You probably are one. Parents are teachers, pastors are teachers, teachers are teachers in school, in Sunday School, in seminars and seminaries. There are all kinds of teachers, as a good part of life is about learning—and much of one’s learning comes through the dedicated efforts of faithful teachers. The worth of a good teacher and of good teaching cannot be overstated.
Do you remember some of your earliest teachers? Many of my grade-school teachers were single women, most of them older and seasoned. They left an indelible mark on me that more than 70 years has not erased. Miss Chitwood, Miss Flame, Miss Sharp, Mrs. Groce, Miss Yearing, and many, many more. I thank God for each of them, including Sunday School teachers, teaching pastors and youth leaders, teaching parents and professors, and friends. Most taught for the love of teaching and watching students grow in learning. Their attitudes and actions were infectious, and, though I do not consider myself primarily a teacher, I was infected by this cadre of careful teachers—some professional and some not—whose love for the process and product helped to shape my character and my desire through life to “teach others also.”
A London editor submitted to Winston Churchill a list of people who had been Churchill’s teachers. Churchill returned the list with this comment: “You have omitted to mention the greatest of my teachers—my mother.” (Pulpit Helps, May 1979) Many of us could and should thank our mothers and grandmothers, our fathers and grandfathers, for their faithful, consistent, patient teaching by exhortation and example. Paul indicated that his protégé, Timothy, had learned the scriptures from early childhood, being taught by a faithful mother and grandmother. Their living and loving instruction can never be gotten past.
And, those elementary, intermediate and secondary teachers who impacted our lives in such a way that, for many, what we have become started the first day of class. Whether it be Latin, or math, or science, or typing, or English, or music, or history, we can never forget the faces if not the names of those gifted (for the most part) men and women whose lives touched ours in a way that few others could have. President Ronald Reagan recognized the incalculable worth of these often unseen and unsung tutors when, awarding Guy Doud the “Teacher of the Year” honor in 1986, he quoted Pulitzer Prize winning author Clark Molenhoff: “Teachers, you are the molders of their dreams, the gods who build or crush their young beliefs of right or wrong. You are the spark that sets aflame the poet’s hand or lights the flame of some great singer’s song…You are the guardian of a million dreams; your every smile or frown can heal or pierce the heart. You are a hundred lives, a thousand lives. Yours the pride of loving them, and the sorrow too.”
And, what about those faithful Sunday School teachers who, without pay or promotion or praise, show up to love their little ones (or not so little, too) through a lesson from the Book of Books, a lesson for life that is aimed for the heart even more than the head, that will be a compass for them as they chart their course for life. Teachers such as Daisy Hawes in Louisville, Kentucky, whose faithful, loving instruction from God’s Word reached the heart of a 14-year-old boy, who went on to become one of God’s choice servants. From a humble beginning in the small village of English, Indiana, in 1909, Lee Roberson would impact literally millions of people. In time he pastored the Highland Park Baptist Church of Chattanooga, Tennessee, and founded the Tennessee Temple Schools, including a college and seminary—from which pastors, missionaries and evangelists would encompass the four corners of the earth in carrying out the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20). The ripple effects of one life touching another, ad infinitum, cannot be measured. But for the 20th century giant of the faith, Dr. Lee Roberson, it largely began because of a caring and conscientious Sunday School teacher.
“A diamond in the rough, is a diamond sure enough; for before it ever sparkles, it is made of diamond stuff. Of course, someone must find it, or it never will be found; and when it’s found it’s ground, and when it’s burnished bright, that diamond’s everlastingly just flashing out its light! O Teacher in the Sunday School, don’t say, ‘I’ve done enough!’ That worst boy in your class may be A Diamond in the rough!” (Unknown)
Teaching can be considered an eternal investment. “If you write upon a paper, a careless hand may destroy it. If you write upon parchment, the dust of the centuries may gather over it. If you write upon marble, the moss may cover it and the elements may erase it. If you engrave your thoughts with an iron pen upon the granite cliff, in the slow revolving years it shall wear away and when the earth melts your writing will perish. Write, then, upon the heart of a youth. There engrave your thoughts and they shall endure when the world shall pass away, and the stars shall fall and time shall be no more. For that heart is immortal and your words written there shall live through eternity.” (Unknown, White Wing Messenger)
I read once that, in 1915, the Russian radical Leon Trotsky attended a Sunday School with a friend in Chicago. The class teacher did not show up that Sunday morning and had not notified anyone of his intention to miss the class that day. Trotsky walked away from that class and never attended another one (as far as is known). He returned to his homeland of Russia and, in 1917, helped lead the Bolshevik Revolution in his native land, which brought the Communist regime to power there.
Teachers make a difference that only eternity will tell. What a privilege to be able to teach! What an awesome responsibility. And, what a challenge, day in and day out, to live what we are teaching. Live in the light of eternity. Live truthfully. Live as Christ our Lord lived, of whom it was said: “For He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Matt. 7:29)
“And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also.” (2 Tim.2:2)
YOU and GOD 