Teaching the Teacher
Teaching Biblical History So That Others Can Understand It
Teaching the Bible requires more than possessing information about biblical people, places, events, and doctrines. A Christian teacher must first understand what the inspired text communicates and then learn how to explain that truth so another person can understand it accurately. Knowledge and teaching ability are closely related, but they are not identical, because a person may know many biblical facts while struggling to organize those facts into clear instruction. The purpose of Teaching the Teacher is therefore not merely to provide another survey of Old Testament history but to train Christians to use biblical history responsibly in the work of teaching others. The major periods of Scripture provide the framework because biblical history gives teachers concrete persons, events, decisions, consequences, commands, promises, and acts of God through which important truths can be communicated. Each chapter consequently asks the reader to consider both the biblical material itself and the responsibility involved in explaining that material faithfully. The teacher must know what happened, understand why it happened within its historical setting, recognize what the inspired writer intended to communicate, and determine how that information can be presented clearly without distorting the text. Christian teaching becomes stronger when accurate biblical knowledge and careful communication work together under the authority of Jehovah’s Spirit-inspired Word.
The teacher’s first responsibility is therefore to become a student before attempting to instruct someone else. Scripture does not authorize Christian teachers to substitute confidence, personality, imagination, tradition, or emotional enthusiasm for disciplined study of the biblical text. A person who teaches without first understanding can communicate error with the same confidence that another person communicates truth, which makes preparation a serious moral responsibility. Ezra provides an important pattern because Ezra 7:10 describes him as setting his heart to study the law of Jehovah, practice it, and teach its statutes and ordinances in Israel. That order is significant because study precedes responsible teaching, while personal obedience prevents instruction from becoming detached from the teacher’s own conduct. The Christian teacher should therefore approach Scripture with humility, recognizing that the objective is not to invent an impressive lesson but to discover and communicate the meaning already present in the inspired text. Teaching becomes an act of stewardship because the message belongs to God rather than to the teacher, and the teacher is accountable for handling that message accurately. Teaching the Teacher proceeds from this conviction by joining careful attention to biblical history with practical concern for how that history should be taught.
Biblical History as the Foundation for Teacher Training
The historical structure of this book is deliberate because much of the Bible communicates divine truth through real events involving real people living in identifiable historical circumstances. Abraham traveled, Moses confronted Pharaoh, Israel crossed into Canaan, judges arose during periods of national disorder, kings governed the united and divided kingdoms, prophets delivered messages to actual audiences, Jerusalem fell, exiles lived under foreign rule, and returning Jews rebuilt their community after Babylonian captivity. These events are not religious legends created merely to illustrate timeless moral principles but components of the inspired record through which Jehovah revealed His dealings with mankind and His covenant people. The teacher must therefore resist the temptation to detach biblical teaching from the historical circumstances in which God caused it to be recorded. Students understand Scripture more accurately when they see how persons and events relate chronologically, geographically, politically, socially, and religiously rather than encountering isolated stories without connection to the larger biblical record. Historical knowledge also helps the teacher explain why particular commands were given, why certain conflicts arose, why specific prophetic warnings mattered, and how later events developed from earlier ones. Biblical history consequently becomes more than background information because it supplies the setting necessary for responsible interpretation. By learning to teach that history carefully, the Christian develops habits that strengthen his ability to explain the entire Bible.
This approach also protects teachers from reducing the Old Testament to a collection of disconnected moral stories. Noah is not merely an example of perseverance, Abraham is not merely an example of faith, Joseph is not merely an illustration of surviving hardship, Moses is not merely an example of leadership, and David is not merely an illustration of courage. Each person belongs within a historical setting and within the developing revelation recorded by the inspired writers. Their actions must be understood according to the words, circumstances, covenant relationships, commands, promises, and purposes found in the text rather than according to lessons modern readers might prefer to attach to them. A teacher may certainly draw appropriate instruction from their conduct, but that instruction must grow from the meaning of Scripture rather than being imposed upon it from outside. This distinction is especially important when teaching children or new Bible students because memorable stories can easily become detached from their biblical significance if the teacher emphasizes excitement while neglecting context. Responsible teaching asks what the inspired writer wanted the original audience to understand and then explains how that meaning bears upon Christians today. The historical-grammatical method therefore serves the teacher by keeping interpretation anchored to authorial intention, vocabulary, grammar, literary form, and historical circumstance. The objective is not merely to make Bible lessons interesting but to make them accurate, understandable, memorable, and spiritually useful.
