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Who was your favorite teacher?? You're free to pick anyone, Elementary/Middle/HS/College, Sunday School, or maybe a Mentor or even a Family Member. For me, it was my HS English Teacher. (shocking, I know!!) lol He found sentence diagramming as useless as I did and took a different approach to Shakespeare. No Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth for us, oh no no!! We did The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night's Dream, and Taming of the Shrew, thank you very much!! Yay for the Comedies!! (I still have the book!!) A close 2nd would have to be my History Teacher, she supported me through some rough roads. I praise God for both of them.
So we come to the final message of this series. The final Ministry Gift from God to His Church. The Teachers. To illustrate this role, my Pastor shared about an opportunity to reconnect with a cousin from childhood while he was in Boston's North Shore attending Cemetery (lol)... No
Seminary and his cousin was at MIT. His cousin was doing a paper on water movement by looking at how one body of water flows into another. He invited my Pastor to come with and help one day. In order to facilitate the testing equipment, the cousin had a boat with a hole through which the equipment would be submerged and collect data. My Pastor's job was to hold the anchors on either side to keep the boat steady. This had to be done manually to allow for flexibility. As it was a cold, windy day, this was no easy feat, but missions were accomplished and time was well spent with family. This story indicates the task of the Teacher as an anchor to the other gifts. Jesus is our Anchor in the storms of life, showing God's steadfast love and truth.
While the Apostles bring the sending love of God; Prophets bring the warning and correcting love of God; Evangelists bring the gathering love of God; Shepherds are the guarding love of God; Teachers are gifted with bringing the loving truth of God. It is this truth that acts as an anchor to the Body of Christ. It keeps the others grounded, accountable, and focused as opposed to flaky, independent, and random. As mentioned in each prior message, God's intention is for us all to work together to represent His Kingdom in the World. That is why Jesus was the only one to ever possess all 5 gifts. It was necessary in order to show us how each role should act both on it's own, and in cooperation with the others.
John 3:19-21 gives us the basis of why Teachers are needed both in the Body of Christ and in the World. (preferably Christian Teachers in the World, but I know that's not really possible) Regardless, Jesus is talking in this passage about how much the World, and in turn our Human Nature, prefers the ignorance of darkness to the light of truth. We all have our moments of weakness toward the darkness (after all, there's cookies, right!?) The fact is, there is self-will, negative thoughts, blaming of others for whatever, justifications, denials... Because, after all, "that's just the way the World works," right?? As we know, Jesus refutes human "truth" with Godly Truth. He was always turning the illusions of power, ideas. and traditions of man on their respective heads. Jesus' truth is always about the Kingdom of God, not the World's concepts of truth. John 8:12 is a reminder that Jesus is the Light of the World that leads to life, and we have that symbolized on many institutions of learning as the Light (or Flame) of Knowledge; although the origins may not be the same. One passage that represents the ideas of God vs those of man is Matt. 5:1-10 The Beatitudes. These thoughts oppose human tendencies on an entire list of areas.
Matthew 7:24-29 gives us a perfect illustration of Jesus' role as a Teacher. The ever-famous "House-Upon-a-Rock" story. (Incidentally mimicked by the Three Little Pigs) :) In this story we see that Jesus spoke with authority as opposed to the "regular" teachers of the day. Jesus' stories always had at least 4 things that stood out --
1) They were designed to draw people into God's Truth.
2) Not simply information.
3) Designed to elicit a response. (obedience) Solid house foundation on rock.
4) Showed the frailty of the World's ideas. (disobedience) Unstable foundation on sand.
A fifth feature that was present on occasion was offense. Just think about Communion!! Wow!!
Churches that have a strong Teaching voice strengthens the concepts of truth and God in the World. As we all know, the World has some pretty "flexible" definitions on the truth these days... ;p
So, unique features of the Teacher?? First, like any of the others, their gift may or may not match their vocation. As we saw during the introductory paragraph, anyone may qualify as a Teacher even if it's not on their resume. (pretend the accent is there, IDK how to do it)
-- guides others in wisdom and understanding
-- others seek out their advice
-- help explore solutions -- not just information, but results
-- curiosity for learning
-- desire for others to understand God
An immature Teacher may exhibit the following -
-- not value other gifts (as we've seen, this can plague any of the giftings)
-- they may get too caught up in their "head" knowledge and not allow it to drop into "heart" knowledge. This can cause a struggle for proper application.
-- growth in practice in Community -- again, unity is God's goal
The role of the Teacher may aid the other giftings in the following ways --
-- Help Apostles to focus on God's Word.
-- Anchor Prophets in the Truth
-- Anchors the Evangelist in the Message.
-- Helps the Shepherd in an ever-deepening spiral of understanding
In summary, all Five Gifts are designed to bring God's love to the World in their unique ways. It is important to remember, however, that God "hard-wired" the system so that we rely on each other. This means that if anyone holds back in their gift, the whole thing gets "shorted out." I certainly wouldn't want to be the one responsible for that, would you?? The Five-Fold Ministry provides a vision of what Life in Christ should look like. A 5-point "harness", if you will, of strength, steadfastness, unity, joy, and faith.
I pray each of you seeks, finds, and grows in your Gift!! God Bless!!
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