SYSTEMATIC TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY
[p. 444] SYSTEMATIC TEACHING IN CHRISTIANITY
JT These two scriptures afford instruction as to certain features of the early days of Christianity, and these features obtain now in certain conditions; and it is hoped we shall see by the consideration of the early teaching that systematic teaching marked the introduction of Christianity, that is to say that the economy (or dispensation) was set up having the features of a system of teaching, as it is said of the early believers, “they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers”, Acts 2: 42. One has particularly in mind in regard to the system, the twelve apostles seen in this chapter, “and the twelve were with him”. So it says, “he went through the country city by city, and village by village, preaching and announcing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with him”. It is understood that the numeral twelve as attached to the Lord’s service involves not only what is systematic, but love. Whilst things were done systematically in an ordinary sense, they were marked by love, and in this particular position we see the system is marked by grace; that is, the power of God in the exercise of grace. It says, “and certain women who had been healed of wicked spirits and infirmities, Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out”; the power of God was there in the kingdom exercised in grace; the systematic working of the Lord Jesus was seen in these persons, but the love too; “and Joanna, wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others, who ministered to him of their substance”. Then in Acts 20 it is thought that it corresponds with this in the service of Paul, certain who companied with him, their names being given, who obviously represent Paul’s work. The facts here shew the systematic way of doing things; “And there accompanied him as far as Asia, Sopater son of Pyrrhus, a Berean; and of Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius and Timotheus of Derbe, and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus”; it is this, that the Spirit of God is accrediting the facts in the presence of these men; they were the exponents of it; furthermore it is in view of the end of the dispensation drawing nigh that these features should be arrived at in those who love the Lord, and that these things should be done well, and carry with them what is in Christianity.
Rem In the recovery we are brought back to what was at the beginning.
JT Quite so, especially to what is given by His most successful servant, Paul.
Ques Do we see the effectiveness of love, in Luke 7, in both the Lord and the woman?
JT That is a good suggestion; it is a well-known gospel chapter. We see in Luke how effective the Lord’s service was, and how men of this world, leaders, servants employed by this world’s system, military people, and the like, became adjusted; so we may see it today; believers in military service, and what God has helped us in lately is right, that believers should not be employed in taking life, The centurion of the beginning of Luke 7 was a humane man, and even more than that, for he says, “For I also am a man placed under authority”, it implies that he discerned the Lord was there under authority, which is a feature of the dispensation. We need to be ready to observe the work of God, what it is, even in a soldier.
Ques How do we get this teaching and love today?
JT God employs means. Things are to be done on right principles, and done well, and we should not [p. 446] be slipshod in our service, doing it, or not doing it, as we choose. We may have to say, “We are unprofitable bondmen”, according to Luke 17: 10, and so we are, in a sense, because of the ‘overheads’, for we cost Him more than He gets in return!
Ques Is Paul using the leverage of love in saying he has “all the brethren with me”? Galatians 1: 2.
JT Very good; it is another thing he is asserting, that he has the brethren with him, that is, in sympathy; the Galatians were denying this, or giving it up.
Ques Does the sense of what we have cost stimulate us?
JT Quite so. Hence John the apostle says, “that we ... may receive full wages” (2 John 8), which is remarkable. He has a right to do as He pleases with what He calls His own.
Ques Do we see the administration of love in questions arising among us?
JT I would say that. He is allowing exercises to arise, and even ordering them, that things should be in order.
Rem The number twelve comes into that.
JT Yes, if love is working the effectiveness will be increased; all that followed the Lord came under divine teaching. And take those men mentioned at Troas; how varied the localities from which they came, as if the Spirit of God is stressing the effectiveness of Paul’s work. I have heard of those going to Australia and having great success, but nowhere else, and one wonders; Paul had it everywhere.
Ques Does “city by city, and village by village” stress the effectiveness of the service?
