God tells Christians to remember the people who spoke God's Word to them -- parents, preachers, Sunday School teachers, or the great teachers of the Church through the ages. We are to imitate their faith and their way of life. Christianity can be lived. The ancient church said that the Gospel is the true philosophy because it was lived by men, women, and children, free, and slaves. Each believer who teaches God's Word also incarnates the truth in his own life. That faithful living of the Gospel should be the aim of every teacher, beginning with parents who teach their children to pray and read the Bible in family worship. The Christian teacher should never be in the position of saying, “Do as I say, not as I do,” because the Gospel can be lived: it fits reality! The passage of time and the advance of technology cannot alter the truth of the Gospel because Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. One of the current crop of atheist evangelists has written disparagingly about the Bible as an “iron age” document. He misses the point that neither human nature nor God has changed. So the Bible can still be lived. Therefore, we remember and learn from the past teachers of the church, their lives as well as their teachings. |
