What is the spiritual gift of teaching?

A God-given teacher is one who enjoys and loves to help others enjoy the truth of God. He is gifted in understanding and grasping the truths of God's Word and in noticing distinctions .of truth and shades of meaning, and is able by the Spirit's power to unfold these truths and to impart them to others. Many enjoy the truth in their own souls, but cannot help others or convey to them what they themselves enjoy. Here is where the gift of teaching comes in. One possessing this gift is able to put the truth clearly and convincingly before believers, so as to deal with the affections and carry home the truth with energy to the soul. The truth is put in so convincing a way as to bring the conscience into the light and make it feel its responsibility to follow that light. Such is the effect produced by the God-gifted, Spirit-led teacher.

The teacher is especially a student of the Scriptures and knows how to apply its truths aright, "rightly dividing the word of truth." He unfolds its perfections, expounds its doctrines, and explains its difficulties. He ever loves to lead on the Children of God into the deep things of His Word and to develop the character of God in them. It is the teacher who meets the teachings of error and exposes false and evil doctrines, thus safeguarding and delivering souls. And as Christ is the theme and center of all Scripture and of all its truths, the divinely taught teacher will ever exalt Him and unfold the glories of His person and work. This will be the outstanding characteristic of his ministry.

What a valuable endowment to the Church is the gift of teachers! How necessary they are and how grateful we should be to the Lord for them, for it is He who has given every gifted teacher for the establishing of His saints, that they be not tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine (Eph. 4:14). As error and evil doctrines abound on every hand, we need to pray for the raising up and encouraging on of divinely gifted teachers who can set forth the truth of God in power and clearness, that souls may be set free from erroneous and evil teachings and Christians be built up in the faith. We need to pray, too, that His gifts to the Church may be unfettered from "religious machinery" and systems of men, so that they may freely exercise their God-given ministry under the sole direction of Christ their Head.

In our day of perverse, adulterated teachings there is much need for a "teaching-Gospel" to establish and deliver souls that have been awakened. This is a mixture of a teacher's and evangelist's work and is illustrated by the Epistle to the Romans, where the apostle teaches the principles of the Gospel to Christians. In Paul were found many gifts. He was an apostle, prophet, evangelist, "teacher of the Gentiles," and a true pastor. His words to Barnabas: "Let us go again and visit our brethren in every city where we have preached the word of the Lord, and see how they do" (Acts 15:36), evidence the true heart of a pastor and furnish a good motto for every shepherd of the sheep of Christ.

Take again the gift of teaching. There you have another form of the power of God. Many understand the truth for their own souls' enjoyment, but they cannot help others: they are unable to put the truth so convincingly before believers, or so to deal with the affections, as to carry home the truth with energy to the soul. Where this is done, there is the gift of teaching. But I have only referred to it for the purpose of contrasting the nature of priesthood with ministry, and of showing that the confusion of the two things is a lamentable consequence of the state of the Church. If people go to hear a sermon, they say they go to worship. Men are so habituated to confound teaching with worship that the two things are supposed each to involve the other.

Then there are the teachers. Now teaching is not merely the ability to expound a passage of Scripture, for mere human intelligence has no power to unlock the treasures of the Word. One who is enabled by the Holy Spirit, in expounding the Word, to really convey its spiritual meaning to his hearers, may truly be termed a teacher, it is a rare and valuable gift.

Romans 12:7. "Or ministry, let us wait on our ministry; or he that teacheth, on teaching." The terms minister and ministry are sometimes employed in reference to the apostles, to teachers, and to all who serve in the gospel; and sometimes in a more restricted sense, as to the office of deacon and the deaconship. The latter seems to be the appropriate application of the word "ministry" here. The deacons were a class of officers who were to attend to the poor and the sick, and the external affairs of the church generally. (See Acts 6:1-3; Phil. 1:1; 1 Tim. 3:8-13.) And if a man's gift lay in ministering thus to the saints, he was to attend to it. "Or ministry, let us wait on our ministry." This is a real service of love, and one most acceptable to the Lord Jesus Christ and to His poor saints, and he who is thus privileged, will show his wisdom by occupying himself in his own gift, and not be attempting that which he is neither called to nor qualified for. Great wisdom and spiritual discernment are required, in order to "use the office of a deacon well;" and distribute wisely that which may be called one's own money, or money entrusted to us by others. We must look at "the poor of the flock" from the Master's point of view, and love them through His affection.

"Or he that teacheth, on teaching." The teacher is one who not only knows and enjoys the truth himself, but has the gift of so unfolding it as to lead others to see it, enjoy it, own its weight and importance; at the same time, the teacher must not be confounded with the prophet, nor teaching with prophesying. The apostle is particularly energetic in keeping every one to his own work in the unity of the body, and from engaging in a service for which he has no divinely given fitness.

The 'teacher' is one of the gifts set in the church, 1 Cor. 12:28; Eph. 4:11; and the teacher is exhorted to be occupied with teaching. Rom. 12:7. 'Teaching' is the intelligent setting forth of the truth by the Holy Spirit, and this does not leave room for the mind and opinion of man. Paul left Timothy at Ephesus to charge some not to teach other doctrine than what the apostles taught; and those that did teach otherwise are said to be "puffed up, knowing nothing," etc. 1 Tim. 1:3; 1 Tim. 6:3-4. This makes evident that no other teaching could be of God; hence the modern formula of 'agreeing to differ' on vital points of doctrine is not recognised. On the contrary, the apostle said, "I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgement." 1 Cor. 1:10.

Finally, we have teachers (didaskaloi), whose name sufficiently indicates their charge; not, as the prophets, to speak from God with His authority — "Thus saith the Lord" — but, with divinely-given ability and power of the Holy Ghost to teach what under His teaching they have learned from the word — being, like the evangelists, unmistakably ministers of the word and doctrine.

We have noticed as one of the qualifications for a bishop (or overseer) that he must be "apt to teach," which means that he must be able to meet and answer questions, and make a wise use of Scripture in the performance of his duties.

Closely linked with the gift of pastor is that of teacher. In a distinctive sense, as contrasted with pastor, the teacher is one gifted to unfold the word of God. All God's children have an unction from the Holy One, and need not that any man (apart from the Spirit of God) teach them; this does not do away with the need of teachers, as divine gifts. By the Spirit they have capacity to understand and to receive that which is given to them. They are privileged, and required, all of them, to search the Scriptures for themselves: they will find rich reward in diligent search. It is the most diligent who will most appreciate the teacher who is able, not only to understand but to impart truth.

Teachers are gifts employed by the Head of the church to lead on the saints in knowledge of what is revealed in the word of God.

The teacher on the other hand is taken up with instruction. It is his delightful work to open out the Word of God to God’s people. How necessary is his work. How much we need to have a true knowledge of the word—of the gospel, of the church, of the history of the Israelites, of the dispensations, of the Lord’s coming again, of prophecy, besides all the moral bearing of the Word on our life and ways, and also the revelation of God as Father, and of the Lord Himself, besides all the truth that subjectively is connected with the presence and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

The evangelist preaches the good news of God; he proclaims the gift of life eternal and remission of sins to all such as believe in Jesus. The pastor and teacher, publicly and privately, tells the whole counsel of God to the faithful; that they may be built up in the truth and filled with the knowledge of His will, so as to walk worthily of the Lord and to please Him in all respects.