This nine-part series was originally developed for a class environment, and later adapted for use in a prison ministry conducted via correspondence. Because of that background, questions were developed for each lesson for participants to use in a setting conducive to discussion, or as handouts for private use if the lessons are presented as sermons. At the beginning of each part of the series, I will include the outline of the series.
OUTLINE OF THIS SERIES OF STUDIES
Part 1
Introduction, Holy Spirit as deity
Names of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
Part 2
Holy Spirit in the NT (apostles to receive power)
Gabriel’s message to Mary
Foreseen by NT characters—Jesus, John
What we learn from Jesus in John 14,16
The coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost
Baptism in, or by, the Holy Spirit
Baptism of believers
Part 3
If I do not go away the Holy Spirit will not come
Men received and were dependent on the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is a Guarantee
Grieving the Holy Spirit
The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit
Being Filled With the Spirit
Part 4
The Holy Spirit in the Functioning of the church (first installment)
(1 Cor 12; Rom 12; Eph 4)
Gifts of the Spirit
The Head
Grace as Gifts (did not delve into each of the gifts, or special aptitudes, given by the Holy Spirit)
Functions “God Has Appointed”
Tongues/prophesying
Part 5
The empowering gifts of the Holy Spirit
Bestowing honor upon less “presentable” members
Order of functions (First apostles, second prophets, third teachers) Teachers discussed in Part 6
Part 6
Teachers
First apostles, second prophets, third teachers.
Part 7
Ministries of the Holy Spirit
Are the Bible and the Holy Spirit the same?
Blasphemy Against the Holy Spirit
Part 8
Fruit of the Spirit
The Spirit vs the Flesh
Attributes of the Holy Spirit
Part 9
Acting in opposition to the Holy Spirit
• Lying to the Holy Spirit
• Resisting the Holy Spirit
• Quenching the Holy Spirit
• Grieving the Holy Spirit
• Defiling the Temple of the Holy Spirit
• Insulting the Spirit of Grace (doing despite)
Intercessor (though mentioned previously)
How Can I Know if I Have the Holy Spirit?
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THE HOLY SPIRIT
Part 6
In Part 5, we began to examine some of the functions that were fulfilled in the New Testament through the use of the Holy Spirit’s gifts and the people who performed those functions. Specifically, we looked at the function of apostle and prophet, the first two in a sequence of three enumerated by Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:28:
And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.
We saw in Part 5 that together, the apostles and prophets are described as the foundation of the household of God, and I shared my belief that they are so designated because in the absence of a written New Testament, the apostles and prophets together constituted the avenue through which divine truth from the Holy Spirit was revealed. The truth that was revealed through them is the same truth we learn today by reading the New Testament.
The third numbered function Paul mentions in the passage cited is teachers. Before going into the question of what those numbers mean, let us consider the Biblical function of teacher.
TEACHERS
In the New Testament, the word teacher is from the Greek didasko which means an instructor, doctor, master, or teacher. Teaching is coupled with its counterpart, learning.
The process of teaching and learning is around about us in every activity of life--it is the natural result of being alive, alert, receptive, and exposed to people and circumstances from whom knowledge can be obtained:
• We can learn things we don’t need to know, or ought not to know.
• We can learn things we wish we didn’t know.
• We can learn things that turn out to be erroneous, and have to be unlearned.
Teaching is not confined to any particular time, format, or circumstance. It can occur with
• a speaker addressing an audience,
• a group studying together,
• a couple (e.g., Aquila and Priscilla) taking a man (e.g., Apollos) aside to impart knowledge and improve understanding,
• parents teaching their children,
• children teaching their parents,
• or as Paul wrote to Titus, mature women teaching younger ones.
The capacity of the teacher is somewhat puzzling. Generally in life we consider the experience of teaching and learning to be a good thing, especially pertaining to matters of faith. We would like to learn everything we can about God, and his desires and how his desires can be realized in our lives.
Yet Jeremiah prophesied about the time we are living in:
And they shall not teach again, every man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying 'Know the Lord,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest of them," declares the Lord, "for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more." (Jeremiah 31:31)
James cautioned against proliferation of teachers:
My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment." (James 3:1)
We may ask, why do these passages seem to downplay the place of teaching?
