For those who teach God's Word

If someone handed you a card that said "You've been served," this is what it means: not a summons, but an invitation to look again, quietly, between you and God.

If you're reading this, someone may have handed you a small card that said "You've been served," and then walked away. We owe you an explanation.

Not a summons

Usually, when someone is "served," it means papers from a court. This is something else. You serve others: you preach, you teach, you shepherd, you answer their questions about God. So today the one who serves is being served, not with a lawsuit, but with an invitation from God's Word.

Nobody is watching. No one knows you opened this page. There is nothing to join, nothing to buy, no one to call and nothing to sign. This is between you and God.

Why you

Because you teach. James, a teacher himself, wrote: "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive a stricter judgment" James 3:1. Notice the "we." He didn't leave himself out, and neither do we. Those of us who prepared these lessons had to re-examine much of what we had been taught, too.

Before anything else: mercy

Most of us teach what we received. Someone we trusted taught us, and we passed it on faithfully, often at real personal cost. There's no shame in that; it's how teaching works. And God knows it. Paul told the people of Athens: "So then, having overlooked the times of ignorance, Elohim now commands all people everywhere to repent" Acts 17:30.

Paul knew that from experience. He had been a zealous, highly trained Pharisee who fought against the very Messiah he later preached, and he wrote: "but I received mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief" 1 Timothy 1:13.

If something you have taught turns out not to be what God established, that discovery is not a sentence. It's mercy at work, giving you time.

The honest request

We're asking for one thing: a quiet audit. Not of your ministry, your sincerity or your love for your people, but of the belief system underneath your teaching. Is what you teach still founded on the truth God established in the beginning, or on a system that was institutionalized and handed down to us over the centuries?

An audit doesn't assume anything is wrong. It simply checks every entry against the original record. When that is done honestly, things that don't belong tend to show up, and so do things that are missing. Here, the original record is Scripture.

"Let us search and examine our ways, and return to Yahweh" Lamentations 3:40. The writer included himself, too.

Even the apostle Paul was checked. When he taught in Berea, the people didn't simply take his word for it: "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so" Acts 17:11. Luke calls that noble, not rebellious. If an apostle's teaching could be tested against the Scriptures, so can ours.

And this audit is before God and no one else: not the denomination, not the board, not the seminary, not the expectations of the congregation. That can feel heavy. It is also freeing.

What you'll find here

Below are five short lessons written for those who teach:

• Teachers will be judged more strictly: James 3:1 and the shepherds of Ezekiel 34
• Learned, and still learning: Apollos, Nicodemus and Paul, learned men who kept learning
• What we received, and what God gave: how a tradition becomes doctrine, and a few honest questions
• Before God, and no one else: who a teacher really answers to
• If you find something to change: practical, gracious next steps

After them comes the Study path: key lessons from the rest of these studies, in an order where each one builds on the one before. Go one at a time, at your own pace, and come back whenever you like. Your progress is saved on your device, so you can pick up where you left off.

A blessing

If nothing here changes your mind, we did our best, and God does the rest. Either way, we ask for you what God told the priests to ask for His people:

"Yahweh bless you and keep you; Yahweh make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you; Yahweh lift up His face upon you, and give you peace." Numbers 6:24-26

Start with the five lessons below, then continue with the study path.

Lessons

• Teachers will be judged more strictly: Scripture holds those who teach responsible for what their people learn. It is a heavy weight, and also an honor.
• Learned, and still learning: Scripture never despises learning. Apollos, Nicodemus and Paul were all highly trained, and each of them still had something to learn.
• What we received, and what God gave: A teaching can become institutional without anyone meaning harm. Yeshua's test still applies: does it set aside what God commanded? Then, an honest audit.
• Before God, and no one else: Denominations, boards and congregations all have expectations. But each of us will give an account of himself to God, and He is a merciful Judge.
• If you find something to change: There's no need to panic or to change everything at once. Study, pray, test, and lead your people with the same patience God has shown you.

Related studies

• Are you sure? Examine what you believe: All of us tend to defend what we already believe without checking it. Scripture tells us to examine it, starting with ourselves.
• Pride, agendas and the courage to say "we were wrong": Often the biggest obstacle to the truth isn't the evidence but pride, position and agendas. Scripture shows what that costs, and what God does for those who humble themselves.

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