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Introduction:
For three semesters of my college career, I was an education
major, studying to be a high school teacher. One of the
interesting things to study were the many different theories about
how to teach and the best methods of teaching. Every generation of
teachers seems to come up with new methods. The same seems to hold
true for teaching in the church. Take a look at how different our
Bible classes are today from the ones many of our adult members
experienced as children. Gone are the days of bare walls and a
chalkboard as the teacher lectures and kids regurgitate memorized
answers. Now we have decorative visual aids, props, activities,
discussions, etc. Theories change. Methods shift. It happens
everywhere. This sometimes gives us pause. We get concerned, are
these shifting methods taking us away from the Bible pattern?
These thoughts have caused me to step back and take a look at the
Biblical pattern for teaching. What would a class on teaching
theory and methods look like if God were teaching it? What would
it be like if we were at school with God? If God were sharing with
us the methods he used to teach, what would He share? Of course,
we don’t actually have to attend a teaching methods seminar
hosted by God, we can actually just take a look at Scripture to
see the methods He employed either directly, through Jesus or
through His prophets and apostles. What I realised is that,
personally, God’s teaching methods were in the background. They
were the white noise of the Bible. That is, in my haste to simply
uncover what was taught, I often overlooked the method God used to
teach. To be honest, this has been quite a surprising study for
me. Examine some of these methods and then note some applications
for us today. Discussion: I.
God’s teaching methods. A.
Preaching:
Perhaps our most common method of teaching today is lecturing,
sermonizing, what the Bible refers to as preaching. This method of
teaching is one person teaching for a length of time while others
simply listen. Jesus taught by preaching in the Sermon on the
Mount (Matthew
5-7). Peter taught by preaching in Acts
2 and 3. B.
Debate:
Jesus debated with others in order to teach them. Consider Matthew
19:1-12, Jesus debated with both the Pharisees and His
disciples about the teaching on marriage and divorce. He allowed a
give and take, back and forth, response and counter-response. C.
Discussion:
In Acts
15, instead of simply providing a new revelation about the
issue of Gentiles and circumcision, God allowed the church in
Jerusalem to discuss (we could also use the word “debate”
here) the issue of circumcision. Instead of God directly
intervening and simply stating the answer, he let the students, if
you will, discuss and debate the issues to arrive at the truth. D.
Questions:
Jesus used questions in at least three ways to teach others. 1.
Asked
questions:
Instead of just telling people what to believe, Jesus sometimes
asked questions to challenge folks to work out answers for
themselves. We see this in Matthew
16:13, 15, when Jesus asked the apostles who men thought
He was and who they thought He was. Luke
14:3 is another example when Jesus asked if it was lawful
to heal on the Sabbath or not. 2.
Answered
questions:
Jesus allowed others to ask Him questions and He would answer
them. We see a good example of this in Luke
20:22, when the Pharisees and Sadducees asked about paying
taxes to Caesar and then in Luke
20:28-33, when the Sadducees asked Jesus about marriage in
the resurrection. 3.
Turned
questions back on the asker:
Sometimes Jesus took a question and turned it back on the one who
was asking, forcing the asker to think it through and learn on his
own. Jesus did this to the Lawyer who asked what was the greatest
law in Luke
10:25-26. E.
Stories:
When God wanted David to learn about his sin with Bathsheba,
Nathan told him a story about a man and sheep (II
Samuel 12:1-7). Jesus was a master of using stories to
teach lessons. He told stories about farmers (Matthew
13:3-8), weeds (Matthew
13:24-30), mustard seeds (Matthew
13:31-33), swinekeepers (Luke
15:11-32), women with lost coins (Luke
15:8-10), shepherds and sheep (Luke
15:4-7), even an unjust steward (Luke
16:1-13). Sometimes the scripture records explanations of
these stories in spiritual terms, sometimes He just left it up to
the hearers to figure it out. F.