The passage from Jeremiah may simply show that the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore the Father, would be more fully revealed in the time Jeremiah wrote of (the gospel age). God’s identity would then no longer be vaguely formed in the minds of the people, but known and fully comprehended via the advent of Jesus Christ. Thus the necessity for teaching about him in the manner of prophets teaching about previously unrevealed things would no longer be necessary--Jesus would be known to the greatest and the least by his life and words.
The cited passage in James may be intended to caution those who delight in teaching their own dogma, rather than sharing divine truth, or who want to be teachers as a self-satisfying way of elevating themselves over others.
Jesus was called "Teacher" on numerous occasions. Matt. 7:28-29 shows that he taught as one having authority, unlike the scribes who prided themselves on their knowledge of minute details of the scriptures.
Paul was appointed a preacher, apostle, and teacher to the Gentiles in faith and truth (1 Tim 2:7 and 2 Tim. 1:11).
As mentioned earlier, Paul instructed Titus to have the older women teach the younger ones to love their husbands and children, be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, and to be subject to their husbands (Titus 2:4 5). In so doing, the older women were to function as teachers.
Paul instructed Timothy to commit the things he had heard from Paul to faithful men "who will be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2)
He urged that the elders who rule well be considered worthy of “double honor,” especially those who work hard at teaching and preaching (1 Tim 5:17).
Apollos was both a teacher and a student (Acts 18:24-26). Though Apollos knew only the baptism of John, Luke wrote that he “taught accurately the things concerning Jesus.” But when Aquila and his wife Priscilla heard him, they took him aside (privately, it seems) they expounded, or taught, the way of the Lord to him more perfectly. It is interesting that Apollos was not reproached as a false teacher either by the scriptures or by Aquila and Priscilla for promoting a false gospel. He was simply shown as a teacher in need of teaching. Teachers should never stop being students.
Teachers are not the same as prophets, although both functions involve the imparting of information. The definitions of the words used in the original language are different, and they are consistently listed separately in lists that contain both functions. In all three passages in Romans 12:6-8, 1 Corinthians 12:28-30,and Ephesians 4:11-12, Paul lists teaching as separate from prophecy, each time showing that it is a separate and distinguishable gift. But although the gifts are different, a person, as in Paul’s own case, could have multiple gifts. Paul listed the functions separately in referring to himself:
..I was appointed a preacher and an apostle and a teacher. (2 Tim 1:11),
Again showing that preachers and teachers are separable functions. Although Paul had multiple gifts, those gifts were plainly distinguishable from one another.
But our main purpose is not to patrol boundaries of the Holy Spirit-induced functions we have studied, but to show that the Holy Spirit gave a variety of gifts, and that the gifts were for the functioning of Christians in their capacity as disciples. Paul wrote:
...one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. (1 Corinthians 12:11)
The function of teaching is easy to understand. Unlike some of the words we will come to later, we use the word today in much the same way as its Greek equivalent was by the first Christians. Yet it is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the teachers. Their task was, and is, to instruct and build up the converts in the great towering doctrines of the Christian faith. In fact, the word “doctrines” means teachings. So we had teachers teaching teachings. In principle, it’s pretty simple.
But as simple is the concept of teaching is, teaching in the early church was a daunting task.
• Teachers were to instruct men and women who knew literally nothing about Christianity.
• Mass printing did not exist.
• Copies and collections of the manuscripts that would later come to be grouped into a “package” and be recognized as the New Testament were scarce and precious.
• People of ordinary means could not own a copy of those writings.
• The teachings of Jesus, his earthly ministry, the sacrifice of his life and resurrection, and the way to life was disseminated largely by word of mouth, and Paul makes it plain that there were some—teachers--who were especially gifted in that work.
First, Second, and Third
In 1 Corinthians 12:28 Paul says God has placed in the church:
First apostles. They were chosen by Christ himself (including Matthias and Paul) and sent by him to preach the gospel. They received what they taught from no man, but directly from Jesus (1 Corinthians. 9:1, Gal. 1:15-17).
