25. Chapter 25: His Qualities As A Teacher

Chapter 25 His Qualities As A Teacher

Most of the books dealing with teachers and teaching, until recently, have had a chapter on “The Qualifications of the Teacher” or words to that effect. The most recent books have omitted such chapters, and self-analysis blanks, or something of the kind, have taken their place. In one way it is fruitless to enumerate the personal qualifications for teaching, because they are so many and so general and their enumeration does not produce them. The blanks, however, for self-rating or rating by supervisors, with a view to promotion, bring home one’s merits or demerits in a definite way.

We may use the qualities of Jesus as a teacher, his characteristics as the Great Teacher, as a concrete ideal standard by which to measure ourselves.

What other advantages might follow from such a study?

Formulate first in your own mind the characteristics which any world-teacher must possess. In the following list check off the ones you regard as essential: The Essential Qualifications of a World-Teacher:

1. A vision that encompasses the world.

2. Knowledge of the heart of man.

3. Mastery of the subject taught.

4. Aptness in teaching.

5. A life that embodies the teaching. Do you regard each of these as necessary for a world-teacher? Would you add to this list of minimum. essentials?

Now consider whether Jesus had each of these qualifications.

1. Did his vision encompass the world? “Other sheep I have; them also I must bring.” “And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.” “The Kingdom of Heaven is as leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole is leavened.” “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.”

What do you conclude? Have you still other quotations?

2. Did Jesus know what was in the heart of man? “He needed not that any should tell him, for he himself knew what was in man.” “Why try ye me?” “And Jesus, perceiving their craftiness,” etc. “Why reason ye these things among yourselves?” “Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.” “Thou hast had five husbands and he whom thou now hast is not thy husband.” “The woman said, ‘Come, see a man that told me all things that ever I did’” Have you other quotations?

What do you conclude?

How do you explain the knowledge Jesus had of human nature in general and of particular individuals?

3. Again, was Jesus a master of the subject he taught? What was his subject? Was it science? or comparative literature? or morality and religion?

“Never man spake as this man.” ‘ He taught them as one having authority and not as their scribes. Whence hath this man letters, never having learned?” “And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.”

Jesus revealed the spiritual nature and capacities of the soul in a way we hardly understand, not to say imitate.

4. Was Jesus apt at teaching?

Think of those “unlearned and ignorant men” (Acts 4:13) whom Jesus chose to be his pupils, and what forceful personalities they became under his tutelage. Recall how “the common people heard him gladly.” Note his influence on Nicodemus, one of the rulers of the Jews. Remember that he never wrote, yet his words were not forgotten. Think of the books that have been written about his methods as a teacher. Have you other facts to cite? From whom have we ourselves learned so much?

5. Did the life of Jesus embody his teaching?

“Of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach.” “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. He that doeth the truth cometh to the light.” “Which one of you convicteth me of sin?” “The prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.” “This man hath done nothing amiss.” “I find no fault in him.” “Truly this was the Son of God.” “I am meek and lowly of heart.”

What is the effect of teaching unsupported by living?

First Jesus did, and then taught. His living is the tragic dramatization of his teaching. The truth that he lived and taught was, in his own paradox, “He that loseth his life shall find it.” Shall we then conclude that Jesus fully possessed the five requisite qualifications of a world-teacher? The fact that the centuries have shown him to be a world-teacher would be experiential proof of an affirmative answer. That his followers number more today than ever before, and that they are full of faith and works, also shows that in time all the world is to know his teaching.

You will be interested in the following experience. Once, with no thought of Jesus as teacher in mind, I took my turn in the popular pedagogical pastime of stating the desirable qualifications for the teacher. These were grouped under five headings, physical, intellectual, emotional, moral, and general. Then some time afterwards it occurred to me to consider whether Jesus met the previously stated ideal specifications or not. With what result?

I will append the list and let you try it for yourself.

