The Fifth Task of the Teacher involves helping the people who are gathering around the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus Christ become familiar with the Basic Christian Beliefs about the redemption that God has made available through His Providence on the basis of the covenant(s). In this presentation, we are going to look at Common Grace, The Work of the Holy Spirit and the Order of Salvation.
Common Grace
When Jesus was here, he told us that God “makes his son rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Matthew 5:45 ESV). This is just one verse that leads us to believe in the doctrine of Common Grace.
Wayne Grudem says “We may define common grace as follows: Common Grace is the grace of God by which he gives people innumerable blessings that are not a part of salvation.” In other words, there are things God is willing to do for people living in this world if they never trust the eye witness testimony and experience the change of heart that I mentioned in the Message of Christianity.
The innumerable blessings of common grace require people to organize different forms of government to oversee the development and distribution of local resources. In many parts of the world, there is a limited amount of local resources like water and farmland available, and people develop local governments to maintain peace on earth in a way that can make the most of whatever resources are available. Anyone who threatens the availability of these local resources should be punished for not acting in the best interest of the people living around them.
We need the Teachers who want to work on the Fifth Task of the Teacher in your area to make sure people understand the significance of common grace. God is willing to share good things with people He disapproves of because He hopes by being generous they will turn their lives around. This is why Paul wrote that “God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance” (Romans 2:4 ESV).
Moving past the common grace of God’s providence brings us face to face with the Work of the Holy Spirit, which is the next thing we need to help people gathering around the Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus become aware of.
The Work of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity that is currently in charge of leading people to repentance (see Romans 2:4). In order to help the people gathering around the Death, Burial, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ improve their relationship with God, we need the teachers in your area to share the information the Bible gives us about the work of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus told us what to expect from the Holy Spirit: “and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment…” (John 16:8 ESV). In other words it is the work of the Holy Spirit to convince people that the corruption I mentioned in the Message of Christianity is a very serious problem.
It is also the work of the Holy Spirit that convinces people that Jesus Christ is the only answer to the problem caused by the corruption in human nature. This is important because there are other spirits working to promote misunderstandings about Jesus. Satan and his demons are working to promote false religions full of misunderstandings and misrepresentations inside and outside of the Church.
The simple reality is that we are part of a world that is vulnerable to the influence of evil spirits who are searching for ways to create cultural habits among people that will destroy the providential design of God’s providence.
The Holy Spirit has two jobs that He is responsible for. The first job of the Holy Spirit is going to be the focus of the Fifth Task of the Teacher. The second job of the Holy Spirit is to maintain healthy local Churches, which we will discuss in detail when we get to the Sixth Task of the Teacher.
I will talk more about this later; I just want to let you know where we are going before we get there. For now I want to stay focused on the Fifth Task of the Teacher. The Holy Spirit’s main concern is that people would come to understand and agree with God’s point of view on the human condition; which brings us to what is known as the Order of Salvation.
The Order of Salvation
The Order of Salvation is the process a person goes through in order to be reconciled with God and take their place as a healthy, well balanced member of a local Church. The Holy Spirit is in charge of the entire process, and He uses His influence and authority to create opportunities for us to participate in the work that needs to be done to produce healthy, well balanced Church members.
While the details of how people are led to the point of being a healthy, well balanced Church member depends on that person’s background; the Holy Spirit will only operate in agreement with the covenants described in the Bible. The contents of God’s character, His attributes, will not allow Him to participate in anything else.
This creates a problem because a lot of times people who come to believe in Jesus are not familiar with the Bible, the attributes of God, or how the covenants actually work. The work of an evangelist is needed to help them take the first step towards Jesus, but the work of a teacher needs to follow that in order for the new believer to become able to help others take their first step towards Jesus.
This is why I started these presentations with the work of an evangelist and switched to the work of the Teacher as the main point of the discipleship process. We need the teachers in your area to have a plan to guide people through a detailed explanation of how the Holy Spirit works in agreement with different aspects of the Christian faith.
Conclusion
I am writing this in the hope that we will begin to have some quality control standards at the Local Church level in your area. Next time, I want to explain what actually happens in a person’s life when the Holy Spirit works in agreement with the attributes of God that dictate the terms of the covenants found in the Bible.
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