Learn It, Do It, Teach It

October 11, 2026

I receive a “verse of the day” in my email every morning, and today’s verse was really loaded. “Keep putting into practice all you learned and received from me—everything you heard from me and saw me doing. Then the God of peace will be with you.” Philippians 4:9 NKJV. Let’s unpack this verse for a bit. First, Paul tells us there is a step beyond learning. It’s great to be a learner. In fact, I encourage you to be a lifelong learner. It fires me up to see my audience taking notes while I preach. At least I hope they are taking notes and not writing a grocery or a to-do list! I hope that later they take those notes and study more at home on their own. But Paul tells us there is more to it than just learning. We need to take what we have learned and put it into practice. We can have notebooks full of notes, but if our learning isn’t changing how we live our lives, we end up with big theological brains and weak, diseased hearts! Notice the tense of Paul’s command to put out learning into practice. He wrote, “KEEP putting it into practice.” Living out what we have learned is a lifelong endeavor. We can’t say, “well, I was kind to my neighbor today, so that checks that chore off my to-do list.” We must keep being nice to our neighbor. Embedded in this verse are a couple of things for us “seasoned saints’ as well. Paul tells us that when we learn something, it is our responsibility to teach it to others. You might say, “Well, it’s the pastor's job to teach others.” Paul would disagree with you. Paul isn’t writing this little book only to pastors. He is writing to the saints. We all have the responsibility to teach what we have learned to others. Finally, look at the last phrase of this verse. “Everything you heard from me and saw me doing.” We teach others not only with words, but also through our lifestyle and example. Can you tell a young Christian, “Watch what I do and imitate that?” The goal of Bible study isn’t to see how much you can learn. It is to take what you have learned and live a lifestyle consistent with it. As James said, let’s be “doers and hearers,” not just hearers. According to Paul, when we practice what we have learned, THEN the God of peace will be with us. With the Holy Spirit’s help, I’m working on that. I hope you are too.

Be blessed and then go be a blessing . . . Bro. Andy