brother, it's preaching, this teaching is for them, but for us it's preaching, and if you're a man, it's preaching, and you can't take it, that's why you don't want it, you want to go there and not be here, that kind of stuff.

[11:42] I think you're going to end up with a completely out of balance Christianity, and you do come out sounding crazy, and it's not biblical, and I want to show you some of that.

[11:54] Now, one way that the church has accommodated the balance of teaching and preaching, one way is that we come together an hour early before the service, before the quote-unquote main service, we come together an hour early for teaching, to have the Bible taught.

[12:13] It's extra time in the Word of God. It's, we call this the Sunday school hour or the teaching hour, and the next hour generally is called or reserved for preaching. Now, that's not necessarily a biblical format or structure.

[12:27] Have you ever wondered why we do it this way? How did this come to be? Was it Jesus that set this standard back in the Gospels? Was it His apostles, His disciples that followed Him and went out in the book of Acts and established every church, Sunday school, preaching?

[12:43] Where did it come from? I don't even know if anybody in this room knows, and I don't know to say, to be exact, how did the church end up coming together for one hour of this and then another hour of that?

[12:57] Well, I don't know how familiar you are, but with the quote-unquote Sunday school movement, most of the time it gets associated with D.L. Moody in Chicago, but it goes beyond him. It actually started in England, and the concept was that the children are pretty bad shape.

[13:15] There's an industrial revolution, and children are working jobs in factories and in farms. They're not being schooled. The school system was really just, there was no real structure to it.

[13:26] It was kind of the job of the parents, and might have only seen kind of a 360 on some of that, but the school system and structure was not in place in any way, and so certain man saw this, these kind of reprobate kids on the street and just thought, like, what is going on with these kids?

[13:48] They're not educated. They're just complete rebels or rebel rousers and causing trouble, and so he had an idea, and he started a school for the children on the weekend, and it eventually became Sunday school, and it was teaching them not the Word of God.

[14:06] It was teaching them the reading, writing, arithmetic, and the scriptures. That was a course, but it was just to try to educate, like a school, the kids. It was Sunday school. That's how it started, but it picked up and took off because the need was so great, and it became to where I want to say it was in the, within a short amount of time, over a million kids were in Sunday school, and yes, they were being taught the Word of God, but just as a subject, almost like a Christian school today.

[14:35] It wasn't five days a week. It was, a lot of times, it was Saturday and Sunday, and then sometimes just kind of nailed down to Sunday as they were, their schedules would allow, and this thing came across the pond, and landed in the United States, and little Sunday school groups began to form.

[14:52] It was not churches. These were groups of getting kids together and teaching them, and I saw, I looked up, saw some old pictures of some old children sitting there, and the little girls in their dress shoes and stockings, and the little boys with their hair combed over, and they're just sitting there with no books, no pencils.

[15:08] They're just listening to the man in front of them, instructing them, teaching them things that they didn't, they were never taught. Now, churches were formed. Fast forward through this whole thing, churches formed because this was even, the Congress of the United States got involved in this in spreading and starting Sunday schools, and we hear the word, you think Jesus and Jonah, and you think of all these Bible stories, but it was not formed that way.

[15:35] The government got behind it to form Sunday schools all around the nation, and Christian Bible curriculum was included in it. That was just natural to man back then, thank God.

[15:47] But there they was all over the nation. I feel like it was, it was Denver, from Washington, D.C. to Denver was like this region they were aiming at saying we want to get this many in two years, this many thousand of Sunday schools started, and it took them way more than two years, but nevertheless, it spread.

[16:08] And so anyway, it gets on, it gets going, and these turn into churches as groups are coming together on Sunday because it just kind of, it fit hand in glove. Hey, they're already meeting, let's teach them.

[16:20] And I don't know where the transition or how long it took until it really settled in that we meet for an hour of teaching the Bible, and then we stay and we have an hour of preaching the Bible.

[16:31] Today when I tell somebody, if they ask about our church hours, just last week when I was leaving, a lady stopped me in the parking lot. She was leaving this church down the road, walking up with her Bible, and she said, hey, when do y'all meet?

[16:43] When do y'all have your services? And I said, well, nine o'clock's teaching, ten o'clock's preaching. And I started saying that because every time I'd say Sunday school, they're like, oh, like that's for children. I don't, I don't come to that. So when, when is it for the adults?

[16:56] And so I started just changing the language a little bit so it wasn't confusing. But that's, that's a, not even close to a real brief description.

