Apostles Train Others Who Train Others
by Brian Sauder
Article 6 in the Apostolic Series
An apostle carries a passion for training leaders. He or she intrinsically knows that leadership training is the key to growth and expansion. One way that I know I have a met an apostle is to find out that they are training leaders.
I speak on the phone regularly with an apostolic leader from Asia. He often talks about training leaders. He started a leadership training school. Those who convert to Christianity are encouraged to attend two years of Bible training and then be sent as a missionary church planter to a village in the rural part of the nation.
Paul at the Lecture Hall of Tyrannus
After many years of experience in presenting the gospel to people in other cultures, Paul put it all together in a new strategy in the city of Ephesus. He started teaching the truths of the gospel of the Kingdom in a lecture hall in Tyrannus. The results were amazing. Perhaps because this training is mentioned only briefly in the New Testament, many Christians are not aware of the Kingdom expansion that can be traced back to this school. However, by most measures, it was the most successful evangelistic strategy reported anywhere in the entire Bible!
Paul’s target audience was pagan unbelievers from Ephesus who had never heard about Jesus. His method of presentation was so powerful that observers said he was turning the world upside down. Let’s read about it.
“Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, reasoning persuasively about the kingdom of God. But some of them became obstinate; they refused to believe and publicly maligned the Way. So Paul left them. He took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus. This went on for two years, so all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord” (Acts 19:8-10).
As mentioned in a previous article, the province of Asia was estimated to have over two million people. We are told in this verse that they all heard the Word of the Lord! Apparently, the Lecture Hall of Tyrannus was a training center that spawned new churches and supplied existing churches with well-equipped leaders.
This Was Not a Bible School
The training that took place in the Hall of Tyrannus was not a Bible school. How do we know this? Apostle Paul never had a Bible. He had access to Old Testament Scriptures, which were kept and read in Jewish synagogues, but it is unlikely that he ever referred to them in the Hall of Tyrannus. Paul did not teach from the New Testament because it had not been written yet. In fact, he is believed to be the author of fourteen of the twenty-seven books of the New Testament. I have to wonder if he knew that he would be writing a large part of this New Covenant.
It could be mind-blowing for us modern-day Christians to realize that Christianity came before the Bible. Christianity is about the person of Jesus Christ: His birth, life, teaching, death, and resurrection. The Bible is the written record that keeps Jesus’ message from becoming distorted over time. We hold it in high honor.
But for Paul, the Bible was not essential for his ministry, because he had received first-hand knowledge directly from Jesus. (See Galatians 1:11-18.) It is amazing that when Paul met for the first time the disciples who had traveled with Jesus, he found that there was no difference between what they had been teaching in Jerusalem and what he had been teaching in Antioch. Unknown to each other, they had both been conveying the words of Jesus (Galatians 2:1-9).
So, how could this school in Tyrannus be an effective training center for aggressive evangelism if it was not built on Bible study? The early Christian movement was called The Way. Before the term “Christian” was used in Acts 11:26, the early Jesus followers were known as “People of The Way.” This can be seen in Acts 9:2, 19:9, 19:23, 22:4, 24:14, and 24:22. The Way was more about testimony and explanation than about academics. It was personal, powerful, and exciting!
Today, many Bible schools and theologians gather around specific truths, thus bringing about the formation of denominations. Apostles instead gather people around a specific vision; people are inspired to be trained and involved in accomplishing the vision. Of course, we do have the Bible today, and it is central to the training that apostles provide. It presents a dynamic model for apostolic growth and ministry. In fact, because apostles are concerned with the form of the church, apostles will discern situations in which the church form is not aligned with the Word of God. They will teach the Word in order to bring the church back into the form that God intended for it.
But if Paul’s training method was not Bible study, what was it?
Before we look further at Paul and his training, let’s consider the method of training that Jesus used.
Jesus’ Method of Training
Jesus used a very straightforward method of training with His disciples. We can identify four steps in His method. First, He declared to His followers the information He wanted them to know. He then demonstrated the task for them to observe. He did not stop with teaching and demonstration. He then directed them to try it. This is the part we often miss! And finally, He debriefed with them, discussing how their practical assignment worked for them.
