Page 9 - Teaching Principles and Methods Student Textbook short

Jesus stripped away pretense and revealed to him his heart problem. He dealt differently with the rich
young ruler than he did with Nicodemus.

Of course, Christ, who was God in flesh, KNEW the people who came to him. He knew their
backgrounds, where they were coming from, what they were thinking, and how to guide them to truth.
But we cannot know what others think. We are limited to finite bodies.

So for us as teachers to really know the needs of those we teach, we have to get to know our students.
That comes by spending time with them, finding out about their lives, their needs, their desires, their
cares and their hopes. We need to find out about their spiritual walk with God. How mature are they in
their knowledge of God’s Word? Do they practice reading the Word and fellowshipping with God daily?
Is there a major problem in their lives that prevent them from growing spiritually? Without this
information, your lessons may sail over their heads or completely miss that mark when it comes to
bringing the Scripture to bear to meet their needs.

So if you want to become a great teacher, you have to know your students!

4. Be ready and prepared for a teaching event.

Let’s go back to our dinner example. Let’s say you invite guests over for dinner, but
really don’t have time to fix much of anything. After all, life is busy and you really don’t
have time to fix a nice meal. So they knock at your door, you seat them, and pull out a
bag of potato chips to serve them. What would they think? Have you really served
them like you should?

Many teachers take only a few minutes to read over the Sunday School quarterly and
get an idea of what the lesson is about, then stand up and add a couple of jokes to the lesson to make it
more appealing. They go through the quarterly, read the verses, and make a few comments that
happened to touch a nerve with them as they read through it. In other words, they served their class
some potato chips for a spiritual dinner.

Teaching is hard work! To teach you will spend many more hours, sometimes up to four or five times
the teaching time in preparation. It should be evident to your class that you invested hours of time
making the passage of Scripture come alive in your life. You should have done a lot of work parsing out
the Greek words, understanding the culture, geography, the history, and all aspects of the passage to
fully give them a spiritual feast.

Later in this study, we will spend some time learning how to prepare the feast. You will learn how to
take a passage of Scripture and properly present it to your class as an approved workman, as God
expects of you (II Tim. 2:15)

5. Be creative; think outside the box.

We humans tend to get into ruts in our lives. When we get comfortable doing
something, we quite often keep doing the same thing, because it is always
safe. We socialize with the same people. Life pretty much becomes very
repetitive and mundane.

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