[17:08] There's so much more to say there, but I want to get to you to think, why do we even meet when we meet? And one of the things I believe the church has done to accommodate teaching and preaching is to have an hour ahead of time.

[17:22] Again, it's not necessarily a biblical format at all, but it has become a standard, has become at least a tradition would be a word we could say in this land and really for a very long time.

[17:33] And I'm curious to know if you've even thought about that or wondered why do we meet here and why do we have the times we do? If I attempted to alter that format and say, well, we don't need this one anymore because we'll do it all at one shot, some of you would, it just wouldn't sit right with you because your entire life in church, it's been this hour and this hour, you've had them both and they go together and that you come for that and it would just bother you to think that you'd drop one and we're not the other or something just to change it.

[18:04] You would think that we're compromising or that we're going apostate and I could say, no, we're just going back to the biblical times. We're trying to match the word of God and you would have a problem. You'd say, you're turning away from the faith that was once delivered unto the saints.

[18:19] You'd be like, is the Sunday school hour the faith delivered to the saints? Did the apostles meet? Now, I'm not trying to take it away. I'm not setting you up for that at all. I'm just asking you, have you ever considered and thought about why we do what we do?

[18:32] Now, getting back to this preaching and teaching thing, one biblical analogy regarding the work of the word of God in the hearts of men, a biblical analogy is that of a sower and seed of planting and this whole process involves first break up your fallow ground and plowing and turning the soil over and if you know anything about farming, you do that once, likely in the fall, but then you come back in the spring and you do it again in a different way that it kind of levels it out and smooths it out and the ground is prepared for planting.

[19:07] And so, even the plowing of the soil takes a few processes or a few steps and that's easy to relate that to preaching, like you're just digging in there and you're really getting after it. It's some more violent sounding work being done but then there's the planting process and there's the watering process and there's the care and the tenderness and watching over those young crops as they grow and they come up and being certain that no disease and no bugs and no unclean thing gets in and destroys it and it's a patient and a purposeful process.

[19:41] It's a slow process, one that matches a parent training up the child in the way he should go. It just doesn't happen in a moment. It happens over much, much time. And so, I believe comparing that and thinking of teaching and preaching, you cannot separate them.

[19:57] You can't separate them in this process or analogy of growing crops. They both have significant and important roles in that process. Now, flip over to Ephesians and we're going to start to go a direction for a minute.

[20:12] Ephesians chapter 4. Here the Apostle Paul tells us of offices that have been given to the body of Christ for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body.

[20:32] And these offices are listed in verse 11. 4.11 says, He gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.

[20:48] So, you've got, you can follow the order of this or the separation by the semicolons after each one. Apostles is separated by a semicolon, then prophets separated, then evangelists separated, and then the last group.

[21:02] It sounds like they're separate, but they're the same. Pastors and teachers. So, an office given to the body of Christ is a position of leadership called a bishop, a pastor, but that pastor is not just called a pastor, he's called a pastor and teacher.

[21:20] That's the office, the designation within that, on the door, pastor and teacher. But who does that? Everybody just puts pastor. But there's the office.

[21:31] Now look at 1 Timothy chapter 3. Here Paul lays down some qualifications for the position of bishop, an overseer.

[21:42] And this is the standards to measure a man against to see if he fits the criteria to be in this position over a church. And one of the criterias is can he teach?

[21:57] 1 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 2. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behavior, given to hospitality, apt to teach.

[22:11] He doesn't mention preaching in here at all. I know you kind of feel like, and I would say it goes without saying that he's to be a preacher, but he never mentions that as a qualification, just to point that out.

[22:22] Look at the next book over, 2 Timothy chapter 2. 2 Timothy chapter 2. This whole chapter I could kind of break down in this light, but we'll just get to the end of it to verse 24.

[22:45] Verse 24, But the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness, instructing, like a teacher instructing those that oppose themselves, and he goes on from there.

[23:03] So he repeats this concept of being apt to teach. Where's the qualifications of being a dynamic preacher, of being polished, of being funny, of being such a personality that all the kids think you're cool?

[23:20] Where's that in the scripture? Well, that's not there. What about being powerful and assertive and strong and forceful in your delivery? Well, that's not in there either.

[23:31] And those are the things that people look for, though, when they look to a preacher, to a pastor. He's got to be this or he's got to be that. And none of that is in the text of the qualification.

