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And he has given both Bezalel and Oholiab ..... the ability to teach others.
- Exodus 35:34
- Exodus 35:34
I long ago noticed that Bezalel and Oholiab are, as artisan creatives, the first people in the Bible to be ‘filled with the Spirit of God’ (Exodus 31:3) but I recently found, three chapters later, that they were also given the ability to teach others. The work seems to have been too big for them to accomplish alone - they are going to need to train others, to bring on apprentices who can join them at the craftsman’s table. The creation of the tabernacle and all of its components was God sized work and thus required a God sized workforce. This would only come about through the multiplication of workers and so God saw fit to give Bezalel and Oholiab the ability to teach and train others.
I wonder how Adam and Eve felt when God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28). I’ve read that passage most of my life without really feeling the gravity of the God sized job that had been given to the first couple. I can wrap my mind around being fruitful and increasing in number, but fill the earth? Subdue it? I struggle to keep my lawn mowed but the whole earth? This is a God sized job! It could only be accomplished if the workers are multiplied and trained. And God seems focused on multiplication in Genesis 1:
Fruit seed is exponentially powerful. It is by nature multiplicative. An entire apple orchard lies hidden in the flesh of a single apple. Wheat to feed the nations is contained in a single wheat kernel. Multiplication is built into the very fabric of the cosmos - it is the way God created things. It is the pattern in nature and an intended pattern in the church as well.
Creatives like Bezalel and Oholiab were given the ability to teach others and to multiply their gifts. Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples, to teach them to obey his teachings. He chose 12 good seeds knowing that as they do what he did, they will multiply (Matthew 28:18-20). Paul tells Timothy to take the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). And Christ gives the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13).
Jesus tells us that He will build his church (Matthew 16:18) but we are to make disciples: to teach, to equip, to train, to entrust, to build up, to mentor, – to multiply. Disciple making at every level of the church would seem to be the Jesus method. Are you the pastor? Who are you training and teaching to do your job? Are you a Sunday school teacher? Who are you inviting in alongside you to equip and prepare? Are you a brand new believer? Who are you entrusting with the things you are learning? You don’t need to be a theologian, just obedient to teach someone the last new thing you learned about following the Lord.
God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and increase in number, to fill the earth and subdue it. Think about your town or city, your neighborhood or country - think about the unreached world, over 3 billion people who have no real access to the gospel. There are all kinds of good things we can do as Christians but making disciples is perhaps the most clear command we’ve received from Jesus and it is a principle found in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. If God called two artists to teach others to do the thing He had called them to do, He’s calling you as well.
Let’s multiply.
Let’s make disciples.
Not just the professionals but all of us.
I wonder how Adam and Eve felt when God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it (Genesis 1:28). I’ve read that passage most of my life without really feeling the gravity of the God sized job that had been given to the first couple. I can wrap my mind around being fruitful and increasing in number, but fill the earth? Subdue it? I struggle to keep my lawn mowed but the whole earth? This is a God sized job! It could only be accomplished if the workers are multiplied and trained. And God seems focused on multiplication in Genesis 1:
- Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” (Day 3)
- God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” (Day 5)
Fruit seed is exponentially powerful. It is by nature multiplicative. An entire apple orchard lies hidden in the flesh of a single apple. Wheat to feed the nations is contained in a single wheat kernel. Multiplication is built into the very fabric of the cosmos - it is the way God created things. It is the pattern in nature and an intended pattern in the church as well.
Creatives like Bezalel and Oholiab were given the ability to teach others and to multiply their gifts. Jesus told his disciples to go and make disciples, to teach them to obey his teachings. He chose 12 good seeds knowing that as they do what he did, they will multiply (Matthew 28:18-20). Paul tells Timothy to take the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others (2 Timothy 2:2). And Christ gives the church apostles, prophets, evangelists, teachers and pastors to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:11-13).
Jesus tells us that He will build his church (Matthew 16:18) but we are to make disciples: to teach, to equip, to train, to entrust, to build up, to mentor, – to multiply. Disciple making at every level of the church would seem to be the Jesus method. Are you the pastor? Who are you training and teaching to do your job? Are you a Sunday school teacher? Who are you inviting in alongside you to equip and prepare? Are you a brand new believer? Who are you entrusting with the things you are learning? You don’t need to be a theologian, just obedient to teach someone the last new thing you learned about following the Lord.
God told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and increase in number, to fill the earth and subdue it. Think about your town or city, your neighborhood or country - think about the unreached world, over 3 billion people who have no real access to the gospel. There are all kinds of good things we can do as Christians but making disciples is perhaps the most clear command we’ve received from Jesus and it is a principle found in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. If God called two artists to teach others to do the thing He had called them to do, He’s calling you as well.
Let’s multiply.
Let’s make disciples.
Not just the professionals but all of us.
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Much ink has been spilled over this topic over the last 15-20 years (especially in the "missional movement"). It seems like we are spinning our wheels at times in regards to this issue, no matter how often we talk about it (yet I feel convinced we need to continue bringing it up in order to see some kind of change, however incremental). How much do you think, Aaron, that the responsibility lies with the leadership and "paid professionals" in the church body to restructure the prevailing model(s) of church in order to better equip believers for the work of ministry and make disciples (more "multiplication" through "equipping and releasing", and less "addition" through "bringing people to the event"). Less seeing "church" as wherever you have clergy, building, and programs. More seeing "church" as everyday followers of Jesus being equipped to be disciples of Jesus, and make disciples, in the everyday things of life. Sometimes I feel overcome by sadness over the lack of progress I have observed towards "the equipping of the saints."
I really believe our models are too good at keeping people at infancy stage in their discipleship as spectators and consumers. While it's not only at the structural level, there seems to be a significant truth in church models "being perfectly designed to produce what they are currently producing" (as all models are, in or out of the church). Maybe a spirit of empire (command, control, & conquer) is too wound up in the system of church as we know it today. The church industrial complex has some insight to give us in terms of how economics and business strategies have unfortunately shaped the church more than the words, ways, and works of Jesus.
https://thev3movement.org/2016/08/08/church-as-movement-not-industrial-complex/
How you are sensing the Spirit leading the church (in North America, but also our context here in southeastern South Dakota) to pursue a more robust expression of what you are (biblically) pointing to in your article? Individually? Corporately?