How You Spend Your Time Will Determine The Teacher You Become - 08
I want to become a cleaner mud puddle.
When it comes to teaching, I go back to the idea that we are all mud puddles. Some of us are dirtier than others. The goal is to become potable (drinkable). For that we need God’s Spirit and God’s Word. The two combined are the necessary agents for cleaning us up. It is the same for our congregants.
As mud puddles, we become cleaner or dirtier by how we spend our time thinking and doing. It is important, therefore, to measure your steps and to think on what is good.
St. Paul recommends, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.”1
Paul also says, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”2
Now consider, if you spend a lot of time thinking about and doing leisurely things like fishing, golf, softball leagues, video games, television viewing, and jigsaw puzzles, these have the capacity to rob you of time to do other things like work, study, pursue justice, write, show compassion, pray, child-train, worship, plan financially, get involved politically, etc. From top to bottom, all of these are permissible and beneficial.3
The question for you is mostly one of degree. Are you looking carefully at how you walk? Could you be more circumspect? Do you really need to go fishing one more time this week? Really, are you going to spend another night in front of the television? Are you going to be late coming home from work again?
It may be that none of those things are sinful, but foolishness is measured by the amount of flour you put into the bread mix. It is determined by how high you set the oven temperature.
The question you should ask is one of priority. How should I spend my life’s time, in order to become a cleaner mud puddle? Earlier in his life, another elder in our church read God’s Word and Christian theological books during his lunch breaks as a general contractor. He held a sandwich in one hand and a theologian in the other.
If, someday, you want to offer other Christians to drink from your life and teaching, then from what kind of puddle will they be drinking?
If your time today is invested too much in a hobby or in a cause or at rest, it is likely going to have an effect on you as a teacher.
First, and the most obvious effect is that you will NOT be spending a proper amount of time on superior things - including the reading and studying of God’s Word. You will be whittling away the importance of your life. Your mud puddle will remain murkier because you lack effort. Three hours of golf may be fun and relaxing, but it is three hours of life.
Second, and the more harmful effect, is there is a good chance you will modify God’s Word to the way you’ve chosen to live your life. You will pick from it and teach only those things that support you. You will avoid the things that make you feel like you’re not being the man you should be. You might only preach “grace” when you should also preach “justice.”
Now imagine some of your time and many of your thoughts are spent in blatant and recurring sin: lust, drunkenness, divisiveness, rage, dishonesty, cowardice. Will the guilt of your sin cause you to avoid teaching on these subjects or will you beat the drum all the more against these sins from personal guilt. Yet, if you remain unrepentant, then hypocrisy gets added to your character.
Harry Blamires says, “There are no foes to truth so powerful as the selfish passions.”4
Paul told Timothy, "For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths."5
Obviously, congregants who look for teachers that will support their sin and the status quo, will find one in the man who limits his teaching to the things which he finds comfortable. He will be their kind of preacher, for he will be like them. It is similar to politics. We get the governors we deserve. They vote the way we vote.
As a teacher, you are not going to be able to escape yourself.
How you spend your time in thoughts and deeds will determine your effectiveness for God and His Church.
So, since you’re someone who doesn’t want to walk down that leisurely path, someone who doesn’t want to remain in his sin, and someone who doesn’t want to discard the hard things of Scripture, what is your alternative? How can you escape yourself?
I suggest you EMBRACE passages that convict you, don’t ignore them. Life is not about you being comfortable. It’s OK to let an uncomfortable new thought percolate in your brain. Even for a longer time. I’ve picked up a biblical thing in my mind and carried it around for years, not knowing what to do with it.6
As you do this, ask God to help you make sense of it, to give you breadth of mind.7 Ask him to remove sin from you, to “keep me from temptation and deliver me from evil.” Pray that regularly, especially when you feel tempted. He will change you by His Spirit. And that is what we are after as elders.
Caution: Every time your conscience twinges or your curiosity purrs as you read some bible passage or listen to a religious teacher or read a theological book, don’t immediately assume you’re guilty (or wrong) and need to change. Live with the tension until you get it figured out.
On the other hand, when God does teach you something, by His Word and Spirit, you best obey Him. Even if it requires a significant change. Especially then, for that would mean you’ve held onto significant error or sin. This is why Jesus went around proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”8
I want to give you some examples of how a mud puddle pastor/elder like me can get in the way of God’s Word and hinder it from helping the people I’m supposed to be teaching.
Ephesians 5:15-17
Philippians 4:8
None of these things are called sinful.
Blamires, Harry, A God Who Acts, SPCK, Great Britain, 1957, p. 9.
2 Timothy 4:3-4
Two that currently percolate in my mind are cremation and body art. I would have a hard time approving either, though I would also find it difficult to call either a sin. Those are just examples. There are more. Ongoing tension. Still percolating.
1 Kings 4:29 says, "And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding beyond measure, and breadth of mind like the sand on the seashore."
Matthew 4:17