God's Gift of Books

"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers... so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes." (Ephesians 4:11, 14)

Somebody recently told me about an interesting thing his Bible study was doing. While studying a certain topic in the Bible, nobody would read any books on the topic other than the Bible. Is that a good idea? Should all Christian books other than the Bible be shunned as an obstruction to the "pure" Bible study method of "the Holy Spirit, the Bible, and me"? Or has God given other Christian books to his church for a purpose?

In 1 Corinthians 12-14, Paul discusses the importance of spiritual gifts in the church. The Corinthian church misunderstood the gifts, marginalizing some and exalting others. Paul, however, spoke about how "to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." Everyone has a spiritual gift, and those spiritual gifts are given for the benefit and edification of those in the church. Each gift and each particular gifted person is important, as Paul's extended metaphor regarding the church being like a body teaches us (1 Corinthians 12:12-28). If we neglect a gift, the body of Christ will not function as it should.

One particular gift that can be marginalized or under-utilized is the gift of teaching. Ephesians 4:11-14 speaks of pastors and teachers as a gift from Christ to his church. Verse 14 portrays the awful consequence of our situation without teachers: "children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful scheming." But thankfully, God has not chosen to just save us and leave us in relative ignorance, knowing only the gospel but never learning anything more. He gives us teachers so that we may know him more and learn to live in a manner that brings glory to him.

Another passage that gives us more insight into God's gift of teachers is 2 Timothy 3:16-17. Here, Paul writes to Timothy, "All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." Now, one may think that Paul doesn't have the teaching of others in mind here, and that his words may be paraphrased as "profitable for teaching oneself, for reproving oneself, for correcting oneself, and for training oneself in righteousness." But there are two points in the context that argue strongly against that view. Firstly, the pastoral epistles speak often about teaching others (see 1 Timothy 4:11, 2 Timothy 2:2, and Titus 2:15 for example). There is nothing in the context to suggest that a different kind of teaching is meant here. And secondly, the "man of God" is an Old Testament name for a prophet, a spokesperson for God (Joshua 14:6, 1 Samuel 2:27, 1 Kings 12:22, etc.). Its only other occurrence in the New Testament is in Paul's first epistle to Timothy. For the "man of God," the teacher that God has given to his church, his tool is "all Scripture," and his task is teaching others, reproving others, correcting others, and training others in righteousness.

An undue emphasis on the act of teaching while neglecting the proper content of that teaching, "all Scripture," can result in a personality cult, the worship of a particular teacher instead of the God revealed in Scripture. But teaching is certainly not something that can be disposed of in order to avoid this error. When the members of the Corinthian church formed divisions based on their favorite teacher (whether it was Peter, Paul, or Apollos), Paul did not instruct them to ignore teachers. Rather, he taught that the teachers are nothing more than servants of God in the building of his temple, the cultivation of his field (1 Corinthians 3:5-9).

In the closing of his second general epistle, Peter presents an additional reason that we need teachers: "And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures" (2 Peter 3:15-16).

Why do we need teachers when we already have the Scriptures? Why don't teachers just pass out Bibles and read directly from them? Why don't we all just sit down with our Bibles and attempt to reconstruct all systematic theology on our own? Because there are some things in the Scriptures that are "hard to understand." Even at the time of the writing of Paul's letters, some parts were hard to understand... how much more so now!

If we understand correctly, then, that God has given teachers to his church for a purpose, how then does this help us understand the role of books?

Teachers speak both through the written word and the spoken word. On one hand, we can see that God values the spoken word, as he continually gives his church living teachers to teach them with the spoken word. On the other hand, we can also see from the examples of the Scriptures themselves that God values the written word too, as his most important teaching - the God-breathed Scriptures - exists entirely in the form of the written word. Teachers from previous generations who have gone to be with the Lord can still edify the church through their writings, giving the present-day church the opportunity to learn, as it were, at the feet of men God has blessed over the past two millennia. Modern authors, too, have a role in addressing topics about which there is presently a lack of understanding or even much error being taught (as in the "easy-believism" so rampant in the church today).

Today, we see "seeker-friendly" churches that minimize teaching in their services, with expository sermons replaced with short talks consisting of storytelling and good advice followed by a skit, and we rightly criticize them for neglecting the gift of teaching. But if our only exposure to Biblical teaching is what we hear Sunday morning, then we're not really doing much better. In books, we have an inexhaustible supply of teaching at our disposal. If we need to understand the historical and cultural setting of the book of Ezra, there is a book in the church library that will teach us that. If we need to understand how the question of Christ's deity has been phrased and disputed throughout church history, there is another book that will teach us that. When we come across a passage in the Bible that is "hard to understand," we can borrow a couple commentaries from a friend and look up another one online in order to learn from godly men who have wrestled with that passage already. And if we are looking for help in the application of Scriptural principles in a particular area such as finances, we can buy a book that will teach us that.

A word of caution is necessary here. We shouldn't just go out and read any "Christian" book we can get our hands on. The books, like the teachers they come from, range from good to bad. Some are excellent edifying works that open our eyes to the wondrous truths of God's word, such as the holiness or the sovereign grace of God. Unfortunately, many of today's "Christian bestsellers" don't fall into this category, as they're virtually empty of theological content. Some are even outright heretical, denying essential Christian truths such as justification through faith alone or the exhaustive foreknowledge of God. When selecting books to read, we should exercise discernment just as we are called to with teachers in the New Testament (see 1 Thessalonians 5:20-22, 1 Timothy 6:3-4, for example). In 2 John we are called to not have anything to do with a teacher who denies the coming of the Jesus Christ in the flesh (the heresy of docetism). This would certainly also include not supporting or promoting the writings of such a false teacher.

In God's design, we will never learn all there is to know about him and his Word while living out our earthly lives. We will always need teachers, and God has been pleased to give his church teachers who have written their teaching in books. And he has given us teachers who use Scripture to teach us, reprove us, correct us, and train us in righteousness so that we may no longer be children spiritually, swept away by every other false doctrine that comes our way. We face severe consequences if we fail to use the gift of teaching, and specifically, that teaching in books. May we never neglect God's gift of books to the detriment of the body of Christ.