What If Teaching Is More Than Knowing the Answers?

Teaching that forms people, rather than simply winning Bible trivia.

By Pastor John Erickson

Have you ever met somebody who knows a great deal but somehow leaves everybody around them feeling small? They can answer every question. Sometimes they answer questions nobody asked. And when they finish explaining something, you are not entirely sure whether you learned anything or just discovered how little you know.

That's not really the picture of a teacher that Paul gives us in Ephesians 4.

Paul says that Jesus gives apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers to His church. Not so a few impressive people can stand up front and do all the ministry. He gives these people to equip the saints for the work of ministry, so that the whole body grows toward maturity in Christ.

In other words, the point of a teacher is not to be the smartest person in the room. The point is to help the people in the room grow.

A gift meant for the whole church

We sometimes hear the word teacher and immediately picture somebody with a classroom, a whiteboard, and a microphone. Maybe you picture the person who has memorized the Greek alphabet and knows which ancient empire controlled the coastline in the third century. There is a place for scholarship. But being able to explain something and being the person who loves investigating it are not always the same.

I can explain things well, but I'm not naturally the person who wants to pull apart every mystery. If something goes wrong with my car, I don't love researching it. Some people want to take the whole thing apart and understand exactly how it works. Those are the people I ask to help fix my car.

And when they can help somebody else understand it, too, you begin to see the value of a teacher.

But Ephesians 4 pushes us beyond information. Teachers help people understand the truth and put down roots in it. The passage goes on to say that mature believers will no longer be tossed back and forth by every wind of teaching. There is something stabilizing about knowing what is true and why it matters.

Think about the people who have helped you grow. Perhaps somebody took a confusing passage and explained it clearly. Perhaps somebody walked with you through a hard decision and helped you see what Scripture actually says. Perhaps they simply sat with you long enough to answer the same question twice. Or ten times.

That is ministry. It might happen in a sermon, at a kitchen table, with your kids, or over coffee.

The strengths of a healthy teacher

Healthy teachers bring clarity. They can take something complicated and make it understandable without stripping away the depth. They ask questions because they are genuinely curious. They love learning, and that love invites other people to go deeper too.

And they believe people can grow. That is a big one. A good teacher doesn't look at a person struggling to understand and think, Well, I guess this one is hopeless. A good teacher finds another way to explain it. They make room for progress and aren't threatened when somebody else starts to understand the material as well as they do.

Think about Jesus. People asked Him questions. Often the same kind of questions, over and over. They misunderstood Him. They made assumptions. His own disciples sometimes seemed determined to miss the point. And Jesus kept teaching them.

He used stories, questions, pictures from everyday life, meals, fields, sheep, coins, and seeds. He wasn't performing intelligence. He was forming people.

When a strength becomes a weakness

Every gift carries its own temptations. A teacher can become so concerned with being correct that they forget to be kind. We can live entirely in our heads. We can fall in love with an argument and forget that there is a real person on the other side of it.

And we can become impatient. Why can't they just understand this? I explained it perfectly. Maybe you did. But teaching isn't only about the quality of the explanation. It is about the growth of the learner.

There is also the danger of perfectionism. If I don't know every answer, perhaps I shouldn't say anything. But nobody knows everything. We teach faithfully what we know, remain honest about what we don't, and stay teachable ourselves.

I think the greatest test of a teacher isn't how much they know. It is what their knowledge produces in other people. Does it produce humility and hunger for God? Does it help somebody become more like Jesus? Does it bring them closer to others, or make them feel embarrassed for asking?

Knowledge is good. Truth matters. But a lesson can be accurate and still fail to love the learner.

Truth and love belong together

Ephesians 4 tells us to speak the truth in love. Those words are not in competition. We do not need to choose between faithfulness to Scripture and faithfulness to the people Scripture calls us to love.

A teacher who refuses to speak truth isn't serving people well. A teacher who speaks truth without love isn't serving people well either. Maturity holds them together.

That changes how we listen too. All of us need teachers. We need the humility to admit that we have blind spots, that our first interpretation might not be the best one, that somebody else has something to offer us.

Maybe you have never considered yourself a teacher. But perhaps you enjoy understanding things and helping other people understand them. Don't dismiss that because it doesn't happen on a stage. Start with the person in front of you. Be curious. Be patient. Share what you have learned, and keep learning.

The goal isn't a church full of people who can win Bible trivia. It's a church full of people whose lives are being shaped by Jesus.

And that's the kind of teaching worth giving your life to.