Good vs. Poor Teaching

In Luke chapter 6 Jesus does some teaching. He pronounces blessings and woes upon people and offers instruction on how to live with your fellow man. Specifically he tells his audience to love their enemies and to do good to them even if you are mistreated poorly by them.

Then he uses a parable to contrast his teachings with the teachings of the Pharisees. He says that the Pharisees are blind teachers and because of their lack of spiritual vision are going to fall into a pit and their students will follow right after them.

He also says the Pharisees are blind or visually impaired when it comes to correcting others. They are so busy looking for fault in others that they fail to take a look at their own faults which are huge in comparison.

Teachers are also like orange trees. A good orange tree (Jesus) produces sweet tasty oranges. A sour orange tree (Pharisees) looks identical to a grafted orange tree and the oranges look exactly the same but they taste so bad that they’re worthless.

Pharisees are teachers that are blind, hypocritical and whose teachings will cause their students to be spit out by God.

Jesus on the other had is a good teacher, he can lead you the way he ought to go, his correction is non-hypocritical and will lead you to cause a very sweet taste in God’s mouth.

Preachers and teachers in Christ’s church should be the same type of teacher that Jesus was. One way to tell is to look and see kind of people a church is producing. Are they sweet and ripe? Are they bitter or are they just tasteless? Whatever they are… they are a reflection of their teachers.

James 3:1. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.