City Life Starter

I. The Word: 2 Timothy 2:1-2
You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, 2 and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.

 

II. Reflection Questions

1. Are you regularly hearing the Word (i.e. sermons, Biblical podcasts, audio Bible, etc.)?

2. Are you teaching/looking for someone to teach, what you have been learning from the Bible?

3. Are you consistently meeting up with other followers of Jesus?

 

They say you don’t really know something, until you are able to teach it. This has proven true time and time again in my life. Anywhere from showing someone the quickest way to get to a nearby grocery store, to finding the equilibrium point on a macroeconomic supply and demand graph. In the same vein, every good teacher knows that there job is unfulfilled, unless there are willing and eager students to receive their teaching. Paul is highlighting this fact in his letter to Timothy, in today’s text.
This text hits home for me, as its message is the primary way I grew in the Lord during my college years. It took a 23 year old college graduate, to voluntarily (and intentionally) teach me (an 18 year old college student at the time), how to study the Word. In the process, he prepared me, just 1 year later, to begin taking the necessary steps to being able to teach others how to study the Word, as he had shown me.
As I grew in my understanding of the Word, naturally a desire grew in me to search for someone, or a group of people to share what I have learned over the years. The Lord answered this prayer in the reverse order once I got out of college. First, it was having the group of people to share what I have learned over the years, that being my City Life Group. Secondly, He gave me 3 individual roommates that allow me to teach them each differently, based on their unique learning styles. Every now and then, people whom I have taught how to study the Word, have come back to me, and were appreciative.
We grow to know the Lord more through teaching others, as it causes us to dig into our Word both consistently and intentionally, in an effort to “always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you” (ref. 1 Peter 3:15).

 

In summary, what Paul told Timothy back then, and what the Holy Spirit is telling us to do today, are one in the same:

Hear the Word. Live the Word. Teach the Word. Repeat

 

Prayer:

Father, you have revealed yourself to me through Your Word. Give me the grace to live out what I have been taught from it, both privately and publicly. Stir in me a desire to grow in my understanding of the Word; both in my alone time, and in the context of community. In your perfect timing, send the person/people that you entrust me to share the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding that you have revealed to me through Your Word. Jesus, by your infinite grace and mercy, keep me faithful to You, and to Your mission. In Your Name I pray, Amen.