Chapter 13—The Teacher Must Be a Learner

“Flee also youthful lusts; but follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.” Those who would become the educators of the youth and children must learn much, very much, both in precept and experience, in order that they may be successful laborers for God. They must grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, attaining unto the measure of the stature of Christ. Growth in grace is a testimony to the fact that you are abiding in Christ as the branch is abiding in the vine. If you abide in Him, you will have power to discern spiritual truth, for spiritual things are spiritually discerned.TSS 58.1

“I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the Word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” God calls upon the young men and young women to make the most of their intrusted ability. He would have you cultivate habits of industry, habits of study, that you may improve the talents He has given you. God will accept your service, and the improvement of your talents, but He can not look with approval upon half-hearted, half-way work. Every branch of God's work calls for the exercise of the highest ability; it demands that you shall bring into requisition every available help, that you shall direct your noblest impulses to the propagation of the truth. The exalted, sacred character of the work requires the enlistment of the highest intellectual and spiritual powers, that it may be properly represented before those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.TSS 58.2

If you are called to be a teacher in any branch of the work of God, you are called also to be a learner in the school of Christ. If you take upon you the sacred responsibility of teaching others, you take upon you the duty of going to the bottom of every subject you seek to teach. If you present a subject from the Word of God to your pupils in the Sabbath-school, you should make the reasons for your faith so plain that your scholars shall be convinced of its truth. You should diligently search and compare the evidences of the Word of God on messages that He sends to the church, that you may know what is truth, and be able to direct those who look to you into the way of righteousness.TSS 59.1