Learning to See the Biblical Record as Connected History
The opening chapters establish this method by beginning with the biblical world before Abraham and then moving into the patriarchal period. The history before Abraham includes creation, mankind’s fall into sin, the spread of human wickedness, Noah and the Flood, the development of nations, and the circumstances that prepare the reader for Jehovah’s dealings with Abraham. These events should not be treated as an unrelated introductory collection because Genesis presents them as the foundation for understanding the human condition into which Abraham later enters. The teacher who explains this period carefully helps students understand the Creator-creature relationship, human responsibility, the entrance and expansion of sin, divine judgment, preservation, and the continuing development of mankind after the Flood. The patriarchal narratives then narrow the historical focus to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the family from which the nation of Israel would eventually develop. Jehovah’s covenant with Abraham in 2091 B.C.E. provides an especially important chronological and theological anchor because subsequent developments repeatedly connect with promises made to him and his descendants. Teachers therefore need to show relationships between events rather than presenting each patriarchal account as though it existed independently from everything before and after it. Learning to explain those relationships trains the teacher to organize biblical material according to the structure of Scripture itself.
The movement from the patriarchs into Egyptian bondage and deliverance provides another opportunity to teach students how biblical history develops across generations. Jacob’s family entered Egypt in 1876 B.C.E., where the descendants of Israel eventually grew into a numerous people and came under oppressive Egyptian rule. The Exodus in 1446 B.C.E. becomes one of the central historical events of the Hebrew Scriptures because Jehovah delivered Israel from Egyptian bondage and brought the nation into a covenant relationship under Moses. A teacher dealing with this material must do more than describe plagues, Pharaoh, the Passover, the departure from Egypt, and the crossing of the Red Sea as dramatic episodes. Students need to understand what these events reveal about Jehovah’s authority, His faithfulness to His word, the helplessness of Egypt’s gods, the responsibility of Pharaoh, and Israel’s dependence upon divine deliverance. The Passover must likewise be taught within its original historical setting before later biblical connections are considered, because sound interpretation begins with what the institution meant to those who first received it. Chronology, geography, political power, family identity, worship, and covenant obligation all meet within this section of biblical history. The teacher learns from this material how to organize a complex sequence of events without allowing memorable details to overwhelm the theological significance communicated by the inspired text. Such instruction demonstrates why teacher preparation requires careful selection, arrangement, explanation, and reinforcement rather than merely reading a biblical account aloud and assuming that students have grasped its meaning.
Moses, the Law, and the Formation of Israel
Moses provides a particularly rich field for teacher training because his life includes historical leadership, prophetic responsibility, legal instruction, worship, national organization, intercession, conflict, and personal accountability before Jehovah. The teacher must resist presenting Moses merely as a heroic leader because Scripture consistently directs attention beyond Moses to the God who commissioned, instructed, corrected, and used him. His confrontation with Pharaoh demonstrates courage, but that courage cannot be separated from Jehovah’s command and the authority of the message Moses was required to deliver. His leadership in the wilderness demonstrates responsibility, but it also reveals the enormous difficulty of guiding an imperfect and frequently rebellious people. The giving of the Law provides the teacher with an opportunity to explain how Israel became a nation governed by specific covenant obligations regulating worship, morality, justice, family life, priestly service, sacrifices, festivals, and community relationships. Students must learn that biblical law cannot be interpreted responsibly by extracting individual commands from their covenant setting and transferring them mechanically into the Christian congregation. At the same time, the Mosaic Law reveals much about Jehovah’s holiness, justice, moral standards, concern for proper worship, and expectations for His covenant people. Teaching Moses therefore trains the instructor to distinguish historical description, covenant obligation, enduring moral principles, and later Christian application without collapsing them into one category.