Contrasts
with error:
I know in the past, I have spoken out against having classes that
discussed differing doctrines. I have said if we just teach what
is in the Bible, folks will learn how to overcome error. While
there is some truth to that, I have had to admit Jesus Himself
sometimes declared the errors of others in order to show what was
the truth. He did so several times in the Sermon on the Mount when
He said, “You have heard it said…but I say to you” (Matthew
5:21-22, 27-28, 31-32, 33-34, 38-39, 43-44). It is
appropriate to explain what others teach in order to refute it and
teach others to refute it. G.
Anticipating
hypotheticals:
Similar to the contrasts with error, God taught by anticipating
what someone might say as a conclusion or objection to a teaching
and then responded to that hypothetical situation. Paul used this
method of teaching multiple times in his letter to the Romans. In Romans
6:1, he anticipated someone objecting, “Are we to
continue in sin that grace may abound?” (ESV). Then he dealt
with that anticipated objection. He did this in Romans
9:6. Paul knew that some of the Jews would claim the word
of God had failed if He saved some who weren’t Jews and allowed
some Jews to be lost. The rest of the chapter is dealing with that
anticipated objection. Then again in Romans
9:14, when he anticipated that some would say, “Is there
injustice on God’s part?” (ESV). H.
Shocking
statements and actions:
We don’t liked to be shocked. We certainly don’t like shocking
things done in sermons or Bible classes. Yet, God was the master
of the shocking. Jesus often used shocking statements. In Matthew
5:29-30, He taught people to pluck out their eyes and cut
off their hands. In John
6:53, He taught people to participate in cannibalism
eating His flesh and drinking His blood. Yes, I know the
figurative nature of these statements. But we must understand
Jesus was trying to shock people. Today, people would decry this
as distracting to the message, but for Jesus it was the message.
For those who had ears to hear, it wasn’t distracting, it was,
in fact, focusing because they were forced to figure out what He
really meant. Consider shocking actions. In John
13, Jesus shocked the disciples so badly that Peter had to
be rebuked when he refused to comply with Jesus’ demonstration
of washing the disciples’ feet. I.
Songs:
In Deuteronomy
32, God gave Moses a song to teach Israel to sing to one
another. This song taught about the nature of God and also about
what would happen to Israel if they turned from God. Many of the
Psalms were teaching songs. As the Jews sang the psalms they were
teaching numerous principles. Obviously singing is a method of
teaching because Paul says so in Ephesians
5:19. J.
Let
them make their own mistakes:
I think this is perhaps the most difficult for me to grasp. I have
a tendency to want to spoon feed someone all the right answers and
immediately squash any statement or action I think is wrong. But
Jesus sometimes allowed His disciples to learn by letting them
make their own mistakes. He allowed Peter to get out of the boat
and sink in Matthew
14:28-31. Or even more amazing was Jesus allowing Peter to
deny Him three times in Matthew
26:69-75 and then using it to teach Peter in John
21:15-19. I know why this concerns me. Because when Jesus
let Judas do this, Judas didn’t learn. I fear that some people
won’t learn from their mistakes so I try to keep them from
making them. Jesus allowed folks to make their mistakes at times
and then left it up to them to learn or not. As teachers, what we
have to learn is we can never control what anyone else is ever
going to believe or practice. K.
Discipline:
In Acts
5:1-11, God used discipline to teach the congregation
about fearing Him and obeying Him. He did not concern Himself with
who might be upset by it. He simply used the discipline to teach
the lessons. L.
Mentoring:
The entirety of the Gospel accounts of Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John
is one big example of mentoring. Jesus established relationships
with His apostles that He had with no one else. The whole purpose
was to train and mentor them up to be leaders. He devoted special
attention to certain people so they could carry on His work. M.
Props
and Visual aids:
Many today get upset with visual aids, especially if they are
props. We’ve gotten used to marker boards, overheads and even
date projectors, but move beyond that and actually use a prop and
that bothers us. However, God used visual aids and especially
props all the time. Consider Jesus in Matthew
22:19, when Jesus made them produce a coin to look at to
make His point about taxes and being devoted to God. In Matthew
18:1-6, Jesus used a child as a visual aid in teaching
humility and childlike faith. In Matthew
14:20, when Jesus fed the 5000 He left each of the
apostles with a basket of leftovers, a visual reminder of God’s
power to provide for His people. N.