[23:44] But one thing is there, and I'm not trying to overemphasize this at all. I'm just trying to keep us from overreacting and eliminating it. One thing is there is the Bible describes he better be apt to teach.

[23:58] When the Lord Jesus Christ showed up in his public ministry, the very first thing we really know of him publicly is that he began to preach and to say the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

[24:11] And I could stop right there and say, you see, the first thing you learn is Jesus is a preacher and he preached and I could wear that out and make that my point. But I wouldn't be honest with the word of God if I did.

[24:24] So come back to the book of Matthew. Let me show you a few things about the Lord Jesus Christ public ministry. And you can already guess what we're going to see. Well, the first mention in Matthew chapter 4 is that he preached, Matthew 4, 17, the next mention is his teaching.

[24:52] In Matthew chapter 5 and verse 1, seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain and when he was set, the disciples came unto him and he opened his mouth and taught them, saying, and there goes chapter 5, chapter 6, chapter 7, and look at the end of chapter 7 as it closes out.

[25:12] Chapter 7 and the last two verses, he taught them, saying, and then when it's all said and done, the last sentence falls in verse 27.

[25:25] Great was the fall of it. And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these sayings, the people were astonished at his doctrine, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.

[25:39] He taught them, it says. I'm not really trying to pin teaching against preaching. Just hear me out. I'm not trying to compare and say one's better, one's worse, but I am going to say what does the Bible say Jesus did?

[25:51] He taught them. Look at chapter 9 and verse 35. Matthew 9, verse 35.

[26:04] And Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.

[26:17] So I absolutely would never separate the two and act like you should have one or not the other or overemphasize the one or the other. This is a balance of his ministry. Look at chapter 13. But I'm going to make sure that you see that he was a teacher and he was recognized and known as a teacher.

[26:37] Matthew 13 and verse 54. 53, it came to pass that when Jesus had finished these parables, he departed thence and when he was coming to his own country, he taught them in their synagogues insomuch that they were astonished and said, Whence hath this man this wisdom and these mighty works?

[27:04] Shows up in the synagogues and begins teaching the people. I could take you through almost every chapter, but let's just skip ahead to 26 of Matthew, chapter 26, and then we'll go to one more.

[27:17] This is all over the place. Matthew 26, and look at verse 55. This is a good one. It's a testimony of Christ when he was arrested and he asked them a question.

[27:31] Why are you doing it like this? Verse 55. In that same hour, said Jesus to the multitudes, Are you come out as against a thief with swords and staves for to take me?

[27:45] I sat daily with you teaching in the temple. And you lay, I sat. We like to kick those guys and I'm telling you, I'm not going to get a stool up here and sit down and have a talk with you, but I sat daily.

[28:00] Isn't that something? There it is. Daily with you, teaching in the temple. That's what he did. That was his practice. Now look at Mark. Just one more. Mark chapter 6.

[28:11] Mark chapter 6. Mark chapter 6 and verse 32 through 34.

[28:27] This is where the 5,000 are fed. It says in verse 32, They departed into a desert place by ship privately and the people saw them departing and many knew him and ran a foot thither out of all cities and outwent them and came together unto him.

[28:42] And Jesus, when he came out, saw much people and was moved with compassion toward them because they were a sheep not having a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

[28:54] They were hungry for the word of God. And so, he sits them down and teaches them the word of God. Don't ever try to separate teaching and imagine that it's preaching, brother.

[29:10] You better understand that teaching is just as important. That lays foundation. Where would you be if you weren't taught some things? If you weren't taught how to speak? If you weren't taught how to tie your shoes?

[29:22] Everything in life, you came in here with a blank slate. The same thing's true of your Christianity. It was a blank slate except for maybe some distorted thoughts that were inputted into you from false religions or from your upbringing.

[29:36] You had to be taught and instructed in the ways of God. The word of God teaches. The spirit of God teaches. The pastor should be teaching just the same. But let's never pretend that it's insignificant or inferior to the man of God wielding the sword of the word of God because it's not.

[29:57] It's not. When Nicodemus, look at John chapter 3. Let's work our way into John chapter 3. And we're going to have to stop here pretty soon with where we're going.

[30:09] But John chapter 3. Nicodemus shows up to meet with Jesus in verse number 2. John's gospel in verse 2.

[30:22] This same came to Jesus by night and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God. For no man can do these miracles that thou doest except God be with him.