The conquest and settlement of Canaan likewise require careful teaching because these accounts are frequently misunderstood when removed from their biblical context. Israel entered Canaan in 1406 B.C.E., and the narratives of Joshua describe military conquest, covenant responsibility, divine judgment, obedience, failure, land distribution, and the continuing necessity of faithfulness to Jehovah. The teacher should neither soften difficult passages because modern readers find them uncomfortable nor present them carelessly without explaining the historical and moral setting supplied by Scripture. Students need to understand that the conquest did not arise from ordinary territorial ambition or racial superiority but occurred within a specific divine judgment and covenant context. They also need to recognize that Israel itself remained accountable to Jehovah and would later experience judgment when the nation practiced the same kinds of wickedness condemned among the peoples of Canaan. The book of Joshua repeatedly connects success with obedience rather than with military greatness, thereby preventing the story from becoming merely an ancient account of national expansion. Careful teaching can help students see how geography, tribal settlement, covenant loyalty, and incomplete obedience shape the transition from Joshua into the period of the judges. This chapter consequently trains teachers to address morally difficult biblical material honestly while allowing the inspired record, rather than modern assumptions, to control the explanation.
Teaching the Judges, the Monarchy, and the Prophets
The period of the judges gives teachers an opportunity to explain repeated patterns of disobedience, oppression, distress, deliverance, and renewed unfaithfulness without reducing the book to a series of exciting stories about unusual heroes. Israel lacked consistent national faithfulness, and Judges repeatedly portrays the destructive consequences of abandoning Jehovah’s standards. Figures such as Deborah, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson must therefore be explained within the spiritual and social deterioration described by the book rather than automatically being transformed into uncomplicated models for Christian imitation. The teacher must learn to distinguish between what Scripture records and what Scripture approves because biblical narrative frequently describes sinful conduct without endorsing it. This distinction becomes especially important when teaching younger students, who may naturally assume that every prominent biblical character should be copied in every respect. Judges also demonstrates why teachers need to communicate literary patterns, because repeated cycles and recurring statements help reveal the inspired writer’s evaluation of Israel’s condition. By showing students these structural features, the teacher moves beyond isolated episodes and helps them perceive the message communicated by the book as a whole. Teaching the judges therefore develops the instructor’s ability to handle narrative carefully, identify authorial emphasis, and resist simplistic moralizing.
Samuel and Saul introduce another major transition as prophecy and monarchy become increasingly prominent in Israel’s national life. Samuel served as prophet, judge, and spiritual leader during a period in which Israel demanded a king like the surrounding nations. Saul’s rise and decline provide important material for explaining the relationship between outward appearance, divine command, human responsibility, partial obedience, pride, fear, and the consequences of rejecting Jehovah’s instruction. The teacher should help students understand that Israel’s request for a king involved more than a change in political administration because the narrative evaluates their motives and their relationship with Jehovah’s kingship. Saul’s life likewise warns against treating selected obedience as though it were equivalent to full submission, since his repeated failures demonstrate the danger of modifying divine commands according to personal judgment. Samuel’s prophetic role provides a valuable opportunity to explain how genuine prophets functioned as authorized spokesmen rather than religious visionaries offering private spiritual impressions. Their authority rested upon revelation from Jehovah, and their messages required accurate reception and obedient response. This historical material therefore helps teachers explain both the development of monarchy and the biblical nature of prophetic authority. It also trains instructors to show how political history and spiritual condition interact throughout the books of Samuel and the later historical writings.
David, Solomon, and the Wisdom of Israel
David and Solomon occupy a major place in biblical history because their reigns represent the height of the united monarchy while also contributing significantly to Israel’s worship, poetry, and wisdom literature. David’s life contains courage, faith, military leadership, worship, serious moral failure, repentance, family conflict, covenant promises, and preparation for the temple. A teacher who presents David only as the young man who defeated Goliath leaves students with an incomplete understanding of one of Scripture’s most extensively described individuals. David’s strengths should be taught accurately, but his sins must also be explained without romanticizing them or minimizing the suffering they produced. The Psalms associated with David further allow the teacher to demonstrate that poetry must be interpreted according to its literary form rather than read as though every expression were straightforward prose. Solomon introduces wisdom, temple construction, international prominence, wealth, administration, and eventual spiritual compromise, all of which require a balanced presentation governed by the biblical record. The construction of the temple in 966 B.C.E. provides an important historical reference point while also illustrating the central place of worship in Israel’s national life. Teaching David and Solomon therefore helps instructors integrate history, poetry, wisdom, worship, moral responsibility, and covenant development without confusing these distinct categories.
