Is Teaching God's Pathway to Maturity?

Over the years, I have been blessed to serve as a minister among Christians all over the world. A common theme that I’ve noticed in many churches is an incredible urgency to see new Christians become teachers. Though I’ve never heard it expressed in so many words, the question that so often surrounds new members is, “When will he help serve communion, so that he can lead a prayer, so that he can deliver a devo, so that he can teach a class, so that he can preach a sermon?” I’ve known of places where men were rostered on to teach simply to encourage their faithfulness and maturity. I’ve heard more times than I can count statements like, “I’m glad that I got assigned to teach so that I could study this topic,” or, “I love teaching, because a teacher gets more out of the class than anyone else does.” While I can’t deny that teaching is a rewarding experience, I have to ask: does this approach to teaching mirror what the Bible reveals?

The New Testament does place a great deal of urgency on teaching. Paul asks regarding those who haven’t yet called upon the Lord in faithful obedience, “How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” (Romans 10:14–15). Teachers are a necessary part of God’s work of salvation, and, truth be told, each Christian has been sent to teach by none other than Jesus Himself. In His final appeal as recorded by Matthew, Jesus said, “Go therefore and make disciples… teaching them” (Matthew 28:19–20). The Hebrews author scolds his audience, saying of their growth in Christ, “by this time you ought to be teachers” (Hebrews 5:12). No one seems to be excluded from this expectation.

While there seems to be strong support in Scripture for the idea that Christian growth involves teaching, there is another side of the picture that isn’t very often considered. Paul asks the Corinthians, “Are all teachers?” (1 Corinthians 12:29). The answer he’s expecting is a “no,” and it isn’t because he’s offering any kind of rebuke. In the previous verse, he says teaching is a role that “God has appointed… in the church” along with other unique roles. In fact, to answer Paul’s question about teachers by saying, “Well, every Christian should be!” would be to run afoul of the main point of the text, namely, that each Christian has been empowered to serve God in a different way. This isn’t a teaching that’s unique to 1 Corinthians; it’s echoed elsewhere in the New Testament also (Romans 12:3-8; Ephesians 4:11-16).

Before we accuse Paul of contradicting either Jesus or the Hebrews author, we should note that there is a difference between teaching and being a teacher and a further difference between what happens formally and informally. Formally, teaching is a specialized role in the body that ought to be carried out by those whose talents, abilities, and maturity align with the Bible’s descriptions of the role. When Luke describes the church at Antioch, he specifies the names of the “prophets and teachers”; the teaching roster didn’t consist of the entire membership (Acts 13:1). Informally, all Christians need to be prepared to give a defense for their hope (1 Peter 3:15) and contribute to the evangelistic work that Jesus left the church to do. Churches that employ a reach, teach, and keep model, recognizing that the people who 1) make connections with the lost, 2) teach them the gospel, and 3) keep the saved faithful to Christ are not always one and the same, are more successful in evangelism than those that expect every role in the body to be fulfilled by every member.

In addition to this, there’s actually something really wrong with the whole “teach your way to maturity” philosophy. When Ezra determined to teach the returned exiles the Law of Moses, the Bible reveals that he “prepared his heart” to do the following in order: 1) “to seek the Law of the Lord,” 2) “to do it,” and 3) “to teach statutes and ordinances in Israel” (Ezra 7:10). While his pedigree helped him meet the prerequisites to be a teaching priest under the Old Covenant (Ezra 7:1-5) and while his work as a “skilled scribe in the Law of Moses” (Ezra 7:6) made him familiar with the material that needed to be taught, he knew that the heart of the Torah – God’s own heart on display – could only be communicated by those whose who had intentionally prepared their own hearts and lives through its teaching. Teaching is the work of the mature; it is not the pathway to maturity.

Ezra’s example is mirrored throughout the Bible. Before Paul became a missionary to the world, he went through a period of preparation. While it might be easy for a casual reader of Acts to assume that the events recorded in Acts 9 all happened within a few days or weeks, Galatians 1:11-18 describes a period of growth and learning which Paul underwent that took years to complete, during which Paul “did not… confer with flesh and blood” (v. 16) but focused upon “the revelation of Jesus Christ” (v. 12). Even Jesus did not begin His teaching ministry without a period of growth “in wisdom” (Luke 2:52) or without submitting to the demands of the message He would teach (Matthew 3:13-17). Luke rightly records that the story of Jesus is of one who did and taught in that order (Acts 1:1).

James offers a stern warning to those who would take upon themselves the mantle of a teacher: “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment” (James 3:1). While there may be some reverse psychology at work here, the warning is absolutely true. No one should stand up to teach until he has prepared himself as Ezra, Paul, and Jesus did. The word of God should already be a “burning fire shut up in [the] bones” of a teacher before he stands to teach, not a fire that he seeks to kindle by accepting a teaching assignment (Jeremiah 20:9). And don’t forget two things: 1) The aim of seeking and doing the will of God is not to teach, but to know God; 2) While informal teaching and contributing to the work of evangelism must be a part of your growth as a Christian, you may never become a formal teacher – and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

-Patrick Swayne  
patrick@tftw.org