Demonstrations:
On the night Jesus was betrayed, the disciples were arguing about
who was the greatest among them (Luke
22:24). In response to this bickering, Jesus wanted to
teach His disciples about humility and service. Did He simply
lecture them? Did He just allow a class discussion? No. When we
harmonize the Gospels, we recognize Jesus gave them a
demonstration of a specific kind of service. In John
13:4-5, Jesus girded Himself with a towel and washed their
feet. Then in John
13:12-16, Jesus stated that this demonstration was meant
to be a teaching experience. They were supposed to learn something
from it. This was more than just providing His life as an example.
This was a specific moment of teaching a principle. O.
Learning
Activities:
Jesus sometimes pushed His disciples into activities from which
they were supposed to learn through their own experience. For
instance, the limited commission of Luke
10:1-20. Jesus sent the disciples out on an evangelistic
mission in order to teach them to rely on God and to prepare them
for the real commission He had planned for them. Another example
is seen in Matthew
14:13-21 (the feeding of the 5000) and Matthew
15:32-38 (the feeding of the 4000). Jesus had the
disciples serve the crowds from the minimal amounts of food and
then take up the leftovers. That these were learning activities
for the apostles is driven home in Matthew
16:8-12, when Jesus explained that they hadn’t learned
the lessons He had intended for them. Jesus had been teaching them
lessons with these activities. They were supposed to have learned
something by that service and then by taking up the leftovers.
Then there is the premier learning activity, which God has asked
of us on a weekly basis—the Lord’s Supper. According to I
Corinthians 11:26, we are teaching the Lord’s death
through this activity, every time we do it. Further, we know from
the Old Testament, memorials are specifically designed as teaching
methods to pass on knowledge to our children (cf. Exodus
12:24-27; 13:14, et al). P.
Acting
out a role:
God used this method throughout the Old Testament repeatedly. In I
Kings 20:26-34, Ahab had let Ben-Hadad go instead of
killing him as God wanted. God sent a prophet to act out the role
of a man who had let a prisoner go free to teach Ahab about his
sin in I
Kings 20:35-43. In Ezekiel
4:1-3, Ezekiel was to act out a siege against a brick on
which he had written “Jerusalem” to teach the Jews about the
siege on Jerusalem (By the way, this also goes back to the idea of
using props and visual aids). This was not just an Old Testament
form of teaching. In Acts
21:11, when God wanted to teach Paul what would happen to
him in Jerusalem, He had the prophet Agabus take Paul’s belt and
bound himself up like a prisoner. He acted out the role of
prisoner to teach Paul what would happen to him. Q.
Testing:
I know we don’t like this one. But the reality is God used
testing as a means to teach and measure how well His people were
taught. This began with Adam and Eve. Was it not a test to have
the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden with them in Genesis
3? In Exodus
16:4, God used the manna as a test to see if the people
had learned to obey Him. He wanted them only to take a day’s
portion except on Friday when they were to take some for Friday
and the Sabbath. Many of them failed the test. Paul used this same
principle in II
Corinthians 2:9, when he claimed he had written the
previous letter in order to test the Corinthians to see if they
had learned to obey God when it came to disciplining the man in
sin. II.
Applications: Four lessons I have learned from this study. A.
Don’t
be offended at God’s way of teaching:
Matthew
11:6 and Luke 7:23 record Jesus statement,
“Blessed is the one who is not offended by me” (ESV). Jesus’
point was that He knew He was different from what people expected
and wanted. Many would be offended because He did things
differently than they were used to or thought the Messiah should.
I don’t know about you, but this study was a shock to me. I
found out that God, Jesus, the prophets and apostles taught in
many ways that I would formerly have classified as unscriptural.
Let us not be caused to stumble by God, by Jesus, by the apostles
and prophets and their methods of teaching. Instead, let’s be
taught how to teach. B.
