SPIRIT–DEPENDENT TEACHING
7 Principles on Excellent Teaching
How can you renew your teaching skills? We have heard that the Spirit of God gifts teachers or that the Holy Spirit gives wisdom and understanding. We see the full anointing of the Spirit upon Jesus Christ and are simply amazed by Jesus' teaching. Let us think a bit more about how the Spirit of God wants to empower our own teaching.
Desirous: We are desirous to see God's Word wonderfully address the real needs of each heart.
Purposed: We are confident in the full and rich life God's Word provides us.
Humbled: We only can grasp the Lord's teaching only when we are wholly depending on God's Spirit to teach us..
Prayerful: We depend upon the Spirit to accomplish His good purposes in the students through prayer.
Attentive: We anticipate the Spirit to teach us in many ways and at all times.
Changeable: We expect the Spirit to bring greater holiness in His people in order to more deeply know God.
Meditative: We are confident that the Holy Spirit will use God's Word stored up through past meditation.
| SEVEN PRINCIPLES | Expanded | Illustrated | Teacher impacted |
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God authoritatively speaks on the issues that people care most about. We are not talking about theology in its sterile non-applicative state but when it is fully applied to our lives so that it deals with our worries, loneliness, impatience, fears, etc. No serious problem is ignored. Let God speak! | For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them you might become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust. (2 Peter 1:4, NASB). | Application Oriented
The Word of God has the solution. Every lesson is relevant to the needs of the students. The teacher is convinced that every heart can be impacted. No student is so hardened or darkened that God's Word can't speak to their soul. |
| Paul uses the word 'perfect' or completed in Colossians to describe the fulfilled nature of the Christian life.
And we proclaim Him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ. (Colossians 1:28). |
Completing the lesson is not the goal of the lesson. Teaching the lesson is more like a tunnel through which each student and teacher is led to larger chambers leading to God's glorious throne. The tunnel (lesson) might be forgotten because it is only a means. The point of the lesson, however, is meeting God in some special way. |
Learning Conscious
The teacher teaches under the influence of a greater vision. |
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| We need to be dependent upon the Lord in two areas: 1) Teacher's life to teach, protect, lead and enable us to teach what He desires. 2) Student's life to accomplish His work through His Spirit in the listeners. |
From a simple seed placed in some dirty mud, God can raise up a beautiful flower. |
Awed by God's Presence
The teacher is humbled before the Lord knowing he teaches the Lord's truth by the Lord's power for the Lord's glory. He is but a servant. He gives only what the Lord gives him. |
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| God's greatest work in His disciples will come about when we pray for God's word to be done. God is then most able to pour out His Spirit because we know it is from Him. The evil one is bound, and the truth penetrates even the most hardened heart. |
D.L. Moody went to the roughest part of Chicago to reach out to the worst kids. He was out there to care and soon had the biggest ministry of such a kind. (Revival book) VISION SHAPES MINISTRY |
Student Focused
The teacher will focus on his students rather than himself. He will care for them. They will be more important than his material. Because of this, he shapes his material about so that the student is better served. He prays for the class because he cares. |
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| Once we are alert to the many ways the Spirit teaches us, then we can utilize His illustrations, messages and speak from His conviction.
A piece of hair fell on my keyboard. As I was about to throw it away, I felt the root, a little thickness at the |
My little boy came up to me while meditating. I could have allowed myself to be disturbed by his interruption, but I sensed God wanted to teach me through his question about how flowers turn into fruit. The question delightfully instructed me on how the Spirit of God works with the Truth of God to bear forth fruit. We need both. I pay more and more attention to the thoughtful statements of my children. ÓBehold, God is exalted in His power; Who is a teacher like Him? God's power enables Him to use everything that He made and incidents in our lives to teach us important things. This makes our circumstances exciting teaching material! We need not be frustrated but looking around in anticipation to the Great Teacher helping us out. |
Alert & Aware The teacher must not be so busy that he ignores those people and situations God put around him to teach and train him. He has to be reflective. Stress steals the Spirit's thoughts. Instead the teacher will be dependent on God as he looks about himself as to what the Spirit will teach him for the sake of others. He will be humbled because he will know that it was not him but from the Lord. I remember once using the side effects of medicine as an illustration. Just then one of the regular attendees spoke up and shared how he had almost died that week from medicine side effects. |
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| We are not teaching to have the students know our styles, cleverness or content but that they would be changed into Christ's likeness. This holiness is required before a deeper relationship with God is enabled. | No greater thing than to know the Lord. "More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord..." (Philippians 3:8,9). |
Divine Goals The teacher realizes the impartation of knowledge is not the final test to effective teaching. The truths must lead to a deeper relationship with God and man. Life changes are for the purpose of deeper 'love' encounters which build up relationships. |
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| Meditation on God's Word has both immediate and long term effects. Many truths are stored up for the future. It is like planting seeds in our minds from which the Holy Spirit at the appropriate time germinates the truth and thus bears fruit. | I sat down and started having devotion. I had already asked the Lord in the past week about this coming lesson on Samson. God took the word 'power' and 'strength' from Psalm 62 to begin teaching me many things that He wanted me to know about Samson even before I read the text. The word was stored up in my heart. | Filling up with God's Word The teacher will not fear those quiet times in God's Word when nothing seems to be said or done. He keeps going deeper, knowing that the Word of God will accomplish God's great purposes (Isaiah). His studies are not in vain. |
bottom of the hair. This became a lesson on life's need to regularly bring strength into itself.
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Basic Discipleship Stage
An introduction to the Basic discipleship stage and basic BFF materials. |
Intermediate Discipleship Stage
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Advanced Discipleship Stage
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The Imperative of Discipleship (2 Timothy 2:2) |
The Heart of True Discipleship (Isaiah 50:4-7) |
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The Flow
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Spirit-Dependent Teaching
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Integrates Church Growth with discipleship
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Growing the Church through Biblical Training
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Discipleship Shapers
Learning how Christians grow |
Understanding the Cycle of Decline and Revival (Judges 2) |
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Biblical Foundations for Freedom