Stay True to the Word

“For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”  Matthew 12:37

In many churches, teachers are in short supply. Evidently many who have the Spirit-given gift of teaching are not using it as they should. On the other hand, a Christian must never assume the role of teacher without clear leading from above. As the teacher of the early Jerusalem church wrote, “Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur a stricter judgment” (James 3:1).

Christ taught in our text that by our words we shall be judged and either justified or condemned. Since for “every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment” (Matt. 12:36), how much more so will the words of a teacher be scrutinized especially a teacher of the Word of God.
   
Another reason one should be slow to don the cloak of a teacher is that even a teacher finds it hard to live up to his own teachings. “For we all stumble in many ways. If anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man” (James 3:2). Speaking of the Jewish teachers, Jesus instructed His listeners to do what their teachers said, not what they did (Matt. 23:3), and then He condemned hypocritical teachers with seven stinging “woes” (Matt. 23:13-33).

The proper use of the teaching gift perhaps yields greater honor than most but also greater condemnation if error or hurt creeps in. The church does need all the gifts and should not neglect any genuinely Spirit-given gifts of its members.

Nevertheless, one might contemplate the aggressive, anti-creationist stance taken by many professors at evangelical churches, colleges, and seminaries today, teaching theistic evolution, the day-age theory, framework hypothesis, etc., and wonder if Christ’s reference to the “millstone” around the neck might apply (Luke 17:2).