HONOR THE TEACHERS
Today we are going to talk about teachers. I want to ask you first though to remember your favorite all time teacher, in grade school, or high school, or collage, who was your absolute most favorite teacher?
Now, who was your very BEST teacher, were they the same person?
How many of you here today, are teachers, raise your hands please?
You have my sympathy!
I thought about teaching at one time but I realized that I don’t have the temperament to deal with children. Teaching is not an easy job. I know I was not a good student when I was younger, but when I started collage I found that I enjoyed learning new things. I was not good at math in grade school, but I really liked algebra in collage, so I thought I might like to teach it to high school students. NOT! I know that most kids are O.K. they are good kids and good students, but those that are hard to manage can quickly make me lose my temper, and that’s not good! I know quite a few teachers and I listen to them tell about some of their rowdier kids and I just don’t think I would make a good teacher.
I want to reflect on a different teacher for a moment, one we don’t often think about. The one who taught us to walk, who taught us how to talk, get dressed, tie our shoes, who taught us manners and how to hold a spoon. We know them as Mom and Dad, not as teachers, but they are! When we think about our favorite “teacher” do we think about our parents? Of course not. But from the time we are born, our parents have the greatest impact on who we are and what we will eventually become.
Our text this morning, taken from Proverbs, is a lesson from a father to his son. King Solomon writing to his son encouraging him to remember the things he had been taught and bring honor to his mother and father.
I think that is what we all want from our children, to bring honor to their parents, to make us proud. I am sure that is what my parents wanted, and I hope I have done so to some measure, as we all do.
What does a Teacher do?
I would say that a Teacher imparts knowledge, to those who are receptive to learning a new thing. When we were very young, everything was brand new and exciting, and we wanted to know everything about everything. But our capacity to learn depends on our ability to reason logically, and comprehend how things work. Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic are not natural skills, they must be learned. So we need teachers, whether they are our parents or those gifted with higher learning.
Teaching has evolved from the tales told around the campfires of earliest man to institutions of higher learning, our colleges and universities of today. Today we have enormous library’s full of books written by countless learned peoples. Wisdom passed from one generation to the next, and now with the advent of the computer, it is readily available at the push of a button. Try to imagine what it may be like a hundred years from now. Even so, we still need our teachers, I don’t think that I might open a book on medicine and then be able to perform surgery, or even prescribe treatment for an ailment. We have to study for whatever life skill we want to achieve, and that requires a teacher, someone able to impart knowledge.
Teachers are special people, first they have to educate themselves, by learning from others, and then they have to learn how to teach. I am a dance teacher, I teach country dance lesson to people who say they just can’t dance, but they can. If you can count, 1, 2, 3, then you can dance.
I took dance lesson from an expert dancer and a very good teacher.
I watched how he taught and then I started teaching and I have taught a lot of people how to dance. We have a dance every fourth Saturday at First Presbyterian Church in Warren to raise money for the Relay for Life cancer awareness program and we have lesson’s for anybody who wants to learn to dance. It is amazing how many of those students are now teachers as well.
Teachers are special people, whatever they teach.
We need academic teachers to teach us how to earn a living and hopefully, to achieve the American Dream.
We also need our Sunday school teachers. Of all the teachers I have ever had, my favorite, were my Sunday school teachers. They didn’t make us take a test after every lecture, and what they taught was love and respect, right and wrong. And they taught Jesus in a way even a little child could understand, and they made it fun.
I have great respect for teachers, but those who teach Christ are even more special. If we could not read and write and someone told us about Jesus, taught us his ways, his love, his mercy, I believe we would grasp every word and hang on to it for dear life. If we were not able to reason beyond a certain level, the stories of Jesus would still have significant meaning to us, because we could relate. Children love to hear the stories from the bible, about David and Goliath, Sampson and Delilah, Noah and the Ark, and baby Jesus in the manger.
All of our Sunday school teachers today had Sunday school teachers when they were little, and now their students will become Teachers as well, and the stories will pass from one generation to the next. Not taught by great scholars, but by people who love Jesus, moms and dads who want their children to love Jesus and bring honor to their parents.
In Deut 4:9 we find that we are told to do this.
9 Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
All of us are teachers! We teach by the example we set for others to see.
Our children emulate the way we walk, and the way we talk, our attitude towards others people. Our neighbors see us as the good or nasty person next door. All people see is the outside, which is the inside coming out, what we are inside being expressed physically.
If Christ dwells within us, that is what will be seen. If not that will be seen as well.
Titus 2:1-8 Paul, giving instruction for teaching
2:1 You must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.
2 Teach the older men to be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance.
3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children,
5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.
6 Similarly, encourage the young men to be self-controlled.
7 In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness
8 and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us.
And finally this morning;
Study, to show yourself approved, rightly discerning the word of the Lord.
Honor your teachers, honor your Mother and Father, it will bring honor to you as well.
AMEN
