Psalm 78

The importance of teaching

We are to be learners. We are to listen to teaching and learn what God has for us to learn.

But we are to be much more than storehouses of information and knowledge; we are to be teachers. The generations coming behind us need to know what we have learned.

One episode of Stargate SG-1 shows a world that learns when they are young and all of their knowledge is shared with everyone else by a technology called “nanites”. These nanites are small machines that live in the brain cells of each child until they are 12, gathering data and recording everything learned, then they are removed and shared with everyone else. The process is wonderful with one exception; the person they are removed from looses everything they have learned and has to start over.

We do not lose our wisdom when it is shared; in fact it grows. By sharing ideas and understandings we learn from each other.

Teaching, discipleship, is very important to the church. Rick Warren details it as one of the 5 purposes of the church in his “Purpose Driven” church model.

Matthew 28:18-20 “Jesus came and told his disciples, "I have been given complete authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (NLT)

Psalm 78 tells us to teach the coming generations the Will and Ways of God so they will not:

· Be stubborn

· Be rebellious

· Be unfaithful

· Refuse to give their heart to God.

This principle is shared in the Bible in several places, here are two:

Titus 2:4-7 “These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to take care of their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely in all they do. And you yourself must be an example to them by doing good deeds of every kind. Let everything you do reflect the integrity and seriousness of your teaching.” (NLT)

Proverbs 22:6 “Teach your children to choose the right path, and when they are older, they will remain upon it.” (NLT)