Teaching versus preaching

I finally found a really nice definition of preaching and teaching, from R.C. Sproul. It's not perfect, but it gets me closer to what I need to find my own direction in both.

I've been reading through a fine little collection of essays on preaching called Feed My Sheep: A Passionate Plea for Preaching.  I have 4 or 5 such collections, and I find in all of them the most wonderful encouragement and doctrine.

Encouragement and doctrine.  That might be my own little contribution to the definitions of preaching and teaching.  Both modes impart both encouragement and doctrine.  And so, for Christians seeking to "feed" Jesus flock, both are essential.  This is why the role of preacher usually implies teacher, and vice versa.

But on to my gem.  The fifth essay in this collection, by R.C. Sproul, entitled "The Teaching Preacher" has finally given me a very good working definition.  In speaking about the "Feed my sheep" text in John 17, Sproul writes,

It is the feeding of the sheep, according to Luther, that is the prime task of the ministry. And that feeding comes, principally, through teaching.
     I make a distinction between preaching---which involves exhortation, exposition, admonition, encouragement, and comfort---and teaching, which involves the transfer of information.  I practice both in my own ministry, and sometimes I obscure the distinction.  The students in my seminary classes will testify that sometimes, in the middle of my lectures, when I'm trying to communicate certain doctrines and information about theology, I'll start preaching, because I'm not interested in the mere transfer of information. I want that information not only to get in their heads but in their bloodstreams. In fact, I warn them at the beginning of each course: "Don't think that I'm in this classroom as a professor in a state of neutrality. I'm after your mind and your heart.  I hope not only to instruct you, but to persuade you."

It's a great description of my goal as a Bible teacher, evangelist, pastor and shepherd. I'm not merely passing along the stories or teachings I've heard; I BELIEVE THEM and ASSERT their universal truth.

But, as Sproul points out, asserting anything in our day is anathema to the relativistic spirit of our age, that openness upon which people place such a high premium, by which I mean the attitude that making dogmatic statements of universal truth is regarded as offensive by the modern mind. Sproul traces the roots of this attitude all the way back to Erasmus and his Diatribe against the teachings of Luther.   He quotes Luther's response in The Bondage of the Will,

Luther became apoplectic over this position of Erasmus. He said, "Nothing is more familiar or characteristic among Christians than assertion. Take away assertions, and you take away Christianity." Then, in his passion, Luther said: "Away, now, with Skeptics and Academics from the company of us Christians; let us have men who will assert."  Luther would have none of the spirit of those who are always learning and never coming to a knowledge of the truth (2 Tim 3:7).

What makes us think that we should offer God's word apologetically with disclaimers such as, "I believe thus and so, but you may think differently."?   How dare we stand in a pulpit without KNOWING that what God says is Truth, universal truth, and it matters not what I or you think at all, but that we hear it, believe it and obey it!  Yet, many preachers stand and deliver shoddy sermons of things they read on the Internet or rehashed from books and other men's sermons, but didn't themselves learn well.  Such a teacher cannot but transfer knowledge.   He cannot preach, and without preaching, "how can they hear or believe?"

If a teacher is ONLY to transfer knowledge, I don't like Sproul's definition.  I think preaching is more urgent that teaching.  But I think that teaching is also about comfort, encouragement, inspiration, all the things ascribed above to the act of preaching.  This is certainly true of teaching in kindergarten.  And are we not to come to God as little children?   And I'm sure it's true in every subsequent grade as well, if the teacher really wants to have an impact.  Yes, we need those who will impart information only, at times. But heaven help us if all our teachers did that only.

No. Teaching is a gift, like preaching, and the distinction between them is still finer than Sproul's categories.   There is more of a continuum between the two, upon which a preacher or teacher moves freely as the Spirit leads.  Yes!  The Spirit is our counselor and teacher in all things, and we are but channels in which His word and wisdom and love and inspiration flow.

In conclusion, God would use us to feed his sheep.  But it means hard work. Teaching is never an easy job, nor preaching.  It must be done with a labor of love, not merely of the mind.  May God send us teachers and preachers of righteousness, like the prophets of old and the Apostles, men who aren't afraid to assert, "Thus saith the Lord!"