Page 35 - Teaching Principles and Methods Student Textbook short

Study Section 7: The Gift of Teaching versus Learning to Teach

7.1 Connect

I’m sure you have heard about the Gift of Teaching from the Bible as one of those special
gifts given to some believers that makes them able to teach God’s Word in the power of the
Holy Spirit? This gift enables them to see insights into Bible that others cannot see. It
empowers them to be able to impart Scripture to audiences and have amazing results.

You may not have the Gift of Teaching. Perhaps God gave you another of the Spiritual Gifts.
Does that mean you are destined to be a mediocre teacher? Does that mean you can never teach
others in the power of the Holy Spirit? Today we will answer these questions as we go through the
lesson. Let’s find out the truth….

7.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to explain the spiritual gift of teaching from the Bible and discover
the characteristics and motivation behind this gift.

2. The student should be able to explain why God gave some believers the gift of teaching and
how God uses those with this gift within the local church.

3. The student should be able to defend the position that those who are not given the gift of teaching
are still capable of becoming great teachers.

7.3 The Gift of Teaching vs Learning to Teach

At the onset of this course, we made a point that every believer is called to teach. We all teach
someone else in one way or another. And so we have launched out to learn what makes a
teacher a really great teacher. But the Bible also talks about spiritual gifts in several passages,
and one of these gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of teaching. It is a specially ordained gift
given to some in the church to be used to be a blessing to others. It is a special service gift
given to some to be a blessing to all the believers in an assembly. And not only is it a special
gift, it is a gift empowered by the Holy Spirit, given to only a few believers, given to edify other believers.

Now this is somewhat confusing. If everyone is supposed to be a teacher, but the Bible says there are
some believers who have received a special gift of the Holy Spirit to teach, then where does this leave all
those believers who have not received this spiritual gift? Is teaching only a position that should be filled
by those who have the spiritual gift of teaching? What about the rest of us? Should we just assume we
really cannot be good teachers because we lack that spiritual gift? Let’s look at some answers to these
questions.

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