Here's a posting I promised -- The FiveFold Ministry (Part II)

Leadership Gift #2: Teachers

As the term suggests, teachers teach. However there's often a confusion between these terms-- "teaching" and "preaching"--so it's best to clarify what is meant here. Most of the time, the Bible doesn't exactly use the term "preaching", but uses the term "proclamation" (kerruso) and "spreading (the Good News)" (euangelion). Don't want to be too technical, but in a nutshell, this is what it connotes:

a) Proclamation: Declaring with authority and demanding obedience. This usually is done, for instance, in reading out the King's edict.
b) Spreading/Witnessing: To tell people about the experience that you yourself had.

What is interesting is that between these 2 words, proclamation is the one that is closest to the modern term "preaching", in that it does connote some kind of public speech. However, in the context of the New Testament, it usually refers to the proclamation of the Gospel, i.e. evangelism in a public context, yet in a way that is pretty authoritative and demanding of obedience. It's very much like how the prophets in the OT used to declare God's will for the people. So these 2 terms tend to be used more for the declaration of the Good News than anything else. On the other hand, there is another word for "teaching" (didasko), which is to do with presenting truth in a form that is as complete as possible, erasing doubts, misunderstanding, while not necessarily having to demand action or obedience at the immediate instance. So IMHO, a distinction should be made between "preaching" (which in the 2 words above seems largely about proclaiming the Gospel and the need to obey God with regards to believing Jesus Christ) and "teaching".

(So here once again, we cross some traditional lines. "Preaching", in our current day context, seems to connote any public speech made in the church, whereas "teaching" seems to be either some Christian Education class activity or something you do in the cell group. Or, some people have a cruder notion--that preaching is somehow motivational in its tone, whereas teaching is a systematic enquiry into the truth (i.e. it's all about style rather than anything else). In the Outreach, we would suggest that both the above definitions seem to miss the point a little. The Bible seems to suggest that "preaching" is a public speech, but one that is commanding/compelling in nature, demanding obedience towards God's edict about Jesus. There is an authoritative sting to it. And this need not take place within a church--it could well be anywhere else where an audience is gathered. As for speeches made from the pulpit, we would not automatically assume they are "teaching", too. There's another category of speeches--the kind that is meant to stir up your faith and to motivate you to love the Lord more passionately--that kind we would call "encouragement", 'cos after all, it need not necessarily be new truth, but rather it stirs and motivates you to do something about that truth. So "teaching" would be defined as someone opening up the Scriptures to help you to know more about God, about what Jesus and the early apostles did, and about God's general will for your life. "Encouragement" is equally important. God uses the gift of encouragement to help all of us, especially when we're faced with a stressful week or when we need some gusto to make the changes we need to in our walk with God.)

So back to teaching. Teachers should enable you to appreciate God's Word more, to interpret it more correctly, and to be able to get the general principles from God's Word so that you can apply it intelligently in your life. They would be in touch with scholarship about the Scriptures and help to provide you with a relatively safe way of interpreting the Scriptures. Above all, teachers who do their job well would inspire you to love reading the Scriptures, and enable you to arrive at your own (hopefully relatively precise) conclusions independently from them.

Can I suggest that this is a very important function? Let me appeal to two groups of people: 1) People who believe everything their Pastor/Elder says because he/she is inspirational; 2) People who move powerfully in faith. My appeal, through the love of Christ, is to pay attention to the teachers who sprout out in your midst. To the 1st group, I want to suggest that at times, questioning or even disagreeing with your Elder is an important step in your growth as a Christian. Ultimately, you want to be dependent on the Scriptures and on Jesus Christ, not your Elder. But all too often, people disagree for the wrong reasons. They disagree because they don't like what the Bible says and don't like to change. Which is terrible--it shows hardness of heart, really. (By the way, this is true of all of us. None of us in our right minds like to change from our worldly ways. But we need to change. Amen. Heh.) So if you disagree because you don't like what your Elder says, that's rebellion. But if you disagree because somehow you have a gut feeling something is wrong--and you actually search the Scriptures for what it really says--if you present your objection respectfully, your Elder will respect you for your insight into the Scriptures. And the key to this is an informed approach to the Scriptures, not just interpreting it based on "what I feel" or "what I think" about it.

So teachers have a really important function for the church. They can tell you what the sentence originally meant, and they can also help you to develop your capacity to read the Bible intelligently. Don't despise them. And if, from an informed perspective, you come to the conclusion that your Elder was right after all, then you will be a solid encouragement to him because you will be able to back up what he says, with even more evidence than what he himself provided. And don't forget that by doing all this, you are not aiming to please the Elder, but to please God Almighty himself, for whom the Scripture and all our obedience is for. Amen!