Let’s
not be afraid to teach like God did:
In general, it seems to me if God did something, then we are
allowed to do so. If God, Jesus, the apostles and prophets taught
using certain methods. We are also allowed to do so. II
Timothy 3:16-17 says the Scripture equips the man of God
to be competent and thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Through these Scriptures we have seen how the Scripture equips us
to teach. Let’s not be afraid to make full use of these methods
for whatever reason. Let us not be so concerned of looking like
some of the false teachers around us that we neglect to be like
God who teaches us. C.
Refrain
from spoon-feeding:
As I examine the numerous methods God used to teach, I couldn’t
help but notice how so often His teaching was designed to
challenge His pupils to think and learn for themselves. He rarely
spoon-fed anyone. Yet, that is so often what I want to do. I want
to break everything down in very simple lists, formulas and
mantras to answer every question for everybody and if anybody ever
varies, try to squash them until they fit in my formulaic mold of
understanding. But God, Jesus, the apostles and prophets rarely
did that. No doubt, there were times to discipline those who
taught error. But God gave His students room to make mistakes, be
challenged and grow. He almost never spoon-fed them. Sadly, I
think that is what most of our teaching today is. Take a look at
most of the class books developed by brethren, especially for
young people. Aren’t most of them a few pages of some preacher
telling us what to believe and then a few pages of questions for
us to parrot back what we read in the first few pages? I can give
you a personal experience of how sometimes we spoon-feed formulaic
answers and rarely challenge to think biblically. I know I was
spoon-fed and in return have spoon-fed others with the formulaic
“five acts of worship”. We know what worship is because
we’ve been told those acts over and over again. However, how
many of us have actually been challenged to get into the New
Testament and define worship? Let me just warn you, it is ever so
much harder than listing five memorized actions, none of which, by
the way, are actually ever called worship acts in the New
Testament. Most of us will say, “Oh, Edwin, we know what worship
is.” But I challenge you to actually get into the Bible and
define worship based on what scriptures say, not just what you
have always been told is worship. D.
We
must keep the main point, the main point:
What is the goal of teaching? Is it not to inspire obedience in
the student? We want the student to gain knowledge, remember the
teaching and obey the Word. I know some people will find this
lesson shocking coming from me, especially in light of my
well-known position about Bible classes for our kids. I am
absolutely opposed to any method of teaching that is predicated
merely on, “The kids will have fun and want to come back.”
Please notice, God never used any of these methods because He
thought they were the fun and entertaining method that people
would enjoy. He used them because they were memorable and
effective teaching tools. No doubt, sometimes they were fun. I’m
sure the apostles enjoyed the feeding of the 5000. I know they
enjoyed the work of the limited commission; they came back
rejoicing. But fun was not the motivation. Neither was the
motivation simply to provide something to do for a class time. God
never simply found something that could somehow be connected to
something spiritual and so it was used to fill up teaching time.
God used methods because they taught, they embedded teaching in
the memory and because they inspired obedience. I understand it is
rarely effective to bore people with our teaching method.
Certainly some thought should be given to making the teaching
interesting or developing interest in the student. But we must
make sure we keep the proper balance. There is a great difference
between a teacher who tells a humorous story because it
effectively illustrates a scriptural point and a comedian
believing he is teaching properly because he drops a spiritual
point or two in his litany of jokes. Our goal is to teach, to
inspire obedience, not entertain, provide recreation or accomplish
busy-work. I don’t care if your favorite method is lecture, if
you are only doing it because you think every one else will think
it is fun, your motivation and teaching is wrong. On the other
hand, I don’t care how fun the scriptural method is, if the
reason for using it is because it is the effective way to bestow
knowledge, embed teaching into memory and inspire obedience then
it is the way to teach in that instance. When we keep the main
point, the main point, we will do the job properly. Conclusion: God is, no doubt, the master teacher. We should follow His example as we strive to get people to walk in His path. Study for yourself and see how God taught others. That can only help improve our effectiveness as teachers.
Glory
to God in the church by Christ Jesus
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