Hebrews 5:12-13 says “You have been Christians a long
time now, and you ought to be teaching others. Instead, you need someone to
teach you again the basic things a beginner must learn about the Scriptures.
You are like babies who drink only milk and cannot eat solid food. 13And
a person who is living on milk isn’t very far along in the Christian life and
doesn’t know much about doing what is right.” (NLT)
Nurturing according to the
definition is the action of training and developing with the result of becoming.
Jesus nurtured is disciple, trained and taught them of the things of God so
that they would become great apostles. The result of Jesus nurturing them was
manifested in Acts 2, when the Holy Spirit came upon them and gave them power
and boldness to become apostle to the world. But before this, Jesus sent them
out to teach and nurture other disciples, who in turn would teach and nurture
others. He hasn't changed His plan; we are still called to nurture others,
especially does of the faith. Nurturing is all about developing others. The biggest
teachings to nurture other leaders are by example. If Jesus did not say a word
while on earth, we still would have learned because his action and attitude
were amazing.
Now the action of nourishing is to
promote growth and sustain. Jesus nourished his disciple with his Word, his
teachings, his love and compassion. We are called to do the same. Paul
instructs us in, 1 Timothy 4:6 if
you instruct the brothers of these things;
you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words
of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed. We must first
as leaders to seat at a place where we could be fed and nourish, we must hear
the Word and be doers of the Word.
So when we look at your
subject and topic, I personally do not see both as “vs” but see them as
partners, partners of development and training in the ministry. It is important
to have both in ministry to be successful and efficient.
Nahomie Acelin, blogueuse pour Ministère Resurexion.