The wisdom literature associated especially with Israel’s monarchy also teaches the instructor to recognize that different biblical genres require different teaching methods. Proverbs generally communicates concise observations and principles about wise living, and these statements should not automatically be transformed into unconditional promises guaranteeing identical results in every circumstance. Psalms employ poetry, parallelism, imagery, emotional expression, prayer, praise, lament, and historical recollection, requiring the teacher to explain figurative language responsibly. Ecclesiastes confronts the limitations and frustrations of life in a world marked by human imperfection, while other wisdom material addresses suffering, speech, work, family relationships, discipline, money, friendship, sexuality, justice, and the fear of Jehovah. A teacher who approaches every biblical book with exactly the same method will eventually mishandle the text because narrative, poetry, prophecy, law, wisdom, and epistolary instruction communicate in distinguishable ways. Teacher training must therefore include sensitivity to literary genre in addition to chronological knowledge. The historical setting of David and Solomon provides an appropriate place to introduce these distinctions because their era connects national history with some of Israel’s most influential worship and wisdom traditions. Learning to teach these writings accurately strengthens the instructor’s ability to explain not merely what biblical words say but how the literary form contributes to what those words mean.
Teaching the Divided Kingdom Without Losing the Student
The division of the kingdom after Solomon creates one of the areas where Bible students can easily become confused because kings, prophets, dynasties, wars, alliances, religious reforms, apostasy, and foreign empires begin to overlap. The northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah developed along separate political lines while remaining connected through shared ancestry and frequent interaction. Teachers must therefore learn to organize information so that students know which kingdom is being discussed, who ruled where, which prophet addressed which audience, and what major international power affected the situation. Israel’s history includes the establishment of rival worship centers, repeated dynastic instability, prophetic confrontation, and eventual destruction by Assyria. Judah continued longer and included both wicked rulers and significant periods of reform, yet the southern kingdom also moved repeatedly toward idolatry, injustice, and covenant unfaithfulness. A teacher who overwhelms students with names and dates without showing relationships may unintentionally make this crucial period appear unnecessarily complicated. Chronological charts, geographic awareness, repeated identification of northern and southern rulers, and attention to the ministries of the prophets can make the material far more understandable. The objective is not to eliminate historical detail but to organize detail so that students can see how the pieces fit together.
The chapters dealing with Judah through Hezekiah and from Hezekiah to the exile require particular attention to the relationship between political events and prophetic messages. Hezekiah’s reign intersects with Assyrian aggression, Jerusalem’s survival, religious reform, prophetic instruction, and the ministry of Isaiah. Later generations move steadily toward the Babylonian crisis despite occasional reform, demonstrating that national religious change could be temporary when the people’s deeper commitment remained unstable. Prophets such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Zephaniah, Habakkuk, and others must be located within their historical circumstances if students are to understand why their warnings, condemnations, promises, and appeals carried such urgency. Prophecy should not be taught as a collection of mysterious statements detached from history or as material designed primarily for modern speculation. Much prophetic revelation addressed actual people facing identifiable moral, religious, and political conditions, even when portions of that revelation reached beyond the immediate circumstances toward future fulfillment. The teacher must therefore begin with the prophet’s audience, historical situation, language, and message before considering later implications. This method safeguards students from imposing current events upon prophetic texts without textual warrant. It also demonstrates that sound teaching requires patience, because understanding prophecy frequently depends upon knowledge of the history in which the prophet spoke.
Exile, Restoration, and Life Under Persia
The Babylonian exile represents a decisive turning point in the history of Judah because Jerusalem was destroyed, the temple was lost, many people were removed from the land, and the nation experienced the consequences repeatedly announced by Jehovah’s prophets. Teaching the exile requires more than describing military defeat because the inspired writers interpret those events in relation to prolonged disobedience, idolatry, injustice, rejected warnings, and covenant responsibility. Daniel and Ezekiel provide important perspectives from the exilic setting, while Jeremiah helps students understand the years leading into Jerusalem’s destruction and the circumstances surrounding the catastrophe. Teachers should help students recognize that the exile did not mean Jehovah had been defeated by Babylonian gods, because Scripture presents Babylon itself as subject to His authority and eventual judgment. The exile also demonstrates the difference between divine discipline and abandonment, since prophetic messages continued to contain promises concerning restoration and the future of God’s purposes. Students should be shown how earlier warnings in the Law and Prophets connect with what eventually occurred, thereby illustrating the unity and historical continuity of the biblical record. The teacher who establishes these relationships enables students to understand that the exile did not appear suddenly without explanation but developed within a long history of prophetic warning and national rebellion. Teaching this period therefore strengthens the student’s understanding of Jehovah’s justice, faithfulness, patience, and commitment to His declared purposes.
