C 04 - A Teaching Vocation

A TEACHING VOCATION

4. The ministry has the attraction of being a teaching vocation. One may pursue knowledge as a mere end in itself and as a personal and even selfish enjoyment. Scholarly men of wealth and leisure may devote themselves to the gratification of their literary tastes in a spirit of detachment and aloofness from any practical use and service. The minister, however, while enjoying the pursuit of knowledge as an intellectual life, also acquires it as a means to a higher end. He is a teacher and he gets it that he may give it. Every sermon is instruction and he is constantly imparting to his people the knowledge he has gained in all his studies.

Such use of knowledge, like mercy, is twice blessed: “It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.” Giving knowledge is one of the most effective ways of getting it. When we transfer to another any material possession we have that much less left. But this is not true of mental possessions: when we impart truth to another we do not have less in our own minds but more; for the act of imparting truth to other minds clarifies and intensifies, broadens and deepens it in our own mind. We do not know a thing clearly and firmly until we tell it; for the very act of telling it requires us to cast it in the sharp molds of definite words and this clears it of con fusion and vagueness and gives it clean-cut outlines and edges. We do not really know more than we can say. An Armenian student in one of our theological seminaries, who was slow in the use of English, had a habit of saying in answer to a question, “Professor, I have that in my mind, but I cannot express it.” One clay the question was, “What is a vacuum?” and after meditating a moment he answered, “Professor, I have that in my mind, but I cannot express it.” When we think that we have an idea which we can not express, we probably have a vacuum in the very place where the idea is supposed to be.

Because the teacher is constantly forced to explain himself in definite and clear terms he is learning more than anyone else and is the best scholar in the class. Every time he goes over a lesson, however often he may have done so and however familiar it may be to him, yet he understands it better, gains some new insight into it, and catches some new angle or analogy of its truth. New mental associations cluster around it, or new illustrations flash their light upon it, and thus he sees it more clearly and feels it more deeply and his mind grows and glows with the new experience. The minister in teaching others is also teaching himself and gaining broader views and fresh illustrations and deeper convictions in the very act of preaching. Every preacher knows how his own sermon while in process of delivery reacts upon his mind so as to vitalize and fertilize it and cause it to sprout and bloom with thoughts and emotions that may be a surprise and wonder to himself. The pulpit may thus be an anvil on which he forges his thoughts at white heat into new and finer shapes; or it may be a glowing furnace in which the materials in his mind are fused into unity and sent out in molten streams of thought and emotion. Ministers often feel, after delivering a sermon the first time, that they can make a much better sermon of it the next time: the reason is that by imparting its truth they have gained a better understanding of it and the next time they can pour into it their fresh experience.

While teaching others they have taught them selves. The minister enjoys this privilege and means of growth in personality and power in a high degree, and it is one of the attractions of his calling. But teaching is also a privilege and joy in that it imparts truth to other minds and thereby contributes to their growth. It is interesting to see anything grow and it is a joy to have a part in cultivating and stimulating its growth. How wonderful is the process by which a tiny seed becomes a blooming plant or a strong oak or a giant redwood pushing its crown up three or four hundred feet into the sun; or by which a slow-crawling, shaggy caterpillar becomes a swift-winged, gorgeous butterfly; or by which a dainty, fragile egg becomes a beautiful songbird: for all the silken, be jeweled wings of that butterfly were packed away in that repulsive caterpillar, and all the sweet music of that songster was sleep ing in that plain shell. Just to watch such a process is one of the most interesting things in nature.

Even more wonderful is the process by which the human mind unfolds from unconscious infancy, which has “ never thought that this is I, “ into a mature mind and fullgrown personality and perhaps the philosopher’s intellect that enables him to weigh the earth and unwrap the secrets of the sun and sift the stars through his fingers. To watch this process and especially to develop and direct, to stimulate and inspire it, to lead and lure it on into new fields and wider horizons and loftier visions and thus to have part in cultivating and ripening minds into maturity and power is one of the highest privileges and purest joys of life. This is the special privilege and work of parents in the home and the teacher in the school and the preacher in the pulpit. The minister is doing this work on a large scale as he speaks to his congregation. His sermons and addresses cover a wide field of subjects and are comparable to a college or university course of lectures. The preacher addresses the same general audience year after year and thus is able to give them a systematic course of instruction on the largest and most inspiring themes. He is often the chief educator in the community and more than any other man in it guides the thinking and molds the minds of his people. He imparts his own mental processes, his clearness and candor and honesty of thought, to them and builds himself into their minds so that they often bear the common stamp of his method and type of thought. It is a peculiar pleasure he enjoys as he sees his people grow and advance under his teaching. No teacher in a school or professor in a college or university chair has a greater and more inspiring opportunity to educate people than has the preacher in his pulpit, and this privilege and joy is one of the attractions of his calling.