02/02/22 GET FULLY EQUIPPED

02/02/22 GET FULLY EQUIPPED

Scholarly investigation is essential and helpful for Bible translation and interpretation. However, this does not mean that the average Christ-follower needs to become expert in these areas, anymore than the average believer needs to translate the Bible.

Sound Christian leadership requires spiritual and academic integrity. This includes expert Biblical translators; well-trained educators and writers of Bible, Theology, and History; highly trained, studious pastors. Christians should have spiritually qualified, well-equipped, and gifted leadership, teaching them God's word, God's way, and God's will. This will enable the average believer to grow in grace and knowledge, thereby becoming a faithful and fit follower of Christ.

Becoming a qualified pastor can happen in a local church, provided the local church provides leadership training of the highest caliber. Schooling will supply the tools but the student pastor must dig out the gems of truth himself. Ministry Training, whether formal or through a local church, enables pastoral students to become studious and equipped to lead believers into spiritual maturity and productivity.

It is getting more difficult to find mature, qualified, spiritual, knowledgeable pastoral leadership. Very few of the Christian schools have remained faithful to their calling and task and most pastors have not taken seriously, their calling to feed, lead, protect and train their people in ministry and service.

A FEW PASSAGES TO CONSIDER
Proverbs 4:5-9
5 Get wisdom, get understanding: forget it not; neither decline from the words of my mouth.
6 Forsake her not, and she shall preserve thee: love her, and she shall keep thee.
7 Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.
8 Exalt her, and she shall promote thee: she shall bring thee to honour, when thou dost embrace her.
9 She shall give to thine head an ornament of grace: a crown of glory shall she deliver to thee.
Ecclesiastes 12:9-14
9 And moreover, because the preacher was wise, he still taught the people knowledge; yea, he gave good heed, and sought out, and set in order many proverbs.
10 The preacher sought to find out acceptable words: and that which was written was upright, even words of truth.
11 The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.
12 And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh.
13 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.
14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.
1 Timothy 4:12-16
12 Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.
14 Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.
15 Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.
16 Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.
Jude 1:3-5
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
4 For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.
5 I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not.