Restoration under Persian rule introduces another set of teaching responsibilities because the return from exile did not simply restore Israel to the conditions existing before Jerusalem’s fall. Groups returned to the land, the temple was rebuilt, Jerusalem’s walls were restored, and the community faced questions involving worship, identity, obedience, intermarriage, leadership, economic hardship, opposition, and faithfulness to the Law. Ezra, Nehemiah, Haggai, Zechariah, Esther, and the Persian historical setting contribute different perspectives that must be coordinated carefully rather than treated as though they all describe exactly the same moment. Teachers should help students understand the sequence of restoration, the roles of Persian rulers, and the distinction between temple reconstruction and later work involving Jerusalem and community reform. The prophetic ministries of Haggai and Zechariah show that returning physically to the land did not automatically produce complete spiritual restoration. Ezra emphasizes instruction in the Law, while Nehemiah demonstrates administrative leadership, community organization, opposition, and reform within the restored Jewish community. Esther provides another perspective by showing Jews living throughout the Persian Empire rather than implying that every exile returned to Judah. The teacher who organizes this period successfully learns how to combine several biblical books into a coherent historical framework without forcing them into artificial uniformity. Such training is especially valuable because students often understand individual stories while lacking the chronological structure necessary to see how those stories belong together.
Teaching Israel’s Religious Life Accurately
Israel’s religious life cannot be understood merely by listing ceremonies because worship under the Mosaic covenant involved a comprehensive arrangement governing priesthood, sacrifice, festivals, purity, tabernacle and temple service, community responsibilities, and devotion to Jehovah. Teachers need to explain these practices first within the covenant system in which they functioned rather than treating every element as a concealed symbol whose meaning could only be discovered centuries later. The tabernacle, priesthood, sacrifices, Sabbath regulations, annual festivals, dietary laws, purity requirements, and temple worship possessed real functions for ancient Israel that must be understood historically and grammatically. Later inspired writers may establish specific connections with Christ or Christian teaching, and such connections should be accepted where Scripture itself makes them. The teacher, however, does not have authority to invent typological meanings for colors, measurements, objects, numbers, rituals, or architectural details simply because imaginative interpretation produces an interesting lesson. Historical-grammatical interpretation protects both teacher and student by requiring meaning to arise from the inspired text. Israel’s worship also reveals the seriousness of approaching Jehovah according to His requirements rather than according to human preference. Teaching this material carefully can therefore deepen the student’s understanding of holiness, obedience, sacrifice, priestly responsibility, communal worship, and the distinction between the Mosaic covenant and Christian obligations.
Religious life also included family instruction, prayer, praise, moral conduct, festivals, remembrance of historical deliverance, instruction in the Law, and the responsibility to teach succeeding generations. Deuteronomy repeatedly emphasizes remembering Jehovah’s acts and communicating His words to children, showing that teaching occupied an important place within Israelite life. Parents were not expected to leave all religious instruction to priests, prophets, or other recognized leaders because faithfulness involved transmitting knowledge within ordinary family life. This emphasis has particular importance for a book devoted to teacher training because it reminds Christians that teaching is not confined to formal classrooms or public religious settings. A parent explaining Scripture to a child, a mature Christian helping a newer believer understand a passage, or an evangelizer answering a question about the faith is participating in the work of instruction. Effective teaching therefore requires habits of clear explanation, patient repetition, appropriate questions, accurate definitions, and awareness of what the learner already understands. The teacher should not confuse complexity with depth, since a profound truth may often be explained in language that an ordinary learner can follow without sacrificing accuracy. Israel’s religious life thus provides both biblical content and practical instruction concerning the continuing importance of passing revealed truth from one generation to another.
Teaching the Hope of the Coming Messiah
The final movement toward “The Coming One” brings together promises, expectations, prophetic statements, royal themes, covenant developments, and Israel’s hope concerning the Messiah. Teachers must handle this material with particular care because it is easy either to overlook genuine messianic prophecy or to discover supposed predictions in passages that the inspired writers never intended to be messianic. The historical-grammatical method requires each passage to be examined first in its own context, with attention to vocabulary, grammar, historical circumstances, and the intention of the biblical author. Where the New Testament identifies an Old Testament passage as fulfilled in Jesus Christ, the Christian teacher has inspired authority for explaining that connection. Where Scripture does not establish such a relationship, restraint is preferable to imaginative interpretation. The coming Messiah emerges through genuine prophetic revelation rather than through uncontrolled allegory, and this makes the fulfillment more convincing rather than less significant. Students should be shown how specific promises develop through the biblical record and how the New Testament presents Jesus as the promised Christ without turning every person, object, ceremony, or event in Israel’s history into a hidden prediction. Teaching messianic expectation responsibly therefore becomes an important exercise in allowing Scripture to interpret Scripture while preserving the original historical meaning of the passages involved.
