Doing Must Come Before Teaching

Doing Must Come Before Teaching

Zac Poonen | 24th November 2024

Acts 1:1 teaches us something important. Acts was written by Luke, the co-worker of Paul, and before he wrote the Acts of the Apostles, he wrote Luke's Gospel. He wrote both of them to a person called Theophilus. In the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles, he refers to the gospel that he had written previously by saying, "The first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach…" If you were to ask Luke to give a title to his gospel, he would say "All that Jesus began to do and teach." Not, "All that Jesus taught," but "All that He did and taught." It was a principle in Jesus' life that He would not teach what He had not done. The principle is this: do and then teach. Not teach and do, but do and teach. Jesus did not practice what He preached; He preached what He had already practiced and continued to practice. That's the principle. Based on that, if you were to ask Luke to give a title to the Acts of the Apostles, what title do you think he would give? If the Gospel of Luke was "All that Jesus began to do and teach in His physical body on earth," then the Acts of the Apostles would be "All that Jesus continued to do and teach through His spiritual body, the church." That is our ministry, to continue to do and teach what He began to do and teach when He lived on earth for thirty-three years. That's why the church is called the Body of Jesus Christ. That's why understanding all that Jesus taught is important, because we need to do it and then we need to teach it.

There's a great illustration of this later in Acts. In Acts 10:4, God sends an angel to tell the Roman centurion Cornelius, "Your prayers have ascended as a memorial before God and the money you've given to the poor, the alms, have also ascended as a memorial before God." But why didn't he give him the gospel? Why didn't he ask Cornelius, "Do you know that you're a sinner, that Christ died for your sins and rose again, that you need to receive Him as your Lord, repent and believe?" He couldn't say that. All that the angel could tell him was "Your prayers and alms have ascended, and now please send somebody to go and call for Peter; he is living far away in another place, in Joppa. It may take a few days for Peter to come here, but you have got to wait." And the angel then departed. Don't you think the angel could have told him exactly what Peter would tell Cornelius? The angel knew the gospel very clearly. There's a very important reason why Almighty God didn't allow the angel to preach the gospel to Cornelius. Cornelius had to wait for so many days to hear the gospel, till Peter came, because the angel had not experienced the gospel. He could not say, like Peter, "I was a sinner, but Jesus died for me, and His blood cleansed my sins, and I'm forgiven."

“Jesus wants us to do and then to teach, not teach what we have not done. We don't begin by teaching; we begin by doing”

Because the angel could not say that, he could not preach it. He could not preach a truth that he knew only in his mind. He could probably preach better than Peter; it did not matter. He was not allowed to preach it because he had not experienced it, which teaches us one fundamental principle: we are not permitted by God to preach what we have not experienced. There's a word for people who preach what they have not practiced or experienced, and the word in the New Testament is "hypocrite." There are many hypocritical preachers.

Jesus wants us to do and then to teach, not teach what we have not done. We don't begin by teaching; we begin by doing. You can't go to a Bible school, spend three years there, get a degree, and then think that you can now teach people, if you have not done what Jesus has commanded in your own life. I remember speaking with a person who graduated after a four-year Bible college course in a particular Bible College. He was the top student in his class. At the graduation ceremony where I was speaking, he came to see me and I asked him, "What is your spiritual condition at the end of these four years of study, in your inner life?" He said, "It's worse than when I first came. I'm more defeated by sin." He was honest. I said, "Now that you are going to go out with your degree and become a pastor somewhere, what are you going to teach people? Hebrew and Greek interpretations of various verses, or can you teach them how to overcome the lust of the eyes, and how to overcome anger? That's what they need to hear, because that's what Jesus taught. And if you haven't experienced that overcoming in your own life, you will just teach theory." This is the sad state of so many preachers and pastors, and that's why you hear every now and then of some famous preacher or pastor, who has been preaching for many years, suddenly admit that he's been living in adultery for many years. How is it that the people in the congregation could not discern the impurity in this man's spirit? Because they were taken up by the eloquence of his preaching and the knowledge that he had. Jesus said, "Teach them to do all that I commanded."

When Jesus said in His great commission, "Teach them to do all that I have commanded you," He was telling us to be free from hypocrisy. He was telling us never to speak about that which we haven't done. Only teach others to do what we have first done ourselves.