I'm an educator at heart. I love to teach. Before becoming a pastor, I loved teaching literature, writing, even grammar. In my spare time, I loved teaching music. I still love to take people into the woods and teach them about plants, birds, reptiles, weather, ecology. Anything I know, I love to share with others. Most of all I love to teach people about God, the Bible, the gospel, the Christian life.

But the word about in the previous sentence causes me pause. I don't want just to teach people about God, about the Bible, and so on. I want to drop the preposition in the same way the apostle Paul does in Ephesians 4:20 (NASB), when he speaks of the need for people to "learn Christ," not just learn about Christ.

When I taught people to play guitar, I wasn't just teaching them about the guitar, how strings vibrate, what frets do, or why the grain of the soundboard is important. True, I share this information; it does have some value. But I was interested in teaching guitar. ...