When Jesus gave His apostles the Great Commission, He told them to preach the gospel throughout the world (Mark 16:15) and to teach the disciples to observe His commandments (Matthew 28:20). Even today, the message of the gospel is spread through teaching. The gospel is God’s power for salvation (Romans 1:16), and God calls us to Him through the gospel (2 Thessalonians 2:14).
Understanding this, it is critical that we endeavor to teach others. And since souls are at stake, we need to do this to the best of our abilities. How can we do that?
At the end of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon described the process by which a “Preacher” could best communicate the message of truth. It was going to require diligence, but the importance of truth makes the effort worth it. While preachers in particular should pay attention to Solomon’s advice, all of us ought to take heed to these instructions in order to make the most of our efforts to lead others to the truth. Notice what the wise man said:
“In addition to being a wise man, the Preacher also taught the people knowledge; and he pondered, searched out and arranged many proverbs. The Preacher sought to find delightful words and to write words of truth correctly” (Ecclesiastes 12:9-10).
When it comes to public teaching, this is about more than just standing before others and saying whatever comes to mind off the top of our heads. The same applies to any teaching we might do in written form. We do not write in a stream of consciousness and expect it to benefit others. It involves work, and Solomon listed five steps we need to take if we want to teach effectively.
- Pondering – We need to spend time thinking about the topic we are teaching and meditating on the passages we are expounding. Taking time to do this will help us grow in our insight, just as the psalmist said, “I have more insight than all my teachers, for Your testimonies are my meditation” (Psalm 119:99). The better we understand something, the better equipped we will be to explain it to others.
- Searching out – This involves researching to find additional information that reinforces our teaching. We know that “the sum of [God’s] word is truth” (Psalm 119:160), so we may search out other passages that speak to the topic under consideration (always being careful to respect the context in which those passages are found, of course). It can also mean finding sources outside of God’s word, not to establish truth, but to reinforce it, just as Paul cited the Greek poets to back up his point about man’s dependence upon God (Acts 17:28).
- Arranging – For our teaching to be effective, we need to organize our thoughts in a way that will make logical sense to our hearers or readers. When Luke wrote to Theophilus about the words and works of Christ, he “investigated everything carefully” and wrote it “in consecutive order” (Luke 1:3) so Theophilus could understand how everything fit together.
- Finding delightful words – After arranging our thoughts, it is helpful to edit and refine what we have written down, even if the message will be delivered orally, in order to make our message as effective as possible. The opponents of the apostle Paul said of him, “His letters are weighty and strong, but his personal presence is unimpressive and his speech contemptible” (2 Corinthians 10:10). This may have been nothing more than a false accusation that was intended to prejudice people against Paul. However, if there was any truth to it and he did not have a commanding personal presence, he could overcome this by carefully selecting the proper words that would make his message as clear and convincing as possible. Of course, Paul wrote by inspiration (cf. 1 Corinthians 14:37), yet this serves as a reminder that any liabilities in our physical presence or presentation may be mitigated by taking extra time to carefully select the words we use.
- Writing correctly – We have a responsibility to represent the word of God accurately. When we speak, we are to “speak as the oracles of God” (1 Peter 4:11, NKJV). We need to recognize that if we put ourselves in a position to teach others, we open ourselves up to incurring a “stricter judgment” (James 3:1). This means it is always important to proofread what we write, especially if the final version of our teaching is in written form. We may never catch every spelling mistake or grammatical error, no matter how careful we try to be, but we do need to be sure that what we are teaching is the truth.
All of this involves a lot more work than extemporaneous “off the cuff” teaching (though there is a time and place for that). Those who preach, teach, and write in order to help others learn the word of God and deepen their understanding of it should remember Solomon’s advice. These steps will help our teaching be as good as it can be and provide the most value to those who hear and read it.
When we recognize that the whole purpose of man is to “fear God and keep His commandments” (Ecclesiastes 12:13) and that we will all be judged according to how we have followed God’s instructions (Ecclesiastes 12:14), we will want to make our teaching as clear and convincing as possible. Though this requires work on our part, we know it is worth it.
