Free to Teach

Does your teaching feel like a chore, or an opportunity?

Do you think that you are not working well unless you are very busy?

Are the weekends the highlight of your week?

Perhaps we all go through seasons when we answer ‘yes’ to one or all of these questions. Yet, if we believe we are part of a Christian community that is committed to Christian education, then we are do not have to work to avoid any of these dynamics. Instead, we can simply not experience these patterns because the alternative is so much better – that is:

  • When we teach because of the mercies of God in our lives, it is a privilege, and not a chore (even though at times it can be hard)
  • When we trust that God is sovereign, we will discern clearly the time He gives us and how to use it well
  • When we are using our God-given gifts to serve others through teaching, then it will feed our souls (even if we are physically tired sometimes) – and weekends become a celebration of the week as well as re-creation for the following week

The Apostle Paul was trying to highlight this to the Christians in Galatia, who were getting themselves tied in all kinds of knots over how to administer who were the ‘real’ members, and therefore who could do what in their congregation. He started to explain the danger of working to a ‘rule-keeping system’ designed to capture who we are, instead of seeing the release we have in the grace of Christ:

[Galatians 5] Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.

2-3 I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.

Alan Noble, in his book, You are Not Your Own, sees that we tie ourselves up in two ways when we do not understand that we are free when through Christ we accept that God is God, and we are in His image, but not Him. The first ‘informal rule keeping’ way we tie ourselves up is by trying to do everything in our own strength to show how fulfilled we are, or how much we are flourishing. The second way we become stuck is that we decide the first way is too hard, and so we self-medicate ourselves with distractions, delusions and drugs.

And that is not freedom! Instead, let’s continue to meet with each other in the fellowship of Christ and invite God to be with us, so that we can teach freely in Him.

Blessings,
Stephen Fyson