Expert: Marilyn - 7/9/2009

Question
WHERE IS IT IN THE BIBLE THAT SAYS THAT TEACHERS SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR WHAT THEY TEACH?

Answer
Hello Nikkole;

James 3:1 & 2, "Not many of you should presume to be teachers, my brothers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check," NIV.

James 3:1 & 2, "Not many [of you] should become teachers [self-constituted censors and reprovers of others], my brothers, for you know that we [teachers] will be judged by a higher standard and with greater severity [than other people].--Thus we assume the greater accountability and the more condemnation," Amplified.

Jesus said, "A student is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the student to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master," Matthew 10:24 & 25.  

I conclude, it is God who will hold teachers accountable. When a person becomes aware of false or erroneous teaching, he should pray to God to judge the teacher and correct the mistake. But first, he must make certain that his own biblical comprehension and facts are correct--that he himself is not in error.

Whether or not a person should point out to the teacher that he is in error, that is a thing the Holy Spirit must make known. Unless God has specifically made clear to us that we are to speak, when humans interfere with God's capacity as Judge we take that role upon ourselves and inevitably make a worse mess than the one we were trying to fix.

Certainly, every student should test whatever any teacher speaks against the Word and in prayer to make certain that it is correct. Never take any teacher's teaching without testing it this way.

I am a volunteer "expert." Some of my answers are quite excellent, others are mediocre and a few are not very good. I always strive to do my best. God recognizes that we human beings are imperfect, that we will not reach perfection until we go to Heaven. But even then, we will not be a finished creation until we receive our resurrection bodies.

Until that time when we reach perfection, every teacher will make a mistake at some point or another because we are imperfect beings. We will be judged based on whether or not we have presented the truth to the best of our abilities to the fullest capacity of the available light in which we walk.

We are all products of the times in which we live, we cannot help that. Just as, for example, America's founding fathers had grown up with slavery as a fact of life, they weren't able to make the full shift to a world free of slavery, they did their best striving beyond the bounds of the world in which they lived to achieve something better and laid the foundation for an America free of slavery. Without their work, slavery wouldn't have ended. It is a mistake to judge them by the standards from our time, we have to judge them by the light they possessed. And so, we should hope to be judged by how well we walked in the light available to us by future generations.

God's Light is meant to get brighter and brighter as time passes. His church is to become more aware of Him, more able to comprehend His Word and do a better job of presenting Him to the world day by day. Each generation lays the foundation for the next, building the church which exists inside and outside of time as the body of Christ. But even so, until the final transformation, we will be imperfect.

Sincerely,

Marilyn