The Most Common Dangers and Temptations of Teaching the Bible

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95)

“Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, knowing that as such we will incur stricter judgment.” – James 3:1

So warns the apostolic brother of Jesus to 1st century Christians. This warning is far too often unheeded among western believers. There are thousands of men and women filling teaching roles for their brethren in Christ who haven’t either been gifted or called to that work. A major reason that so much unbiblical teaching, deception, and confusion abound among western believers is due to many becoming regular teachers who are ill suited for that sacred task.

Just look up the average American evangelical sermon archive, and you’ll find a trash heap of so-called “Bible messages” that do little to further your understanding of Scripture’s teaching, or call you to the reasonable service of God. The average sermon, Bible study, and devotional delivered by the body’s teachers is fraught with fruitless discussion, confusion, and even deceptions. The sad reality is that most of these teachers are neither willing nor prepared to rightly divide the Word of truth.

That’s why it’s so important that any Christian that is on the receiving or giving end of Bible teaching understand the dangers and potential blessings of teaching Scripture. James says that those who are given the official role of teaching the saints “will incur a stricter judgment”. Those are sobering words. The Lord said that everyone will give an account for every useless word spoken on the day of judgment, so how much more will we have to answer for when unworthily seeking to speak on His behalf!

What is the main service of the Assembly’s teachers? Paul writes in Ephesians 4:12 that it’s to equip “the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” What is our source of equipping power and instruction? The Bible, of course, as he writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”

Hence, when a teacher teaches, he should be doing what Peter urges:

“Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God . . .” – 1 Pet. 4:11a

After James warns against many believers becoming teachers, he then gives an argument in support of this. It’s so dangerous to try to convey the meaning of Scripture because our tongues are so powerful, devious, and unpredictable. In other words, it takes the greatest amount of effort and power to control what you say, since we are so overwhelmingly tempted to speak things that are false, misleading, and unloving. Therefore, it’s only those who are “mature” and self-controlled in their speech that should be serving in the official teaching role of the body of Christ.

Although this general explanation is a great motivation for being cautious and diligent in pursuing the work of Bible teaching, it’s helpful to think about the many common risks we take when filling the regular service of teaching in the fellowship.

The Temptations and Dangers of Teaching Scripture

To set up the scene of what we’re talking about, we need to picture a church-like situation in which a teacher has Christian students attending to his planned class or message. When students come with the expectation of learning what the Bible says from a man (and hopefully not a woman), all of them are both in a blessed and dangerous position. The blessing is that they have the opportunity to learn God’s Word together, but the danger is the sin that lives in their flesh. If the Holy Spirit isn’t the One leading the learning session, then the flesh will be.

And the flesh loves to undervalue, obscure, ignore, and misapply Scripture. It can do this in so many ways that we can’t ever know exactly what temptations will arise. The first main danger of teaching the Bible is the teacher’s motivation for doing so. If his main motive is to seek happiness from his students, rather than from God, he’s in the wrong. His first motivation can’t be to please his brethren, but to please his Lord. But how would he know how to please Him? He must know God’s ordained purpose for his teaching.

This is obviously the second main danger of Bible teaching – that the teacher misunderstands the divine purpose of the teaching of the saints. Bible teachers are unlike any other type of educator or speaker, since the content of their message ought to be the revealed character and work of God in Scripture. No Bible teacher should come to his audience with an idea to entertain, amuse, or even to move them to action. The main purpose of Bible teaching is to clarify and explain God’s character and will for His people, through the teaching found in that Book. It is to appropriate the ancient historical messages in Scripture to the student’s contemporary context.

If this is the biblical purpose of Bible teaching, then another danger is revealed – that the teacher fails to accurately explain the meaning of Scripture. Because of our modern western context, this is extremely easy to do. The meaning of Scripture, although available to us, is arguably the furthest away from us than it has been in hundreds of years. To begin, the world in which its events and communications take place was much different from our own. We have excellent translations, but the original languages of Scripture used far different terminology, concepts, and allusions than we do. This is the language gap in our understanding. Then comes the cultural differences in the biblical worlds. There are many customs, rituals, and attitudes that are foreign to the lifestyles and thinking of most modern people, especially in the West. Thirdly, the fact is that the writers and audiences of Scripture were accustomed to different forms of communication than we. Most of us are used to bite-sized bits of information given to us through writing or images. In contrast, the people of the Bible were mostly illiterate, and were used to hearing long series of spoken communication. As such, much of Scripture requires a long attention-span, and a longer-term memory than most digitally-obsessed westerners possess.

