Recently I heard a person interviewed on the radio asked, “What makes a good teacher?”
She replied: “Passion and patience”, and proceeded to give examples of great teachers she had learnt from at school.
“Passion and Patience.”
What a great combination in a teacher!
But not only for teachers and leaders, whether in the school or in the church. But in all our lives as Christians.
And in marriage. Though, as someone once said: “Passion, yes. But just as important, if not moreso, in marriage is compassion.”
So I thought we could look at those three as essential ingredients in our lives, especially as they relate to teaching and leadership in the church.
Passion, Compassion, Patience!
Passion
Those who teach eternal truths should have a passion to do so.
When, in a former life, I started out as a civil engineer (roads) I attended a two week intensive in-service course. Talks and seminars were given on various subjects: road design, bridges, highway landscaping etc.
But the most interesting talk was given by an old man (probably younger than I am now!), who gave a talk on dirt. Yep, DIRT! The stuff you build roads on.
But this “dirt doctor” was passionate about his subject. He had a wealth of experience, and was near retirement. But far from hanging out for the day when he could hang up his boots, he loved his subject and was passionate about sharing what he had learnt through all his years with those coming after.
He was a wiry little man, with no great oratorical skills. But no session throughout those two weeks kept us all in such rapt attention as that one.
We have a responsibility to teach those coming after us:
“God commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children;
.– that the generation to come might know them, the children who would be born,
.– that they may arise and declare them to their children,
.– that they may set their hope in God” (Psa 78:5-7)
We all: parents, grandparents, teachers in Sunday School, preachers in churches, share in this responsibility.
But, unless we are passionate about these things, we will hardly come across as though these things really matter.
Our aim is “that they may set their hope in God.”
Are we passionate about that “hope”? Do we really believe it is the only hope?
Paul was able to say: “Just as it is written, ‘I believed and therefore I spoke,’ we also believe and therefore speak.” (2 Cor 4:13)
It is what we believe – really believe – that should fill our mouths when we teach.
Kel Willis notes:
Great preachers are passionate about their message and that comes through.
I’m not talking about imitated enthusiasm. People soon see through that. Nor am I suggesting that genuine passion in preaching is something that one can learn.
Such emotion only comes when what we are declaring has first gripped our hearts. This passion includes thankfulness to God for all He has done and a desire for others to discover this. It results from a deep confidence in God, from a deep conviction about the word of God and from the joy of discovering and sharing the truth of the gospel.
Especially when it comes to sharing the gospel it is so important that: “We believe. And, therefore we speak.”
As I’ve noted before, when it comes to training in evangelism the great need is not to be holding classes to tell people “how to witness”.
I’m not against such things. But it doesn’t address the fundamental issue when it comes to effective witnessing.
The fundamental need we have in our witnessing is to be full of what we want to say:
. – to be full of Christ,
. – to be full of God,
. – to be full of the gospel…
. … to such an extent that (in the words of the apostles) “we cannot but speak the things we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:20)
Compassion
Moses was a great leader. He was passionate for the glory of God.
When he came down from the mountain “he saw the calf and the dancing. So Moses’ anger became hot, and he cast the tablets out of his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain. Then he took the calf which they had made, burned it in the fire, and ground it to powder; and he scattered it on the water and made the children of Israel drink it.” (Exod 32:19-20)
But he was also compassionate for the people.
God threatened: “Let Me alone, that My wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them. And I will make of you a great nation.” (v. 10)
He pleaded: “Lord, why does Your wrath burn hot against Your people whom You have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?… Turn from Your fierce wrath, and relent from this harm to Your people.” (vv 11-12)
“So the Lord relented from the harm which He said He would do to His people.” (v 14)
When it comes to teaching: “Compassion is as important as passion.”
Those of us who preach are called “pastors” before we are called “teachers”. (Eph 4:11)
A man may teach with passion. But if I do not have compassion for those I teach I have failed as a pastor. My passion in such a case is hardly for the glory of God, but is more likely directed to the glory of self.
“Com-passion” means (lit.) the ability to suffer-with, or feel-with, another; to identify with what another is feeling.