JT Read what is says, “he went through the country city by city, and village by village, preaching and announcing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with him, and certain women”. So the service of God can even be carried [p. 447] by those in military employment, like the centurion who was said to love his servant; a remarkable thing, they were generally very haughty and overbearing, but this man loved his servant; “And a certain centurion’s bondman who was dear to him was ill and about to die; and having heard of Jesus, he sent to him elders of the Jews, begging him that he might come and save his bondman”. So Jesus went with them, acceding to the wishes of the Jews. He knew His man, so it says, “But already, when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent to him friends, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble thyself, for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof. Wherefore neither did I count myself worthy to come to thee. But say by a word and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, having under myself soldiers, and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my bondman, Do this, and he does it. And Jesus hearing this wondered at him, and turning to the crowd following him said, I say to you, Not even in Israel have I found so great faith”. This is all to be kept in our minds in what we are saying.
Now as to what is in mind in the question as to workmanship and the systematic way of it, “he went through the country city by city, and village by village, preaching and announcing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with him”, meaning they represent love. The centurion loved his servant, and I believe the thought of the number twelve is that it is so divisible and easily used to get the most out of the number: two, three, four, six or twelve; the number can be used in that remarkable way, and therefore is available to love.
Ques To be effective in the service do we need to answer to the word that “the twelve were with him”?
JT There were others with Him too, but this is [p. 448] to bring out that they were available at any time; then there was the kind of workmanship in “Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out”; what a result; what a case; the terrible power of the devil; but they “had gone out”; the position had been rendered untenable, “from whom seven demons had gone out”; some circumstance had come into this woman’s case that rendered the devil’s position untenable.
Rem What a fine witness to His power!
JT That is in mind, and she was not only used in this gospel, but to the saints in John 20. She would not speak at a ministry meeting, but behave as a woman should; “Mary of Magdala comes bringing word to the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that he had said these things to her”, John 20: 18.
Ques Would you say some more as to the numeral twelve?
JT It is a sign of administrative ability; ability operating in love.
Ques Would it enter into the making up of the full number of the twelve apostles in Acts 1?
JT Just so; it is to be noticed that the Lord did not order the appointment of Matthias; it was by lot really; arranged by heaven; so “he was numbered with the eleven apostles”, Acts 1: 26. There was great evidence that the Lord approved it. So it says later, “But Peter, standing up with the eleven” — Acts 2: 14, so that the twelve were there, the great administrative number was there, and when Peter finished those there “said to Peter and the other apostles, What shall we do, brethren?” Acts 2: 37. They had discernment to see what workers they were, “the Lord working with them”, Mark 16: 20.
Ques As to this matter, why does Peter say, “from the baptism of John until the day in which he was taken up from us”, Acts 1: 22?
JT Peter’s wisdom is seen in that, for he was the one who spoke. “Of the men who have assembled with us all the time in which the Lord Jesus came in and went out among us”; it shews that he was to be thoroughly in the thing; “beginning from the baptism of John until the day in which he was taken up from us, one of these should be a witness with us of his resurrection”; this scripture should be well studied. The brethren should be approved.
Ques Is the system to be dominated by love?
JT Well; the whole thing is this idea of love, “By love serve one another”, Galatians 5: 13; and “have love amongst yourselves”, John 13: 35.
Ques Would the matters in Luke 8 be a development of these things, especially love, seen in chapter 7?
JT Yes, as coming after chapter 7; it all enters into it.
Rem That would apply to the “woman in the city, who was a sinner”, Luke 7.
JT Quite so; we have little time (a very systematic thing!), and we are to learn from it how to be systematic in serving.
Rem The stress here is on the number twelve, but we may have less than that in a small place, perhaps three or four.
JT If love is there the principle holds; we get but little instruction, even by the apostles, as to it; but Christianity itself is not seen in the Old Testament or in the Apocalypse.
Ques Would you tell us how these things work out in the small numbers?
JT Scripture contemplates “two of you”, two persons of the assembly, not two apostles.
Ques Does the reference in chapter 10 to the seventy mean expansion?
