Last week we finished our spring session and are now on summer break at the high school where I teach. For me, it doesn’t quite feel like summer yet. It usually takes several days for me to transition from the bustle of wrapping up the school year into a less structured and less demanding summer schedule. However, even though I’m not teaching students in school, I will still be teaching. You will be too. Whether we realize it or not, we are all teachers in the way we live out what we believe and value. Your thoughts, words, and actions can influence, inspire, challenge, equip, reprove, and cultivate other people. Or they can discourage, demean, deceive, derail, or defeat people. By God’s grace and power use your thoughts, words, and actions to benefit others. Do this regarding secular skills and subjects, and even more so regarding spiritual ones.
Teaching is foundational to how God relates to you. He created you and knows you. He accepts you the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way. He knows that your best life is not found in vainly pursuing self fulfillment. Ironically living for yourself ends in your death (Matthew 16:24-27). Your best life is actually found in being with God, becoming like him, and doing what he does. Jesus, the greatest teacher of all time, makes that possible (John 14:6; Romans 8:28-38). He is God the Son who became a man and lived the life that you should live and died the death that you deserve. If you come to Jesus, trust him to save you, and obey what he teaches, you will know God, become a part of his royal family, and experience abundant, everlasting life (Matthew 11:28-30; John 3:16-18).
As you follow and learn from Jesus, he calls you to teach others. In fact, that’s a key way he develops you into all you are meant to be. As you join with him in saving others by proclaiming his truth in love through your words and actions, he transforms you to become like him. When God delivered Israel from slavery in Egypt and gave them a land of their own, his purpose was for them to be a light to all nations of what it means to know and love God. Through Moses, he commanded them to pass on what they learn from him. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates” (Deuteronomy 6:4-9). Centuries later after Jesus died and rose again and before he ascended to heaven, he gave a similar command to anyone who follows him. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:18-20). If you trust Jesus as your savior, pass on what you learn from him so others can experience his salvation also.
Briefly here are five tips that can help you teach effectively.
1. Fill Up
In order to teach you have to have something worthwhile to impart like wisdom, understanding, and knowledge. All three of those begin with honoring and revering God (Proverbs 9:10). Trust and obey God and let him complete what you lack you through his Spirit whom he has given to those who follow him. Study his word, the Bible, and let God’s Spirit comfort, counsel, correct, equip, train, and empower you. He will also teach you through relationships and circumstances, especially difficult ones. Along life’s journey ask God to help you identify wise mentors who exhibit godly attributes you would like to improve. Then learn from them. However, just learning is not an end in itself. God fills you in order for you to be poured out. As you give out to others what God works into you, assess how it’s going. Listen to and learn from your “students.” Check for understanding. Adapt your approach and reteach if necessary. Be positive and encouraging. Always stay dependent on God. Like a branch in the vine abide in Jesus and let him flow through you to bear fruit. Apart from him you are empty, lifeless, and can’t do anything of eternal significance (John 15:1-8).
2. Proclaim, Teach & Train
Jesus is the light our dark world needs (John 8:12). Anyone who follows him is also the light of the world. Let your light shine as a city on a hill and not as a lamp under a bed (Matthew 5:14-16; Philippians 2:12-16). Proclaim the truth in love to everyone, teach those who listen, and train those who respond. Do so one-on-one, in small groups, or large gatherings. Realize that teaching doesn’t always involve talking. Sometimes actions speak louder than words. You can proclaim, teach, and train through loving action as you serve the needs of others (John 13:34-35; Matthew 5:16). Use both actions and words for an impactful witness.
3. Lovingly Tell People What They Need
Depending on the receptiveness of your audience your message may include judgment or mercy. Jesus used both. Out of tough love when interacting with self-righteous people who felt no need to change, Jesus confronted them with their sin. His goal was to show them how they fall short of God’s glory in hope that they would turn to him to save them. Out of tender love when interacting with broken people who recognized their need for a savior, Jesus extended mercy with open arms. The goal of both messages is to lovingly point broken people to God to be saved, healed, and restored. Be sensitive to God’s Spirit to help you build relationships and then to give you the discernment and words you need to speak with godly rigor and relevance into their lives. Not everyone will listen, but faithfully share the truth in love and leave the results to God.
4. Realize God Will Work Despite Shortcomings
Although you may feel unworthy to teach or feel hampered by persecution and difficulty, God will still use you in your brokenness if you humbly desire to promote Jesus for the benefit of others. In fact, you are like a cracked earthen vessel which carries within you the treasure of God’s salvation. It will shine even through your imperfections (1 Corinthians 4:1-12). By God’s grace and power, do your best to help people find and follow Jesus. As you share the word of God, he promises it will accomplish its purpose (Isaiah 55:10-11).
5. Use Questions and Analogies
Two powerful methods Jesus used for teaching were questions and analogies. A significant way to grow in relationship with someone is by asking and answering questions. Questions force people to think and to reframe their assumptions. Since God’s ways are so much higher and better than our ways, people need a fresh perspective (Isaiah 55:6-9). Questions can engage and bring about that change of mind, known as repentance, which is necessary to be saved. Jesus also taught using parables to convey a heavenly truth in earthly terms that people who had open hearts could identify with. In addition, he took advantage of everyday circumstances and events to open the eyes of his learners to deeper insights. Therefore, given Jesus’ modeling , you should use object lessons, personal experiences, stories, and questions to allure. Share what God has done in your life and what you are learning from him. Lovingly challenge people with practical ways they can draw closer to God.
You are a teacher to those around you. Do you recognize that? Will you use your thoughts, words, and actions for good? I hope so. The greatest good you can do is to love God and love others. You are blessed to be a blessing. Share the greatest blessing and message of all time, which is that people can know God through Jesus. Become all you are meant to be, by passing this good news on to others. Teach them to obey all that he has commanded you. Make it a rhythm of your life. It’s never too late to start. People need positive change; that’s what learning is all about—changing, developing, maturing. Through teaching, be a change agent for Jesus. Invest in other people as he invests in you.