Relational teaching

The twentieth century may one day be remembered as the century of personality cults. Hitler, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Dse Dong and Kim Il Sung each drew millions of people to follow them to perdition.

Pop stars like Elvis Presley, Cliff Richard, John Lennon, Bob Dylan and countless others are hero-worshipped and the term pop idol has emerged in the English language.

The church also has its heroes like Billy Graham, Oral Roberts, Jimmy Swaggart, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer and many more. When our Christian leaders fail, one often hears the cliché: “Don’t look at the person, look at Jesus”. “But I can’t see Jesus”, is what I feel like screaming at them. “In fact, I thought I saw some of Jesus in him but now I’m upset. I feel betrayed.”

Somehow, we humans are “wired” to learn relationally. How often do pupils not say, “I gave up on maths because of my teacher” or “My teacher inspired me to love history”? When it comes to the education of morals and how we should conduct our lives, the example our leaders set is more important than the things they teach. We learn more than what we are taught. That is why we are warned not to associate with a hot-tempered person, or we may “learn his ways” (Proverbs 22:24-25). For the most part children do as their parents do, rather than what their parents tell them to do. Jesus warned that it would be better for one to drown with a large stone around the neck than to cause a little one, who believes in him, to sin (Matthew 18:6).

The Bible teachers of Jesus’ day were teaching the correct beliefs but they did not model the kind of life a child of God should imitate (Matthew 5:20; 23:2-3). Today, when libraries of information are available at the click of a mouse, we need to be careful from whom we learn and what we learn from them. Jesus warned that in the last days many false prophets will appear (Matthew 24:24). He also told us to test them by the fruit they bear (Matthew 7:15-20). In our day of mass media that is not easy; we often rely on recommendations by people we trust.

Those of us who wish to teach others must be aware of our tremendous responsibility (James 3:1). We teach what we know, but we impart and reproduce what we are. We must ask ourselves “Do I, like the Pharisees, draw people to myself to become popular (Matthew 23:5-7), or is my goal to help them know Jesus better, like John the Baptist (John 3:30)?” For this reason Jesus told his followers not to use titles such as ‘Rabbi’ (Hebrew for teacher), ‘Father’ or ‘Master’ “but the greatest among you will be your servant” (Matthew 23:8-11). That is where the custom came from to call our leaders ministers, because ‘minister’ is an Old English word for servant.

Modelling the invisible Jesus or being ‘Jesus with a skin’ is the greatest challenge faced by everyone who aspires to instruct others on how to live. First, we must be in good standing with Jesus ourselves. We must not think we can keep on nurturing secret sin and our followers will not ‘catch’ our spirit. In my young days, a girlfriend dumped me with the words: “When I grow old and fat you will treat me just like you treat your mother and sisters now”. She learned something from my bad behaviour and believed she deserved better.