Second, prophets. These were not sent directly by Christ, as the apostles were, but were empowered to their work by the Holy Spirit. They received extraordinary powers, including the ability to receive revelations ofvdivine truth and foretell the future, when it was needed in the performance of their function.
Third, teachers. Their function is to instruct people in the doctrines and elements of the Christian religion. Did apostles and prophets perform this? Of course. But others also performed the teaching duty who did not coincidentally have the same gifts of the Spirit that the apostles prophets received.
First, Second, and Third (in what? Importance? “Presentableness?” Chronological order?)
We have seen in earlier parts of this study that some members of the body are deemed to be more honorable or presentable, and some less honorable or presentable. And we also saw that upon those seen as less honorable, we bestow more abundant honor.
In the body of Christ, there is no question of relative importance of members, regardless of their gifts.
There are no unimportant members in the body of Christ, and all are as important as the price paid to save them!
If any organ or limb is damaged or out of place, the whole body suffers with it. So it cannot be true that this numbering of functions has anything to do with the value of the persons performing the respective functions.
It also cannot be true that the first Christians were to care more about the persons in these functions than the members who as Paul described them, seemed “less honorable,” or “presentable.” Paul had just said 3 verses before this:
But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. (1 Corinthians 12:24-25)
So what, if anything, is the meaning of the numbers and the fact that the other functions listed afterward are unnumbered? Was Paul saying they came in that chronological order (allowing that he refers here to New Testament prophets, not the earlier prophets of Israel and Judah)? If so, he was saying the apostles preceded prophets, and prophets came earlier than teachers. Or was Paul saying something else?
One possible view, which I consider reasonable is this:
It was by the function of these three functionaries that the plan and will of God became fully known to the human race.
1. The apostles were first to speak the gospel and associated revelations on the day of Pentecost.
2. The New Testament prophets received gifts that enabled them to operate in the function of revealing, to the church in their locales, previously unrevealed truth. 1 Corinthians 14 gives us a window into the early church exercising that function.
3. Teachers, by definition of that word, taught and expounded the truth that had been revealed by apostles and prophets. The definition of the word didasko (teacher) does not include a miraculous method of receiving what was taught.
Thus it was a flow, or progression of knowledge and understanding of the things of God from those who received it by inspiration to those who received it not by inspiration, but by hearing. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God. Ergo, the origin of all revealed truth is God, revealed most fully in the person of Jesus, and later conveyed by these functionaries in the church of the New Testament.
What is taught and learned today, we hear from people who do not speak by inspiration, but who speak the word of God as delivered many years ago through the Holy Spirit’s guiding the apostles into the truth, and gift that enabled prophets to receive revelations through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. It is by way of these gifts that we have the New Testament.
THE HOLY SPIRIT
Part 6 Questions
1. What was the work of a teacher in New Testament times?
2. Why did Jeremiah, writing about the gospel age, say “they shall not teach again, every man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying 'Know the Lord?’” (Jeremiah 31:31)
3. What did James mean when he wrote “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment." (James 3:1) ¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬
4. Was the function of the teacher different in New Testament times than it is today? If so, in what way was it different?
Answer True or False by circling T or F:
1. T F Each Christian had only one gift, or special ability, from the Holy Spirit.
2. T F The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s gifts was for the Christians’ enjoyment.
3. T F Both Jeremiah and James indicated that there should be a minimum of teaching
4. T F In addition to being an apostle, Paul was a prophet and teacher.
5. T F The way the Holy Spirit distributed gifts was according the Spirit’s own will.
Discussion and Thought
1. What meaning, if any, do you associate with the numbering of the first three gifts named in 1 Corinthians 12:28?
2. Do you think every gift the Holy Spirit could give are listed in the three main passages about spiritual gifts (Romans 12:6-8; 1 Corinthians 12: 28-30,and Ephesians 4:11-12)? Or are those gifts merely given as examples of the Holy Spirit’s many gifts?
3. What is the means by which the New Testament was given?