Jesus’ birth about 2 B.C.E., the beginning of His ministry in 29 C.E., and His sacrificial death on Nisan 14 of 33 C.E. belong to the historical fulfillment toward which genuine messianic expectation ultimately directs attention. The Christian teacher should therefore help students appreciate that faith in Jesus Christ is grounded in historical revelation rather than religious sentiment detached from events. The Gospels present Him within identifiable geography, chronology, Jewish religious life, Roman political authority, and the developing fulfillment of promises recorded in the Hebrew Scriptures. His teaching cannot be separated from that setting without losing important aspects of its meaning. Neither should His role be reduced to that of a moral teacher because the New Testament presents His sacrificial death as central to the divine arrangement for salvation. A teacher who has followed biblical history from creation through Abraham, Israel, monarchy, exile, restoration, and messianic expectation is better prepared to explain why the arrival of Christ matters within the larger inspired record. The earlier history provides categories, promises, conflicts, expectations, and theological vocabulary that illuminate the New Testament without requiring invented allegorical relationships. Teacher training therefore reaches an important objective when students can explain how the historical movement of the Hebrew Scriptures prepares the reader to understand the person and work of Jesus Christ.
From Knowing the Lesson to Teaching the Learner
Accurate content alone does not automatically produce effective instruction because teaching requires attention to the person receiving the information. Jesus frequently adapted His manner of instruction to the circumstances, sometimes asking questions, sometimes using illustrations, sometimes answering objections, sometimes explaining privately, and sometimes speaking directly when correction was necessary. Christian teachers can learn from this flexibility without assuming that every method used by Jesus can be reproduced identically by imperfect instructors. A teacher should know the objective of the lesson, identify the essential information, arrange the material logically, explain unfamiliar terms, anticipate likely misunderstandings, and determine whether the student has actually understood what has been taught. Questions are especially useful because they reveal whether a learner is merely hearing words or grasping relationships between ideas. Repetition also has an appropriate place because important information frequently needs to be encountered more than once before it becomes firmly understood. Illustrations can clarify difficult concepts, but they should illuminate the biblical point rather than become so entertaining that students remember the illustration while forgetting the Scripture it was meant to explain. Effective teaching consequently requires both fidelity to the text and thoughtful attention to the learner.
The teacher must also distinguish between simplifying an explanation and oversimplifying the truth itself. A beginner does not need every technical detail at once, but what he receives should still be accurate enough to support deeper study later. Teaching that begins with misleading shortcuts creates problems because students may eventually have to unlearn statements that were never biblically correct. The instructor should therefore build knowledge progressively, introducing essential chronology, vocabulary, persons, places, and relationships before expecting students to understand more complicated doctrinal or historical questions. This approach resembles constructing a building because advanced information becomes stable when it rests upon well-established foundational knowledge. Chronology is particularly useful because students who know the general order of Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Saul, David, Solomon, the divided kingdom, exile, restoration, and Christ possess a framework into which additional information can be placed. Geography provides another framework because locations such as Egypt, Canaan, Jerusalem, Samaria, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia become more meaningful when students understand their relationships. Teacher training therefore involves helping instructors decide not only what information is true but also what sequence will help another person learn that truth most effectively.
The Character and Responsibility of the Christian Teacher
Christian teaching also places demands upon the teacher’s character because biblical knowledge does not excuse pride, impatience, harshness, dishonesty, or careless conduct. James 3:1 warns that teachers bear serious responsibility, reminding Christians that public instruction should never be pursued merely for recognition or authority. A teacher who enjoys demonstrating superior knowledge can discourage learners who need patience, while an instructor unwilling to admit uncertainty may communicate false information rather than acknowledge that additional study is necessary. Humility allows the teacher to say that he does not know, investigate the matter carefully, and correct himself when Scripture or reliable evidence demonstrates that an earlier explanation was mistaken. Patience enables him to repeat information without humiliating the learner who did not understand it the first time. Love prevents teaching from becoming an intellectual performance because the objective is to help another person understand and obey biblical truth rather than to display the instructor’s knowledge. Personal conduct also strengthens or weakens instruction because students naturally notice contradictions between what a teacher advocates and how that teacher behaves. The Christian teacher therefore seeks accuracy in doctrine and integrity in life, recognizing that both belong to responsible service under Jehovah.