JT I suppose we have there the Lord shewing [p. 450] the liberality of heaven in Himself, and how many men He could afford. In Gethsemane He made do with what He had, two here and there, for He was forsaken by them. In 1 Corinthians 15: 6 “he appeared to above five hundred brethren at once”; we wonder how they would be found, when we get only “about a hundred and twenty” names in Acts 1: 15, well, we just have to accept the fact, that heaven acted liberally, though there is a shortage of men. Heaven’s way means accuracy; it carries the thought into Peter’s service, for he says, “And there went with me these six brethren also” — Acts 11: 12; he brought them to Cornelius’s house; he discerned that he would be questioned; all these things should enter into our care-meetings, whom to use, what numbers, and what country we are dealing with.
Rem There were more first born males in the children of Israel than Levites, Numbers 3: 46.
JT There was a shortage of numbers.
Rem I had an impression from C.A.C. as to them going on to the end.
JT I do not see how you work out shortness of numbers in the Levites, over the first born; it is very interesting, as every Levite is said to be a first born, Hebrews 12: 23. The book of Numbers provides what is necessary; the name means “in the wilderness”; it was difficult times, and difficult work, and this applies to the work of the Levites, but they were helped there, and I think God is helping us. David reduced the age to twenty, instead of twenty-five or thirty, 1 Chronicles 23:24. That means an apprentice could be used (that is one who may only have preached once, but he is not to get much, if anything, for it); still the work is done. In Exodus 24 Aaron and his sons were not yet called priests, and “the youths of the children of Israel” had to carry on, Exodus 24: 5.
Ques Did Paul see potential value in Eutychus?
JT “His life is in him” (Acts 20: 10), though he was only a boy; he is called that, as they brought him away alive; no multiplication of work as yet, but there were great potentialities.
Ques Over against mere official status, would “and many others” (verse 3) leave scope for the exercise of love?
JT Very good and helpful.
Ques Does Paul’s word to Timothy apply, “do the work of an evangelist”? (2 Timothy 4: 5).
JT It had to be done; quite so; and another thing as to him was the rekindling of “the gift of God which is in thee” — 2 Timothy 1: 6, like John Mark, “for he is serviceable to me for ministry” — 2 Timothy 4: 11; and rekindling is a great matter, if things are grown cold, and the brother is stirred up, then things are done well.
Ques Is there a link between the number twelve and the administration of the assembly?
JT Revelation 21 has more to say on twelve than any other chapter; it shews what is at the beginning of the millennial days; that is, the heavenly city is marked by great administration. The first eight verses of the chapter give very little of administration, but from verse 9 to the end is full of it, as if to say, the devil’s work is more stressed than the work of God in the first part of the book, “a great red dragon ... his tail draws the third part of the stars of the heaven” — Revelation 12: 3 - 4, he has power up there; but chapter 21, especially from verse 9, alludes to the heavenly city coming down; the devil does not attack that.
Ques Is the number twelve carried over into Acts 20 in Paul’s embrace of Eutychus (verse 10) and the disciples in verse 37?
JT Just so, and in chapter 19 we have the twelve disciples of John brought into Christianity; a good point, but unofficial. Now in Acts 20 we see the effectiveness of Paul’s work, which is seen today; if it is not so, we had best not say much; but if so, like here, these seven men would be brought forward, and it all heads up to the Lord’s supper, the point in mind, “And there accompanied him as far as Asia, Sopater son of Pyrrhus, a Berean; and of Thessalonians, Aristarchus and Secundus, and Gaius and Timotheus of Derbe, and of Asia, Tychicus and Trophimus. These going before waited for us in Troas; but we sailed away from Philippi after the days of unleavened bread, and we came to them to Troas in five days, where we spent seven days. And the first day of the week, we being assembled to break bread, Paul discoursed to them, about to depart on the morrow. And he prolonged the discourse till midnight” — verses 4 to 7. It is well worth carrying away with us, that this all leads up to the Lord’s supper, and the thought of assembling; the word is here in verse 7, “we being assembled to break bread”.