Besides these more neutral challenges, Bible teachers in the West live in a culture where most of the major teachings and events of Scripture have been misrepresented and/or replaced. Our anti-Christian western society has long bombarded us with unbiblical beliefs and values, such as on the topics of origins, human nature, sexuality, and gender roles. Western Bible teachers especially must be careful that they aren’t tainting and skewing their understanding with pagan, secular, or humanistic philosophies or concepts.

That covers the pitfalls in trying to explain the Bible, but another one comes with the duty of applying it. This is something that some teachers totally neglect, and that some horribly abuse. If we understand the Great Commission rightly, we can’t miss this essential ingredient of Bible teaching. The Lord didn’t say, “Go therefore and make disciples . . . teaching them about all that I commanded you,” but “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Mt. 28:19-20, emphasis mine). The goal of official Christian Bible teaching is the same goal that Jesus had in the teaching of His disciples – to motivate and instruct them in obedience to the Father’s will. This is why Paul explains to Timothy,

“But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, and a good conscience, and a sincere faith.” – 1 Tim. 1:5

Although the purpose of Christian teaching is to motivate the brethren to greater service of God and others, the opposite extreme also threatens to ruin it. Some men can be so infatuated with motivating brethren to act differently that they support their own instructions for living with inappropriate Scripture. In other words, they misapply the Word. That’s why faithful Bible teaching must be founded on a thorough and precise explanation of the historical documents being taught. Application and courses of action must be logical and reasonable implications of Scripture’s original (and true) meaning. And since actions ought to flow from a right understanding of the truth, as many applications as possible should be argued from the words of Scripture themselves.

The danger in misapplying certain Scriptures should be readily apparent. Because its uses in our lives are direct consequences of its conveyed meaning, ascribing an application to a statement or story that’s foreign to its intent misrepresents its meaning. That is, when you say some Scripture can be applied somehow to an action or belief which is outside its applicability, you’re claiming God has taught something He hasn’t. This is one of the most common errors in Bible teaching, and especially in Bible teaching that better resembles self-help advice than God’s declaration. Many Bible teachers simply want to spout their own ideas about Christian living and thinking, and attempt to make Scriptures come across as supporting these ideas.

I would like to note one final temptation that is common among evangelical churches and teachers. This is the tendency to give a lot of explanation of the historical, cultural, linguistic, and literary contexts of Scripture, but to miss the main purpose for their teachings. Again, that purpose is to stimulate and cultivate greater degrees of love, piety, and sincerity in God’s people. It is to reveal His character and will through historical events and communications, so that they will make greater efforts to imitate Him. Any point of teaching that is merely intellectual, informational, or so on falls short of the biblical mandate for the exposition of Scripture.

A Summary of Biblical Bible Teaching

Even in conservative, biblically literate, and devoted churches, there are simply thousands of men and women who are either unprepared, or ungifted, for teaching the Scriptures. Far too many think that they have some novel, relevant, or essential way of teaching what they think their students need to hear. The fact is, the most important thing that believers who are relying on elders, pastors, teachers, etc., need to hear is the clear explanation of God’s holy Scriptures. They don’t need a pep talk, a motivational speech, a fireside chat, or a time of personal storytelling. They need God’s Word. So, let me end by listing the basic qualities of the most effective and Bible-based teaching of the Bible.

  1. Exegetical – derives the original meaning of Scriptural passages from the words and ideas themselves. Another word is “text-driven”.
  2. Canonical – Sees the meaning of specific portions of Scripture in light of the whole biblical storyline.
  3. Expositional – Not only gains the original meaning of passages from their own words and contexts, but explains the meaning of passages in terms of their original contexts. This includes the context of the book in which a passage is found.
  4. Contextual – Suits the lesson or message to the audience’s specific needs for instruction and encouragement.
  5. Christ-focused – Seeks to base the ultimate intents and purposes for passages on the teachings and work of the Lord Jesus.
  6. Applicational – Makes some application of the Scripture’s meaning to the thinking and/or acting of the students. This is the aim of our instruction – love from a pure heart. We must spur one another on to greater love and good deeds (Heb. 10:24).

Much more could be said. Let us see that to handle God’s Word, and attempt to teach it to others, is among the few weightiest and dangerous deeds we can undertake. It’s only to be done with much prayer, fear and trembling, and great diligence. Let not many of us become teachers. But if we’ve been gifted to teach the truths of Scripture, let us do so as approved workmen without shame, rightly cutting the Word of truth.