Chapter 9. The Teacher and the Holy Spirit
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Without the help of the Holy Spirit no one is ready to be a teacher of God's Word. No matter how well trained he may be, how familiar he is with the truths he is to present, until he has received the Holy Spirit, he is not prepared to teach. The disciples had been for many months with their Master. They had lived in closest intimacy with him. They had received the truth from his own lips. They had been under his personal training. Yet they were bidden not to go out to begin their work until they had received power from on high.
In like manner, those who would now become teachers of others must wait for the heavenly power. Specific training is important. They should study the Bible, so as to know what they are to teach. No one is ready to sit down before a class until he has some reasonable knowledge of the way of salvation. How can one teach others what one has not himself learned? How can one guide inexperienced feet along paths over which one has never yet himself walked? How can a teacher lead his pupils to a Savior he has not found for himself? How can he make plain to eager, inquiring minds, truths concerning life which he himself has never learned by experience?
In honoring the Holy Spirit, we must take care not to dishonor the Holy Word. To claim to depend upon the Spirit while we make no use of the sacred Scriptures is fanaticism. The Spirit uses the Word of God. It is important that the teacher shall know his Bible well. The minds and hearts of the first disciples were filled with the words of Christ. This was not sufficient in itself to prepare them for their mission as apostles — it was necessary after they had been so instructed that the Holy Spirit should come into their hearts as the fire of God to kindle all this knowledge into a glowing flame; and yet the knowledge was essential. The apostles were to be witnesses of Christ and they could be witnesses only of what they knew. The Spirit did not teach them new truths — he only vitalized the truth they knew before.
The teacher must know the truths he is to teach. He may not expect the Holy Spirit to reveal them to him. There is no promise of this. No teacher has any right to omit Bible study and the preparation of his lesson, and then expect the Spirit to supply the lack, to teach him what he has not taken the pains to learn for himself. Sometimes one hears a teacher or a preacher quote a word of Jesus which says, "Be not anxious how or what you shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak," as if it were a discouragement or a forbidding of preparation beforehand for speaking God's message. But this is a perversion of Scripture. We must get the meaning of the words of Christ in their connection, and not tear out fragments and interpret them as if they were independent sayings. It was of their defense before rulers, and not of their preaching that Jesus was then speaking to his disciples. We must learn of Christ and know his teachings, and then we have a right to expect the Holy Spirit to come and fill us, and kindle our knowledge of Christ into a glowing fire.
Nor again, must we expect that the Spirit will make the training of the teacher unnecessary. An educated ministry is not unscriptural. Sometimes we hear it said, as an argument against careful training of ministers, and teachers, that the apostles were ignorant, unlearned men that Jesus passed by the educated classes and took for his first disciples a company of crude fishermen who had never been in the schools of the rabbis. But those who use this as a reason against the educating of ministers and teachers for their work overlook the fact that for two or three years these men were under Christ's own personal training. He was their teacher, and never was there another such instructor has he. No class of students in any theological seminary ever had such training, as had the apostles of Christ.
It will not do therefore to claim that teachers need no training in order to be ready for their work in the Sunday school; that all they require is to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and that then they will be ready to do skillful teaching. There is not a word in the New Testament to support such a claim. It is not promised that the Spirit will take a man who has no education, no mental discipline, and at once transform him into an eloquent preacher. Now and then something like this may seem to be done — an unlettered, untrained man may be brought to Christ and almost immediately may become a successful winner of souls. Bu this is not the usual divine method. Men need to be educated and trained to prepare them for their work as teachers of the gospel. We need for this work not only good men and women, filled with the Spirit, but men and women who have been prepared for their holy ministry in the wisest and most skillful way.
Nor again, does the Holy Spirit work independently of Christ. Christ came first, revealing the Father, declaring the divine will, and giving his life for man's redemption. When his work was finished, and he had returned to heaven, the Spirit came. But his mission was to glorify Christ, to take of the things of Christ and show them to men. He did not speak of himself, but poured the light of divine revealing upon the person and work of the Redeemer.
This truth must not be overlooked by those who are engaged in Christian teaching. The Spirit honors Christ and presents his person and work. We are to seek to bring souls to Christ, not to the Holy Spirit.
What then is the Christian teacher's relation to the Spirit? First of all, it is personal. He needs the work of the Spirit in his own heart and life. He must be a Christian before he is a teacher, and when he accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord, he receives the Spirit. All the work of grace in his heart is wrought by the divine Spirit. Just in the measure in which he surrenders himself to the Spirit, will his Christian life grow in intensity and power. It is the work of the Spirit to pour light upon the inner life, that we may discover the evil of our nature and then put it away. It is the part of faith to yield the whole being to the sway of the Spirit, that he may cleanse the heart and transform the life into the beauty of Christ.
There are many words in the New Testament which indicate the closeness of the relation into which the third person of the Trinity enters with every believer. For example, Paul exhorts Christians not to grieve the Holy Spirit. This implies that the Spirit is a person, for we cannot grieve an influence. He comes to us as our friend. He is a divine guest who would make our hearts his home. We grieve him when we fail in hospitality to him. To shut him out of any part of our lives is to grieve him. Any word, act or thought of ours which is not cordial, loyal and loving, grieves him. Any word, act or thought of ours which is not cordial, loyal and loving, grieves him. When we resist his work in us, his work of conviction, of the discovery and casting out of sin, his work of cleansing and purifying, or his work of quickening and inspiring, we grieve him. The Holy Spirit should be allowed to work unhindered and unopposed in every part of our lives, and we give him joy and comfort when we make our surrender to him so complete that he finds nothing in the way of his taking full possession of our being.
It is this personal relation of the believer to the Holy Spirit which is first in importance. The teacher should be holy in heart and life. He should be wholly under the influence of the Spirit. He should be filled unto all the fullness of God. It is this that will give him power, and not any special influence of the Spirit which he may receive as a Christian worker. The teacher should be filled with the Holy Spirit; this will make him a new man and prepare him to be a successful winner of souls.
Then, besides this personal relation as believers in Christ, those who would teach others should seek the special help of the Spirit in their work. The apostles were not permitted to go into the field to tell the story of the redemption until they had been endued with power from on high. When they had received this enduement they at once began to speak with new tongues. This gift was supernatural, but we may learn from it that those who would speak now for Christ to others need a new power of speech. The receiving of the Holy Spirit will not enable them to speak in a language they have never learned, but it will give to their words a spiritual energy which they have never had before. A burning heart produces burning speech. Those who obtain the help of the Holy Spirit in teaching the Word of God will find that their words have new force. God himself will speak through them, and his voice of gentle stillness will reach the hearts of those they teach as no eloquent words of mere human speech can ever do.
How may the teacher obtain this help of the Holy Spirit in his work? As has been said already, the teacher must be Christian. He must abide in Christ and have Christ abiding in him. Then, he must seek the guidance of the Spirit in his preparation for teaching. Only the Spirit can reveal the meaning of the words of the Scriptures, for He is their author — they were inspired by him. It is the reverent, prayerful student of the Scriptures, who finds the precious things in them.
Again, the teacher should seek the aid of the Spirit in preparing the hearts of his pupils to receive the truths he is to teach them. He should also make sure of the Spirit in himself before he begins his work, going form his closet to his class. Then, when he is in his place, with the Bible open, he should depend upon the Spirit to use him and his words, to speak through him and to work in the hearts of his pupils.
Those who teach thus filled with the Holy Spirit and under his power will never work in vain. They will be burning and shining lights, shining because they burn.
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