What is known as.....cash crop farming....produces crops and therefore food to be marketed and sold. Other than a few tomatoes....I do not grow any of the food that we eat in our home. What is known as....subsistence farming....is something different....where the farmer grows the food that his family will consume. A famine anywhere in the world may not affect my grocery shopping at all....other than the prices may go up. A famine in Sudan or Malawi or some such third-world nation threatens families with starvation.
God's Word speaks of gospel truths as food....and Christians look to the return of Jesus Christ....and that great banquet. Jesus said that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.
So how do we survive. Is the gospel a....cash crop....where someone else....the church and its ministers.....and all parachurch ministries out there....harvest and gather and sort the produce....market it....and deliver it to us....the only cost being what money is put into the collection plate or to those ministries? Or is the gospel more of a subsistence crop to us....where we have the land....God's Word....and the water....the Holy Spirit....thus if we choose....we can have a daily supply of the best food?
God has given us teachers....and teachers teach....so we need teachers....but for how long? In one respect forever....for we are never to stop learning....that's why we read Christian books....but does the time come when we can....so to speak...grow our own food....or read God's Word and see something that we have never read or heard before?
There are problems on both sides of this. On the one side there are those who grow their own 'food'....and it is all poison. My wife pointed out a t-shirt to me the other day...."All mushrooms can be eaten...but some only once." This is how cults were formed. This is how 'teachers' like Joel Osteen became popular. On the other side....we would never stoop down to dig a furrow....and then to plant a seed....and to water and nourish and weed it. Why do any of that when all we have to do is go to the nearest grocery store....in this case....podcast or website....and load up the shopping cart?
How many years do we need Bible studies? The Sunday School was first formed to teach young people who had no other way to be taught. Today these things are like a dishwasher where we do not have to wash our own dishes....where we can go to our dying day subsisting on that....door dash.
How are we to be Bereans....to check what others are teaching....if all that we do is listen to teachers? Who checks the teachers? Well God's Word is that check....but we have to be able to sail that sea ourselves....and not merely be experienced on taking cruises.
Addendum: I am not disparaging Bible studies. We need them. If you teach a Bible study....keep at it. In five minutes....Lord willing....I am going up to our local bicycle store to purchase a bicycle light for our grandson....as he just graduated to a regular grown-up's bike. He started with a....Stryder....which worked out real well....and then moved on to child's bike. That is us folks. We start out with training wheels. About ten years ago my wife and I took a cruise to Bermuda. I had the bright idea to rent a small motorcycle to go to the opposite end of the island. I hadn't been on a small motorcycle in thirty years since a cruise to Jamaica....which went well....being on a road along the beach. This time it didn't go well as it was a cramped two lane with a wall on one side and a drop-off on the other....with a bus tooting its horn behind us...and my wife screaming....and me trying to be calm. The only instructions the man gave us was...this is the rear brake handle....this other one is the front brake handle....do not use it! So for your Bible study....start on the beach road....where there is no traffic....only turquoise water to look at....but remember that the goal is eventually to ride safely alone.
