Teaching has to be done. There is no escape from that, but those who
teach must understand their responsibility. They are doctors (from
_doceo_, to teach) of the mind and heart. They cannot escape their
responsibility as spiritual surgeons, for they deal with the issues of
life and death, “knowing that we shall receive heavier judgment.” In
seasons of religious excitement it is particularly desirable that men
shall bear this fact in mind. There is danger for the teacher and for
those that hear and are led astray by foolish talk.
Feeling was probably running high in some of the churches, and there was
occasion for the sobering words of James. “The penalty of untruth is
untruth, to imbibe which is death” (Taylor). One has only to recall the
words of Jesus: “And I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall
speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment. For by
thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be
condemned” (Matt. 12:36 f.). It is easy to be overconfident, like the
complacency of the Jews of whom Paul said that each was confident that
he was “a corrector of the foolish, a teacher of babes” (Rom. 2:20).
“Blind leaders of the blind” (Matt. 15:14) are they. It is bad enough to
break one of the least commandments, but whoever does “and shall teach
men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:19).
There is no escaping the fact that a heavier penalty rests on preachers
and teachers who leave a trail of error behind them. This point of view
explains Paul’s anxiety in the pastoral epistles for the future of
Christianity, as it had to confront Pharisaism, Gnosticism, Mithraism,
the emperor cult, and the hundred and one vagaries of the age. Certainly
a teacher must speak his mind. He must be intellectually honest and tell
what he sees, but he is not called upon to give his guesses at truth as
truth. He ought to be interesting if he can, but not at the expense of
truth. Freedom of teaching is quite consonant with fidelity to truth.
One does not have to be a mere traditionalist in order to escape wild
speculation. He must bring forth things new and old if they are true.
The severest words that fell from the lips of Jesus are against the
Pharisees who filled the place of teachers for the Jews but who “say,
and do not,” who “sit on Moses’ seat” as authoritative teachers and yet
“strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel” (Matt. 23:2-3, 24). “Woe
unto you lawyers! for ye took away the key of knowledge: ye entered not
in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered” (Luke 11:52).
The child was kept in the dark while at school because the teacher did
not let in the light. “The hungry sheep look up and are not fed.”