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I come from a family of teachers. My grandma taught school (primarily first grade) for 45 years. My mom has taught and helped with preschool and kindergarten for 24 years, and she taught kindergarten Sunday School for 25 years. I enjoyed the privilege of teaching Biblical Greek and Hebrew to one student for the past 3 years, and I hope someday it’s part of God’s plan for me that I get to teach on a bigger scale.

Back in June, we had “rabbi” as the word of the week. While many people consider “teacher” and “rabbi” to be equivalent, they are not quite the same. Go read the rabbi blog post to learn more about that, and why it’s a much more specific form of being a teacher.

Jesus was a key teacher in the Bible. Matthew 4:23 summarizes a lot of what Jesus did: “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” (emphasis mine) The apostles (those who hung out with Jesus) were also great teachers. We see this in Acts 2:42: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.” Similarly, the apostle Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:13, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus.”

But, why is all this teaching so important? What are we supposed to get out of it? For the people of Israel, God taught them His commands for a purpose, that they would inherit the land they were promised. Deuteronomy 4:1 says, “Now, Israel, hear the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land the Lord, the God of your ancestors, is giving you.” As Psalm 78:1 says, we should listen to God’s teaching simply because we are his people.

We also need to listen to those around us as teachers. We are commanded in Proverbs 1:8 to listen to our parents’ teaching, and in Proverbs 13:14 we see that, “The teaching of the wise is a fountain of life, turning a person from the snares of death.”

As we grow and mature throughout our lives, we need to be constantly learning. We need to learn from Jesus and the other teachers in the Bible, but we also need to have wise teachers in place in our lives, whether they be parents or trusted friends who have walked the journey longer than we have, so we have someone to learn from.

Who is a teacher in your life?