It is what the Bible requires of all of us as brothers and sisters in Christ: “Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep.” (Rom 12:15)
Especially as teachers we are to identify with those we teach, to enter into what they are feeling.
We are to remember we are all just redeemed sinners, stumbling along, helping each other stumble along, on our way to heaven.
Jesus is our Great Example of a teacher.
People easily recognised His authority to teach: “He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Matt 7:29)
Jesus’ authority arose, at least in part, from His obvious pastor’s heart for the people:
When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd.” (Matt 9:36)
He felt for them, for their need for sound teaching and good leadership: “The harvest truly is plentiful, but the labourers are few,” He told His disciples. “Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into His harvest.” (Matt 9:37-38)
As well, He had “compassion” for the socially outcast leper (Mark 1:41), “compassion” for the demon possessed (Mark 5:19), “compassion” for a bereaved widow (Luke 7:13), “compassion” for the sick (Matt 14:14, Mark 6:34), “compassion” for the hungry (Matt 15:32, Mark 8:2), “compassion” for the blind (Matt 20:34).
Jesus’ ministry as a Pastor, as a Shepherd, was characterised by “compassion.”
“He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.”
On the other hand, the Jewish leaders of Jesus’ day lacked compassion.
They were passionate about many things:
– They were passionate about evangelism: they would “travel land and sea to win one proselyte.” (Matt 23:15)
– They were zealous to do all that the Bible commands (or, so they thought), scrupulously tithing (“as you ought,” said Jesus, Matt 23:23).
– They were passionate to get others to recognise their authority (John 9:34).
But they lacked compassion. A passion for their own authority suffocated compassion for those under their authority.
Jesus respected their authority, but not the way they exercised it: “Whatever they tell you to observe, that observe and do, but do not do according to their works.” (Matt 23: 3)
Passion without compassion becomes cruel: “You devour widows’ houses, and for a pretense make long prayers.” (Matt 23:14)
They “neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” (Matt 23:23)
They resented Jesus when He showed mercy; they became so focused on discrediting Him they failed to exercise compassion.
So that when Jesus “entered the synagogue again, and a man was there who had a withered hand” they showed no concern for the sufferer. Instead they “watched Jesus closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him.” (Mark 3:1-2)
Jesus word to them, and all of us, is: “‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ Go and learn what this means.” (Matt 9:13)
Patience
Compassion lays the foundation for patience.
The person interviewed at the beginning of this post, as to what makes a good teacher, cited: Passion and Patience. She spoke of how much she had learnt from teachers who had patiently taught her over the years.
Moses was patient. “Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of the earth.” (Num 12:3)
But after 120 years, though still physically strong (Deut 34:7), he had had enough.
Frustrated at fulfilling his destiny at age 40 (Acts 7:25), waiting another 40 years only then to be reluctantly called into service (Exod 3:11, 13; 4:1, 10, 13), then leading two million whinging countrymen through a wasteland for another 40 years…
He did well.
But at the end, he had had enough.
He lost his temper: “Hear now, you rebels! Must we bring water for you out of this rock?” (Num 20:10)
Suddenly, it was all about him and his glory, not God’s.
When a teacher loses his temper, he takes his hearers’ eyes off God’s glory. Instead, it is all about him.
Moses disqualified himself. He had had enough.
As much for Moses’ sake as the people’s, the Lord took him to his eternal rest.
Be patient.
Mark Dever commented on the need for passion to be tempered with patience:
“If you watch a young person who’s very excited about a particular idea, you will often observe a trail of people in their wake who now oppose that idea. Why? Because the young person hasn’t yet learned how to read their audience. So they argue and argue, and people respond by taking the opposite side. In fact, the knot of their opposition grows tighter the more a person argues.”
“A servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient.” (2 Tim 2:24)
Not all that disagree with us are recalcitrant. I have noted elsewhere that “more often than not, where tensions arise, that seemingly difficult member is not being deliberately rebellious, and we need to understand (even if at first we don’t agree with) what is going on.”
But even with the recalcitrant, the Bible tells us we are to be:
“…in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, and that they may come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.” (2 Tim 2:25-26)