By Doug Apple Manager, Wave94

This is a message for all of you teachers – those who are teaching spiritual truth.

You might be a pastor or a Sunday School teacher.  You might teach at seminars, or in a Christian school.  You might even be a home-schooling parent, or a small group Bible study leader.  If in any way you are a teacher of spiritual truth, this message is for you.

It’s a warning, so listen closely.

You have opponents.  You are not teaching in a vacuum, but in a real world where God’s truth faces opposition.  You are a Christian teacher because you want to pass God’s truth along to other people.  You are making the effort to teach, and I know you want your efforts to be effective. Meanwhile, your opponents want to render you ineffective.  And now I’m going to tell you a prime way they do that.

A main way to undermine your teaching is to undermine your integrity.  The quickest way to make all your teaching look foolish is to get you to compromise.  For example, let’s say you love your Sunday School teacher.  You soak up their messages each week because it’s obvious they have a passion for teaching the Bible.  You’d like to get to know them better, so you arrange to meet them for lunch.  Then, to your surprise, they are rude to the waitress.

From then on you may never look at that teacher the same.  Oh their teaching may be as good as ever, but because you now perceive a lack of integrity, their teaching will not be effective for you.

Why is that?  Why do we connect the teaching so closely to the teacher?

Because we don’t know who to believe.  There are teachers everywhere, teaching all sorts of things.  We can’t believe them all, so who do we believe?  The teachers who believe it themselves.  And the only way to know that is by how they behave.

When a teacher lives what they teach, it makes it so much more believable.  When you teach spiritual truths, and live by them, your teaching can be very effective.  That’s why your opponents’ goal is to undermine your integrity.  The teaching itself is rock solid.  The truths of God are bedrock.  There is no undermining them.  So what strategy can an opponent use to turn people away from God’s truth?  Undermine the teachers themselves.  Undermine the teacher, undermine the teaching.

In the Bible, Paul wrote to Titus a powerful phrase.  “In your teaching show integrity…”*  In that same passage he wrote, “In everything set them an example by doing what is good.”

As Christian teachers we need to set the pace.  We need to conduct ourselves “in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ.”**  Does that mean you have to be perfect to be a teacher?  If that was the case there would be no teachers.  So what does it mean?

Paul added another word:  seriousness.  You don’t have to be perfect, but are you serious in your efforts?

Let’s go back to the teacher who was rude to the waitress.  You should be able to point out to them what they did.  If they are serious about their faith, they should see the truth of the matter, and respond accordingly.  This gives them the opportunity to restore their integrity.

I consider myself a teacher, and I am not perfect.  But I can tell you I am serious about being a man of integrity.  I don’t want anything I do or say to undermine the teaching I have worked so hard to produce. 

So don’t let any opponent get the best of you.  They probably won’t try to refute God’s truth, because it is irrefutable.  No, the most effective route is to undermine the teacher.  Don’t let it happen.  Let what Paul wrote to Titus sink deep into your soul.

“In your teaching, show integrity.”

Comments?

E-mail me:  dougapple@wave94.com.

May God bless you today!  With Apples of Gold…I’m Doug Apple.

* Titus 2:7

** Philippians 1:27

This article originally published on March 21, 2007.

Written by :

mkwestmark

 

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