Page 113 - Homiletics I Student Textbook

For example, in John 3, Nicodemus came to Jesus by night. He was a highly trained member of the
Sanhedrin, the ruling body of Pharisees and Sadducees of Christ’s day. He was educated in the Law of
Moses and was considered “upper crust” in their society. Jesus’s response to his questions was to teach
him some new and lofty thoughts about spiritual birth. These things were hard for Nicodemus to
comprehend. But Jesus taught him the purpose for His coming, and the great sacrifice that would be
offered for the sins of mankind. He even said to him, “You are highly educated, and you don’t know
these things?”

When the rich young ruler came to him, rather than teach him content, he asked him some questions.
The purpose of these questions was to penetrate to the heart of the man, and to show him his real
motivations. He loved riches. He was not willing to part with them to follow Jesus. With one remark,
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 must 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 and preacher, you must know your audience!

5. 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 lesson plan 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. 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 preaching 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.

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