[30:36] He declared he's a teacher. And it's not equating him with teachers that what we think of of our day of secondary or primary teachers or higher education professors and things like that.

[30:48] That's not even in the vernacular in that day. Jesus did not have a list of degrees behind his name and he wasn't popular because he graduated from some particular institution.

[31:01] But he was known because he declared the word of God. He declared truth. He imparted it to his hearers. He spoke publicly to groups, to crowds, to multitudes, like masses of men and women.

[31:17] He spoke to them and taught them things they'd never understood, never heard, things about their own nation and about their own scriptures and related them to them.

[31:28] And they just, I've never heard anybody talk like this, they say. And it was his teaching. It was his teaching that caused them to follow him. It was his teaching that awoke their minds and their consciences toward God and toward his word and toward righteousness and toward not following the teachers of their day, the scribes and the Pharisees and the list of do's and don'ts that they had built up.

[31:56] Jesus was a teacher. The Bible says he taught with authority. He had conviction. And what he said made sense.

[32:06] Look at John chapter 7. John chapter 7. This man did not back down.

[32:18] He spake with complete authority and conviction and wisdom that caused the hearers twice his age, caused the hearers to marvel at his wisdom.

[32:31] John chapter 7 and verse number 16, verse 15, it says, the Jews marveled saying, how knoweth this man letters having never learned?

[32:42] He didn't go to our theology schools and seminaries. So how does he know all this stuff? And the answer is this. Jesus answered them and said, my doctrine is not mine but his that sent me.

[32:55] If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh of himself seeketh his own glory but he that seeketh his glory that sent him the same is true and no unrighteousness is in him.

[33:11] The authority he had was he was sent from God the Father. Look at John chapter 8. John chapter 8 verse 26 through 29. I have many things to say to judge of you but he that sent me is true and I speak to the world those things which I have heard of him.

[33:36] They understood not that he spake to them of the Father. Then said Jesus unto them, when you have lifted up the Son of Man then shall you know that I am he and that I do nothing of myself but as my Father hath taught me I speak these things and he that sent me is with me.

[33:52] The Father has not left me alone for I do always those things that please him. As he spake these words many believed on him. It was just his teaching.

[34:05] Explanation of who he is and where he's from and why he's doing what he's doing and they believed on him. It wasn't the preaching, the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe in this case. it was the teacher of the Lord Jesus Christ imparting truth to this people.

[34:21] Now I began with showing you this position how the body of Christ the church of our day is absolutely slipping away from preaching and it's falling into some weird stuff that we wouldn't even recognize as preaching maybe not even recognize as teaching just having a talk with you.

[34:40] I don't know what it is. And the problem I'm suggesting is that the overreaction of Bible believers is to say that we're to preach the word I lost it reprove, rebuke, exhort that's our calling and in the last times they're going to look for teachers having itching ears and so the teaching is inferior to the preaching and I'm showing you I believe that's an overreaction.

[35:05] I don't think that's right at all. You cannot separate teaching the word of God from preaching the word of God. They belong together. That's the pattern of Jesus Christ's ministry was teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom of heaven.

[35:22] He did not separate the two. If anything this might shock you to consider this but if anything the Bible indicates or describes more about his teaching than it does about his preaching.

[35:35] And I know that wouldn't be a point that anybody today would want to make is that that's what we should emphasize. I'm not trying to say that. I'm just trying to keep us from overreacting and getting some deluded thought that this is the way it is and imagining that the other stuff is inferior when no the other stuff is so much necessary that you learn the truths of the word of God and dealing with your heart.

[36:02] God deals with your heart and there's times that to bring in a preacher that's just gonna fan the flames and do what he does what he's gifted to do but on a day in and day out basis you need to be taught you need to have a teachable spirit and to be open to learn and to hunger for righteousness and to desire it because if you just get your face ripped off every Sunday you're not gonna last and I know there'll be six of you coming for it there'll be six people left maybe five and then four that's not the pattern that God set up for a local church it's not sustainable and it's the wrong attitude to take so I just want to introduce this I think we got some more to say about this and even potentially go through studying even in the life of Jesus Christ how he taught and methods of teaching because it's pretty it's very intriguing to me and enlightening to see how he imparted truth and things he used whether it was object lessons or public events or there's a list of things we can go through and I think we will but for now

[37:13]  I want to just show you the need for it and let us not consider it inferior let us not think that way and then we'll get into a little bit more on the topic Lord willing next Sunday so let's take a break there and I'll see you at the top of the hour