THE CUTTING EDGE OF TEACHING

As I read the paper in my den, I heard a ruckus in the next room. One of my daughters, Kim, was yelling at her sister, Betsy. I sat listening for a moment, and then my annoyance peaked. I jumped up, stalked into the next room, clenched my fist, and yelled, “Stop screaming at your sister!”

Silence.

The two of them looked at me, and suddenly I realized what an absurd figure I was, yelling at Kim to stop yelling.

“I’m sorry. I’m doing exactly what I’m telling you not to do, aren’t I?”

“That’s all right, Dad.”

“So stop yelling, okay?”

“Okay.”

I walked back into the den and sat down. I bent forward and closed my eyes, rubbing my forehead. That yelling of hers does kind of remind me of my own, I had to admit to myself. I began to think about the difference between speaking the truth, even speaking it well at appropriate times, and living the truth. A proverb attributed to John Locke says, “Ill patterns are sure to be followed more than good rules.”

Someone else said that a person who preaches well and lives poorly is like a man who builds a fire and then throws water on it. It grieves me to remember occasions when, in moments of weakness, my life threw water on the fire.

Then, as I was reading 1 Timothy 4:11-16, I was reminded that ministry, like a pair of scissors, has two blades that must be hinged together, matching sides operating simultaneously. Paul urges Timothy to sharpen both cutting edges of his ministry: his exhortation and his example.

First Paul says “Command and teach these things.” I once had the false impression that if I preached well enough, individual and corporate spiritual growth must necessarily follow. But the verbal giving of truth is only half the scissors.

The living of the truth-openly, visibly-is the other half, the half that gives cutting power to my words. “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young,” Paul writes, “but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity.”

We all know that in ministry, criticism will come. Sometimes people go beyond constructive criticism, pointing out that we are too young or too old, too familiar or too cold, too timid or too bold. Sometimes the criticism is valid, but sometimes the person is simply searching for some reason to disqualify us. Something must be found to shade an edgy hearer from the searchlight of the Spirit.

Such are the hazards we face. But if we attempt to live the truth as well as speak it, Paul reminded me, we will be able to live with criticism. The ministry has two sides-always-and our exhortation is best validated by our example.

I’ll never forget the week I was working on a sermon on forgiveness-and a man kicked in my car door in a restaurant parking lot because he thought I had parked too close. While subduing feelings of anger and a desire for revenge, I realized I was in the process of learning some life lessons about my subject.

I want to be like Abe Lincoln talking about honesty, like Winston Churchill talking about commitment, like Mother Teresa talking about caring for the poor. And I can be-if I take pains to live the words I teach.

-Mark H. Heinemann

Greater Europe Mission

Dallas, Texas