The word "teachers" is employed in the New Testament as the designation
of men in churches whose special work was public religious instruction.
It is so used 1 Cor. xii. 28--"God hath set some in the church, first
Apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers"--where the word,
while doubtless including evangelists and pastors, evidently extends to
all whose official work is Christian teaching. Probably, also, in Eph.
iv. 11--"He gave some, Apostles, some, prophets, some, evangelists, and
some, pastors and teachers"--the word has like breadth of meaning,
designating men not pastors who publicly taught the Word. There are
many endowed with teaching power whose gifts the churches, according to
New Testament example, utilize in positions other than the pastoral
office. They are called to various departments of work as secretaries
and agents of missionary and benevolent organizations, as instructors
in institutions of learning, as authors and editors engaged in creating
and diffusing a Christian literature, and as laborers in other
positions in which there is occasion for the exercise of ministerial
functions; and they are, therefore, often ordained to preach and
administer ordinances. On this class of ministers, we submit the
following remarks:
1. Teachers, like evangelists, have no official authority as governing
officers in the church. They are members with all the rights and duties
of membership and differ from others only as empowered to preach and to
administer ordinances. They are amenable, as others, to the discipline
of the church, except that those who have received ordination through
the action of a Council should not be divested of the ministerial
office except by another Council. They have no right to ignore the
ordinary obligations of church membership in pecuniary support,
attendance on meetings, and personal devotion to church-work, but
rather, from their conspicuous position, they are required to be in
these things examples and leaders in the church. 2. This class of
ministers in a church always stand in relations to the pastor of
peculiar delicacy. Though without official authority, their character
and gifts often give them great influence in the church and in society.
Much care, therefore, should be used to avoid any intrusion on the
prerogatives of the pastor. For example, in marriages and funerals
within the bounds of his own church it is ordinarily proper that the
pastor should officiate; only very unusual circumstances will justify a
minister in allowing himself to set aside the pastor in such services.
In the public and social worship of the church he should beware of
taking too prominent a place or of occupying too much time, or of
obtruding himself into the business and discipline of the church in
such manner as to embarrass the pastor. In all relations in the church
and in social life he should accord the pastor the just precedence
which belongs to his official position, and his influence should be
scrupulously used to encourage the pastor's work and strengthen the
pastor's hands. Resident ministers may thus become to the pastor a
source, not of discomfort and embarrassment, but of blessing and
strength. 3. In the absence of the pressure of obligation which a
pastoral charge brings, the minister is in danger of a secularized
spirit, which weakens in him the sense of spiritual realities and
impairs his power in the public ministration of the Gospel. To prevent
this, he should earnestly cultivate in his own soul the ministerial
spirit and should avoid all social or business entanglements which may
either militate against his own spiritual life or may weaken his
influence as a minister in the community. The secretary or agent whose
work calls him from home has need of special care lest, in the constant
changes incident to travel, he loses habits of personal private
devotion and of biblical and theological study. It is possible thus to
retrograde in spiritual character and power, even when pleading the
holiest of causes. Indeed, in such an itinerant life, the mind, thus in
constant contact with the churches and the ministry, may well be on its
guard lest it allow itself to be filled with the current ministerial
and church gossip, and yield to the temptation to pass from church to
church bearing this rather than "the fullness of the blessing of the
Gospel of Christ." Few positions afford such large opportunities to
carry blessing to pastors and churches as that of the secretary or
agent of our benevolent societies. In counselling the young or the
perplexed pastor, in healing divisions in churches and removing
misunderstandings between pastors and their people, in inspiring and
guiding the action of Associations and other public bodies, their
position gives them great power, and opens before them a wide field for
beneficent influence. Such men were Alfred Bennett, John Peck, and many
others in the past--men whose presence was felt as a benediction in the
churches, and whose words gave everywhere an impulse to the spiritual
life; and such also are many of those who now fill that responsible
office.