Additional Qualifications of the Teacher:

I. Physical

1. Health.

2. Good presence.

3. A speaking eye.

4. An effective voice.

II. Intellectual.

1. Common sense.

2. Intelligence.

3. Happy use of language.

4. Idealism.

III. Emotional.

1. Cheerfulness.

2. Sympathy.

3. Disinterestedness.

4. Honor.

5. Enthusiasm.

6. Culture.

7. Courtesy.

IV. Volitional.

1. Executive ability.

2. Willingness to work.

3. Ambition.

4. Patience.

5. Humility.

V. General.

1. An avocation.

2. Sense of the greatness of his work.

3. Personality.

How would you criticize this list for teachers? Which of these characteristics does Jesus exemplify? Did Jesus have ambition? (Cf. John 4:34, Luke 12:50.) In what sense? Is “personality” a comprehensive term including all the others?

How would you show that Jesus possessed the characteristics that you assign him? Do it for each one. Would you change the grouping of any one of the characteristics?

Why is it desirable that teachers should have an avocation? Did Jesus have one? Did Paul? This standard was set up for the ideal teacher without Jesus being in mind. When applied to him, how does he meet the test? Shall we say, then, that he is an ideal for teachers, and also real? Of course, the list given above, made without thought of Jesus, does not do justice to him. What further characteristics,^[1] then, would you say he possessed?

[1] Cf. the author’s book: “Jesus—Our Standard”The Abingdon Press, N.Y., 1918. A list of characteristics could be made in answer to this question half as long as the personal epithets in the English language, but it would not be necessary. Make your own list of significant additions to the one given above, check in the following list the characteristics you think Jesus possessed as teacher, and compare the two lists.

Justify each of the characteristics you have assigned him.

What contrasts do you find in his character?

What evidence of symmetry? and of serenity? What do you get out of an analytic study of this kind? Some students reject it as not worth while.

G. Stanley Hall^[2] holds that the real Christ is the psychological Christ, that is, the important thing is not the historic figure of Jesus of Nazareth, but the figure of the Christ as we conceive him.

[2] “Jesus, the Christ, in the Light of Psychology,” Doubleday, Page & Co., N.Y., 1917.

What do you think of this view? On the basis of this view Hall says artists should present Jesus as large, strong, beautiful, and personally magnetic (Vol. I, pp. 85-38). Which of these four do you think he was?

Hall also says that the six essential qualities of the personality of the Christ are (1) life from within, (2) moral struggle, (3) complexity and compositeness, (4) exploration of all the higher powers of man, (5) being perennially in his prime, and (6) realization as far as possible of all ideals.

Again, which of these six does Jesus as presented in the gospels possess?

What does Hal omit that does and should characterize the Christ?

Professor G. H. Palmer^[3] enumerates the four essential and fundamental characteristics “which every teacher must possess” as follows:

“First, a teacher must have an aptitude for vicariousness; and second, an already accumulated wealth; and third, an ability to invigorate life through knowledge; and fourth, a readiness to be forgotten.”

[3]“TheTeacher,”p. 8, Boston, 1908. Which of these characteristics did Jesus possess? Was he ready to be forgotten? Why?

Though Professor Palmer was writing on the teacher in general, it is interesting that, in commenting on his second point, he should find Jesus his best illustration, as follows:

“The plan of the Great Teacher, by which he took thirty years for acquisition and three for bestowal, is not unwise, provided that we too can say, ‘For their sakes I sanctify myself.’” This entire essay should be read by all teachers.

Still another mode of approach. On pages 192-193 is reprinted one of the modern blanks for helping teachers and supervisors analyze personality.

Read this blank through first very carefully.

Then check each quality which you think Jesus possessed, and put a question mark where our data are too inadequate for us to answer.

Make your comment at the end.

Should we hesitate to give in this way a careful estimate of Jesus as a teacher according to a present-day rating scale? Why? Was Jesus “scholarly”? “strict”? “teachable”?

What result do you get?

Justify assigning Jesus each quality which you have checked.

Once again, with a colored pencil, check off your own characteristics as a teacher or leader on the last list above, or get a friend to do it.

Compare your own rating with that you gave Jesus.

Recur to the quality of serenity. MacDougall^[4] calls it “that finest, flower of moral growth.” The self rules “supreme over conduct, the individual is raised above moral conflict; he attains character in the fullest sense and a completely generalized will.”

[4] “Social Psychology,”p. 269. To what extent in this sense was Jesus serene?