Teachers

 Everybody wants to be somebody until they come to realize that being somebody comes at a price. There are no free rides in life; even something as mesmerizing as fame has a price tag that the introspective aren’t so eager or willing to pay. We watch people clamor over each other, trying to get a sliver of the spotlight, and once they do, it seems as though their lives implode in such spectacular fashions that one wonders if it was all worth it.

You spent ten years trying to make a name for yourself and ended up spending everything you earned once you made it on rehab facilities and therapy just to get back to where you started. Just so you could be whole again, feel again, and be in a mental space stable enough wherein your friends and family don’t pretend as though they need a place to crash every night just to make sure you don’t hurt yourself.

Vegas wasn’t built off the backs of winners, and rehab facilities costing thirty grand a week weren’t built on the backs of the poor and impoverished.

One would think that egos wouldn’t play a part within Christendom. One would think that the notion of being one body, each tasked with performing its own function, was something elementary enough that even new believers understood it. As I said, one would think. The reality is that if you took a minute to look into the inner workings of ministries, you’d realize many have such colorful histories that a daytime soap opera based on their existence wouldn’t be a stretch at all. You’ve got intrigue, betrayal, underhanded dealings, hostile takeovers, blackmail, and the list goes on, all coming from individuals and ministries that purport to be ambassadors of Christ and soldiers of the cross.

Nowadays, people want to become teachers for the potential benefits they might accrue in doing so. Their desire isn’t simply to teach but to make themselves the center of attention and somehow monetize the result. Because their desire is impure, and their purpose is numbers rather than glorifying God, what they teach is shallow, flawed, and lacking substantive truth. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that the more permissive you are regarding certain proclivities, the wider an audience you will amass.

Those who desire to become teachers have forgotten that in doing so, the focus shouldn’t be on the individual teaching but on the subject matter being taught. When a teacher attempts to hijack the subject matter and make it about themselves instead, they’ve already strayed from their calling.

James 3:1, “My brethren, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment.”

As always, James is being pragmatic. He is reminding those with stars in their eyes and dreams of adoring fans that when you become a teacher, you are held accountable both for what you teach others and whether or not you lived up to those teachings. The stricter judgment James speaks of is not just one thing; it’s many things because a teacher is responsible for presenting the curriculum as prescribed by the author and not as they would like to have it worded.

If you show up for a class on Christianity 101, and the teacher starts teaching on the equanimity of all religions, using tired metaphors like multiple streams leading to one big river that spills into the ocean, get your money back if you can, but stop attending the class even if you can’t.

Many who claim to be teachers of the Word today are teaching anything but, and no one is holding their feet to the fire. No one is holding them to task because the things they teach are more libertine and permissive than the curriculum allows, and the students love the notion that they can goof off in class and get a passing grade regardless.

Everybody loved the cool teacher with the aviator shades and the half-empty bottle of Fireball in his desk who just rolled the TV VHS combo into the class and let you watch Commando because he thought it was a fitting metaphor for conflict resolution. 

It’s only in hindsight that you realize the only thing you learned in World History class was that Arnold Schwarzenegger can carry a tree trunk down the side of a mountain on one shoulder and conclude that the history teacher with the drinking problem wasn’t that cool after all. You could even go so far as to surmise that he was derelict in his duties and did not perform the tasks for which he was duly compensated.

Those who can’t do teach might fly with those of the world, but it does not cut it with God. Those who teach His word, must also do. They must practice what they preach and be diligent in doing so. They must likewise make certain that what they teach is the whole counsel of God and not some aberration that has been run through the acceptable to all potential hearers mill to ensure there’s nothing controversial or mildly offensive in any of it. Truth offends the sensibilities of the deceived. Light offends the sensibilities of those in the dark. Righteousness offends the sensibilities of hedonism, if hedonism had any sensibilities, to begin with.

When your doctor informs you that you are terminal and guaranteed to die within a certain amount of time if you don’t follow his instructions, he’s not being mean-spirited; he’s not trying to upset you; he is presenting the facts to you in the hope that you will take his advice and live.

Believers are motivated by the desire to see others live. They go out on a limb and risk being rejected, mocked, ridiculed, and ostracized, all to tell strangers with whom they have no connection other than their humanity that they don’t have to die in their sins, separated and alienated from the source of life, but that they can be freed and reconciled unto God.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.