JMA Missions Mid-Month May 2025
The Great Commission in the New Testament
1&2 Timothy
"Teach them to observe all things I have commanded you"
Continuing with our Mid-Month Missions series, the Great Commission in the New Testament. This month we are combining 1&2 Timothy. I want to encourage everyone to take a few minutes to read these two letters, and I'm going to give a list of addresses for you to look up, so put your study cap on! Get out your Bible marking pens!
We will draw from a portion of the Great Commission in Matthew 28:20, "teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." Amen."
In the original language, 'teaching' (also teach, taught) is the word 'didasko'; it means to teach and doesn't have any other meaning. Listen ya'll, there are people who interpret John 14:26, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you" to mean that they do not need to be taught anything by people, but that the Holy Spirit will teach them everything! If you didn't need other people to teach you, then you could just read and write all by yourself. You could fix your car, or your computer, or replace your toilet without anybody ever giving you a clue.
But that is not how anything works! If we are supposed to be learning everything directly from Holy Spirit, then why do we have a Bible? We have a Bible because Holy Spirit uses that to teach us! Being taught things I don't know, especially when it comes to Bible and spiritual things, that IS me learning from Holy Spirit!
Now, here comes the Apostle Paul in 1&2 Timothy, directly addressing this issue. In 1 Timothy ch1, after his initial and usual greeting, the very first thing he says (v3) is that Timothy should remain in Ephesus "that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine." In v4-7, he clarifies what he means, because people were giving 'heed to fables', 'endless genealogies', 'have wandered away into vain arguments and discussions and purposeless talk' (AMPC), v7 desiring to be teachers, but have no idea what they are talking about (my paraphrase).
Here's the point. Paul uses the word 'doctrine', also translated teaching, 9 times in 1 Timothy, 3 times in 2 Timothy. 'Teach no other doctrine', 'contrary to sound doctrine', 'doctrines of demons', etc. Teaching doctrine is the Great Commission! "Teach them to observe all things I have commanded you"!
Here's your assignment: Look up all these addresses, underscore in your Bible the word 'doctrine', make a note of how that word is used in the context of the verse and passage. Here's the list from 1 Timothy ch1:3, 10; ch4:1, 6, 13, 16; ch5:17; ch6:1, 3. And 2 Timothy ch3:10, 16; ch4:3.
True disciples cannot be produced from fables, or myths, or 'useless wranglings of men'. Some of Paul's last words to his son Timothy was, "But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them," 2 Timothy 3:14.
This is the secret of discipleship training in the Great Commission. "The things you have learned", or the doctrines. "The things you have been assured of", or the things you have found to be true in real life, confirmed by Holy Spirit and your personal experience. "Knowing from whom you learned" all that truth (see 2 Timothy 3:10-11).
This is why we coupled church planting and Pastoral training in our ministry. It is how we read the Great Commission. "Teach them to observe all things that I have commanded you." This is why we stick to sound doctrine!
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