After seven days the Lord gave me a message. He said, “Son of man, I have appointed you as a watchman for Israel. Whenever you receive a message from me, warn people immediately. If I warn the wicked, saying, ‘You are under the penalty of death,’ but you fail to deliver the warning, they will die in their sins. And I will hold you responsible for their deaths. If you warn them and they refuse to repent and keep on sinning, they will die in their sins. But you will have saved yourself because you obeyed me. (Ezekiel 3:16-19)In James 3:1, the writer James said: Dear brothers and sisters, not many of you should become teachers in the church, for we who teach will be judged more strictly.
It is a great thing to teach and to have people look up to you as a leader, to hear what you have to say, to take what you say as definitive. After a while, if you are not careful, you begin to believe that you really do have the answers.
But a teacher has a responsibility that is greater by far that his students. It is the responsibility of telling people and guiding people into the truth. Not just telling, not just guiding, but into the truth.
If you do not live up to that responsibility, you are in danger of sinning.
The Lord told Ezekiel in this passage that his responsibility was greater than just information dispensing. His job was not just to teach, but to guide into what is right. And he would be held accountable as to how he did it.
In 1 Timothy 5:17, the apostle Paul said: Elders who do their work well should be respected and paid well, especially those who work hard at both preaching and teaching. A preacher, a pastor, a teacher is not one that just gets to be in front of people, but is one who will be held accountable for what he teaches, what he preaches, how he leads.
There is a responsibility of the highest magnitude given to those who teach and those who lead God’s people. God told Ezekiel that when if he didn’t do it in the right way, his life would be forfeit too.
If he taught and they heard and changed, he would be as God wanted him to be. If they did not change, yet he taught anyway, it would not be his fault. But if he did not tell them, their blood would be on his head.
That is the downside of teaching. It is great to sit up front and tell people stuff and have them write it down and listen to you and even compliment you. It is another to be held accountable by God for what you teach.
The honor part is easy and fun. The responsibility part is scary.
So what does a teacher do? Does he get so afraid he will do something wrong that he refuses to teach? I have known people who were so afraid that they would give the wrong answers, or, even worse, not have an answer that they refused to teach at all.
When a person refuses to do what God wants him to do, that is another story. But God tells us this to let us know that teaching is not a lark. It is dead-serious.
And you have to do it out of love. Who in the world would do something that important and full of responsibility for fun?
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