Dependence upon the Holy Spirit must likewise be understood biblically rather than mystically. The Holy Spirit produced the inspired Scriptures through which Christians receive the revelation necessary for faith, doctrine, correction, moral instruction, and Christian service. Teachers today are not authorized to supplement that completed revelation with private messages, inward voices, new prophecy, or subjective impressions presented as direct communication from God. Instead, they depend upon the Spirit by depending upon the Spirit-inspired Word, allowing Scripture to educate the mind, correct false assumptions, strengthen faith, govern conduct, and provide the content of Christian teaching. Prayer properly accompanies study because the teacher recognizes his dependence upon Jehovah and seeks wisdom, strength, endurance, and an obedient disposition. Prayer does not replace exegesis, however, and sincerity does not guarantee a correct interpretation when grammatical, historical, literary, or contextual evidence has been neglected. The responsible teacher therefore studies carefully, compares relevant Scriptures, consults appropriate linguistic and historical information when necessary, and remains willing to revise an interpretation when the evidence requires correction. Spiritual dependence and disciplined study are not competitors because genuine dependence upon Jehovah includes respectful attention to the written revelation He has provided.
Preparing Teachers Who Can Prepare Others
The ultimate usefulness of teacher training appears when the learner becomes capable of helping someone else understand the Scriptures accurately. Paul instructed Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2 to entrust what he had learned to faithful men who would in turn be qualified to teach others, showing a continuing pattern of transmission. Christian teaching therefore should not create permanent intellectual dependence upon one gifted instructor, author, congregation leader, or educational institution. A successful teacher helps students develop habits of reading context, asking responsible questions, identifying authorial meaning, checking claims against Scripture, and explaining what they have learned to others. This is especially important in evangelism because Christians participating in the Great Commission need sufficient biblical understanding to explain the good news and respond responsibly to sincere questions. Not every believer will become a formal congregation teacher, and Scripture places specific qualifications and restrictions upon authoritative teaching responsibilities. Yet every Christian can benefit from becoming more capable of explaining biblical truth accurately within appropriate circumstances. Parents teach children, mature believers encourage newer Christians, evangelizers explain the faith to unbelievers, and ordinary conversations regularly create opportunities to clarify what Scripture says. Teaching the Teacher is therefore concerned not merely with producing skilled presenters but with developing Christians who can receive biblical truth carefully, live according to it faithfully, and communicate it responsibly to others.
The chapters that follow use the broad course of Old Testament history as the classroom in which these teaching habits are developed. The world before Abraham teaches the instructor how to establish foundations, the patriarchs demonstrate the importance of covenant history, Egypt and the Exodus require careful organization of major events, and Moses introduces the challenge of explaining law and national formation. Joshua and the judges require attention to conquest, settlement, narrative structure, moral difficulty, and repeated patterns of obedience and disobedience. Samuel, Saul, David, and Solomon introduce prophecy, monarchy, leadership, worship, poetry, wisdom, faithfulness, failure, and the development of Israel’s kingdom. The divided kingdoms require chronological discipline, while Judah’s decline, exile, and restoration show how prophecy and history must be taught together. Persian-period Judaism, Israel’s religious life, and messianic expectation require teachers to integrate historical, religious, literary, and theological material without abandoning the original meaning of the inspired text. Each period therefore supplies more than information to be mastered because it provides an opportunity to practice the work of arranging, interpreting, explaining, illustrating, questioning, and applying biblical material responsibly. The teacher who learns to handle these portions of Scripture carefully becomes better prepared to approach other biblical books with the same disciplined habits. The objective throughout is a Christian teacher who knows the Word of Jehovah, respects its authority, understands its historical setting, communicates its meaning clearly, and helps others become capable students and teachers of Scripture themselves.
About the Author
EDWARD D. ANDREWS (AS in Criminal Justice, BS in Religion, MA in Biblical Studies, and MDiv in Theology) is CEO and President of Christian Publishing House. He has authored over 220+ books. In addition, Andrews is the Chief Translator of the Updated American Standard Version (UASV).
Comments