We see an example of this from the book of Luke. “After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming (He declared) the Good News of the kingdom of God” (Luke 8:1a). “The twelve were with Him and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases” (He demonstrated, Luke 8:1b-2). “Then He called His twelve disciples together and gave them power and authority over all demons, and to cure diseases…So they departed and went through the towns, preaching the gospel and healing everywhere” (He directed them to go, Luke 9:1). “When the apostles returned, they reported to Jesus what they had done” (He debriefed with them; Luke 9:10, additions mine).
- He declared
- He demonstrated
- He directed them to go
- He debriefed
This pattern worked for Jesus. We will see it worked for Paul. It can still work for us today.
Paul’s Approach to Training
The one verse that sums up Paul’s approach to training is 2 Timothy 2:2.
“And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
There it is. Train, then turn your students into trainers, who train others, and then turn the others into trainers who… and on and on and on. It almost sounds like a song.
As we study the ministry of Paul, we see that he consistently developed others by releasing them to do the ministry. When we say develop, we mean they had the opportunity to try it out and experiment with what they were learning. Timothy, Titus, Priscilla, and Aquilla all were trained and released to do the ministry. Paul’s method could be better called “Train and Do,” then do the next round of training, and the next.
We have aimed to follow this pattern in DOVE. Train and release. Some of our training is relational, and some of it takes place in a classroom as it did in the lecture hall located at Ephesus. We apply this pattern in our schools as we equip students for leadership and ministry.
Train Others Who Will Train Others
Paul was committed to training. Paul came to Corinth from Athens, which was about forty-five miles away. In Corinth he met Aquila and Priscilla and worked with them in the tentmaking trade. They later trained Apollos in Ephesus without Paul’s direct oversight. Apollos is identified as an apostle but Priscilla and Aquilla are not. Titles did not matter to them; they were committed to training. We use the Bible titles now to help build a teaching construct of how the early church was structured for growth and expansion.
Some of Them
Apostles have the humility that is required to train and genuinely release. They don’t care who gets the credit. They only care that the job gets done.
Here is what the scripture says about those who were church planting in Antioch. “But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus” (Acts 11:19). Amazing! This church in Antioch was the premier church in the New Testament, yet we do not even know the names of the men who came preaching Christ and founded the church.
This was a major change from Jerusalem. While it is certain that ordinary believers did many wonderful things in the ministry in Jerusalem, it is also quite apparent that the gifted ones and the apostles led almost everything, even to the distributing of food to widows. This can be seen in Acts 6.
This was not to be the way of the Kingdom. God would indeed use gifted, high-profile people, but the bulk of the ministry would be carried out through ordinary, no-name believers with a Kingdom heart and Kingdom mandate. Antioch’s genetic structure contained a vital core element. It was the church of the ordinary people from the very beginning.
This is the secret to the Kingdom. It is advanced by unnamed “others” with “some of them” having a major impact. Wow.
Jesus Did It, Paul Did It, and Apostles Do It Today
What are the training dynamics of an apostolic network? There is intentional development of leaders and workers. It is focused with the scope and purpose of expansion. There is an expectation that all should minister and help advance the Kingdom. This includes men, women, young, old, slave, free, native, immigrant—everyone! Teaching and training that carries impartation lifts others into anointed ministry.
Preparation is more important than pulpits. The focus of apostles is training people to do the ministry rather than on ministering to them. Sermons are nice and make people feel good, but apostles will champion training.
When people are given an apostolic vision, they are activated and they all want to do something. Projects, ideas, proposals, and initiatives are birthed and grow. All mature believers are equipped, employed, and deployed. Apostles call together and coordinate fivefold ministers to equip all.
Paul defends order and the importance of apostles without holding up a hierarchy. His apostolic impetus was always focused on building the next thing God was doing in the next place. He was always ready to move on to the next city as He was led by the Holy Spirit.
Even as I am writing and you are reading, apostles are right now training the future leaders needed for the Kingdom to expand. A passion and anointing for training is a clear marker of an apostle.
Sources
Thinkers Bible Study, 2001: Lundborg Foundation
Learn more!
Learn many more leadership principles in The Biblical Role of Elders for Today’s Church
