April 12, 2020
FROM YOUR PASTOR’S DESK:
COVID-19: THE TEACHER’S MOMENT
“Behold, God is exalted by His power; who teaches like Him? Who has assigned Him His way, or who has said, ‘You have done wrong’?” Job 36:22.23, NKJV.
A real good morning to all on this first working day of this week about 1 month inside “the den” of the vicious corona virus! My angel kept shut the mouths of the hungry virus around me. Did he do the same thing for all of you, whoever and wherever you are?
Last night I counted the number of times my beloved KJV Bible mentions/uses two words and their respective variations: Teach and Instruct. The former numbered 191 times; the latter 257 times. The sheer numbers alone, not even considering the contents of each passage, told me how vital then, and critical now, during this current crisis, are the words and the thoughts packed into them.
Jesus Christ, “God manifested in the flesh”(1 Tim. 3:16), The great I AM, is “The Teacher sent from God”(John 3:2). It is He, not Moses (especially not Mohammed, as our Islamic friends believe), is “the Prophet” who “speaks the words put into His mouth by God” “to them, as He is commanded.” Deut, 15:15,18. Here, “prophet” means “Teacher come from God.”
Where divine education “in the things of God” through “the wisdom that is from above”(James 3:17)Jesus (through the Holy Spirit in the Word) is Teacher, Instructor and Coach.
He teaches “theory” in the cool mornings of the times of peace and prosperity. He is the Lab instructor in the “warm” and even “hot” afternoons of the times of adversity, calamity and trials. He is Coaching during the physical exertions demanded in the “doing” of all that has been learned, as His co-workers in the playing-fields or co-runners with Him in the race-tracks of the race for eternal life.
He teaches “righteousness in peace” and “terrible lessons in righteousness” in times of adversity, calamity and trials. Ask Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. David, Peter and the 12, Paul and the apostle, and the godly Reformers in the Old World. They will eloquently testify of this plain truth, not virtual reality, by their battle-scarred, blood-spattered yet victorious life-testimony purified in the furnace of affliction. That’s why “their works have followed them” even to this moment in time. Their witness were so powerful that it transcended time, situation and circumstance.
QUESTION: What have we thus far learned, about 1 month now since we entered The Teacher-Instructor’s Covid-19 lab class? This is His teaching moment. And as disciples(Greek, disipolos, “learner”), what have we learned more about (1) our Teacher-Instructor-Coach (2) ourselves (3) our fellow “classmates” in this class?
Think and ponder on these things this week. NMF