via TJC
“and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Tim 2:2 (ESV)
This week we have been examining growing men as Disciple Makers. After a farmer has plowed the fallow ground, sown the right seeds that he expects to reap, and carefully nurtured the soil, does the farmer expect a singular return. Of course not; the farmer works expects a multiplicity, an abundance for his efforts.
As a math term, multiplication of good is better than addition -- for our God is the God who can multiply our resources (Matthew chapter 14). To put it another way, for Spiritual Addition, let’s say you can train 2 men in 2 years to mature manhood, no longer “tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes” (Eph. 4:13-14). By the end of 8 years (4 generations), you will have trained 8 men. For Spiritual Multiplication, if instead you train the men to the fullness of Christ, who are then equipped to train other men, each training 2 more men in 2 years, then in 4 generations 80 new men will have been brought to Christ.
For multiplication to happen: 1) Christ has to first bless it, and 2) it has to be given away. For the feeding of the 5,000 families, Christ told His disciples: “...you give them something to eat.” (Matt 14:16). After the disciples presented their meager resources, Christ blessed it. (That is, if Christ hasn’t blessed it, it's not worth going forward.) However, the blessing was not for the disciples, it was for others. If the disciples ate the loaves and fishes there would be no abundance.
Paul instructs the same about multiplication to Timothy, to not stop with personally learning from Paul but to entrust what he had learned “to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also.”
For this author, I’m still learning, like Timothy, what it means to invest in faithful men, who can then teach others.
Daily Battle Order: What are your strengths towards building God’s kingdom? Would you prefer that God add to it or multiply it?
Today, what steps will you take towards multiplication? If not sure of first steps, then learn from other men already on the journey towards multiplication, such as joining a TJC cohort.
Jesus multiplied in three ways: (1) preached to the masses, (2) rolled with the Twelve, and (3) personally poured into Peter. We ought to do the same. For (2) and (3), it's a long, patient process. For (1), it takes daily courage to be who we always are in Christ throughout the day. It takes courage to share the Gospel with a stranger. Jesus had the courage for (1), and he had the patience for (2) and (3).