For the 2nd group, the usual problem I see is that these people tend to think that the Scriptures (and its interpretation) are not that important. I can understand why: to be very honest, the Christian faith is not difficult to pick up and run with it. Honestly. It was meant even for children and non-educated fishermen to participate. How chim can it be? :P Honestly, if you want to go far in the Christian faith, at the starting part, you don't need a lot of knowledge--you need a lot of faith. Why do I say this? For 3 reasons: i) Because Christianity is largely practical: it's not about how much you know, but about how much you put into practise (cf Jesus' parable on the house that was built on rock VS sand); ii) Powerful Christianity is not so much about how much you know compared to WHO you know. If you know Jesus, you can cast out demons by a simple order. But if you don't know Jesus, demons will shout back: "Jesus I know very well, and as for Paul, I've heard of him, but who on earth are you?" (Acts 19:15-16). And your relationship with Christ is largely based on faith ('faithing' for those who want more precision). The more he indwells you and possesses you, the more Satan can't stand being in the same room as you. iii) Powerful Christianity includes the need to be filled with the Spirit, so that the Spirit can produce his fruit in you (Gal 5), give you the signs that follow the Gospel (Mark16:14-18, Acts 1-2), and -this I like the most- so that you can have powerful encounters with your God (2 Cor 3:7-11, exemplified in Acts 7:55-56, 10:9-16, 23:11, Rev 1:10). Read those Scriptures if you're not sure what I'm talking about. Christianity is really really experiential. I don't know about you, but if my God could demonstrate himself so powerfully to Peter, to Paul, and to John--not the signs and wonders, mind you, but the experience of God: to encounter the wonder of our God in the spiritual dimension, aside from just the physical world, arguably, to be brought by Him to the realm He himself belongs in--now that is something really really special. So I'm speaking to those of you who earnestly desire to know your God, who really just want to love Him and who want everything and anything associated with Him. The key to many of your successes: your faith. And who am I to despise your faith? For the Master himself likes great faith. "Great is your faith!" he would say, and then proceed to do something utterly supernatural. =)

But now I wish to help you to grow even further. Faith helps you in your experience with God. Now you need to add to that knowledge. I repeat: "add to that", not "replace faith with". Why? 1) It will sharpen your gifting. Let me give you a simple illustration. Some of you have this gift called the "gift of knowledge", where through faith, God allows you to know something about someone else that you wouldn't normally know. Usually it's such a deep secret that when you say it, the person is utterly shocked and says "how did you know?" Now sometimes, just to confirm it, God gives you a piece of Scripture meant to strengthen your faith and to reassure you that "yes child, you heard correctly". The problem is, when you don't know your Scriptures carefully, you have no idea whether a passage was taken out of context or not. To you it's correct and has that meaning, but to a Bible teacher, it can be utterly wrong or the Scripture you use might have exactly the opposite meaning. So the problem is that a lot of confusion can develop: the Bible teacher thinks that "God would never make mistakes" and so "since yours is a misinterpretation, bingo, you're wrong". Whereas the true picture is that God already knew you, and only you, would ever interpret that passage this way, and therefore let you, not the Bible teacher, see that passage to reassure you. But as you can see, it's potentially very confusing and misleading. Whereas--if you had already developed the skills of interpreting Scripture, God himself knows you have that skill. Guess what? He'll give you a passage, in line with what he wants to say, and it will still have the effect of bringing out the "WOW" in the person you minister to, and it will all be in context. The best part? Sometimes God will even entrust you with a whole chapter that speaks directly to the person's life, and in very convicting terms that even you yourself could not say! That's what I mean by sharpening your gifting. Don't diminish your faith: don't doubt the gift that God has given you. Just add to it: be able to handle your Scriptures properly, and then God will use both gifts at once, and it will be so irrefutable and so dynamic at the same time.

2) It will keep you away from deceiving spirits. Many a great man has fallen because they went wonky with their faith. Many heresies have plauged the church one way or the other. Immunise yourself against them! Take "Holy Bible antibiotic/jab/vitamins!"

So to the 2nd group of people: that's why you need the teachers. Don't despise them. Acquire the giftings they have, and you will be able to tell good from bad. Avoid rhetoric that says "all of them only have theological degrees, but we have the power of the Spirit!" Avoid. You want both. Have faith in God, and grow in your maturity in the Lord. Then you will know good from bad, and I wish it wasn't any other way, but you cannot get there through a shortcut (i.e. it WILL take some time). You will need to deal both with theology (which doesn't have to be chim, btw. Theology just means "the knowledge of God") and with the power of God. This will make you an effective Christian.

It's a long post, but as a last note, something I mentioned before: the 5-fold gifts are meant to equip all of us to become "5-fold Christians". Just like having Pastors still means all of us need to love one another, having Teachers also means all of us need to teach one another (Matt 28:16-20). Teachers are specialists in the area of teaching. They are meant to be an inspiration to us to love God by loving His Scripture, handling it correctly, and in terms of teaching others the Word. You will notice that all the 5-fold are meant to specialise in an area, inspire others to do the same, and equip others to move in that area.

To be continued.