The Responsibility of Public Teachers by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 16, 1911

The Responsibility of Public Teachers

By F. M. W.

The one who occupies the position of a public teacher bears a great responsibility. He exerts a double influence, (1) in his public capacity as a teacher, and (2) in the influence attending his personal life. How important it is, if his work is to be truly effective, that the influence of his life shall supplement and enforce the influence exerted by his teaching. Otherwise his power with his associates will be materially lessened. This is true with leaders in the political world; it is true with teachers in the school; it is doubly true with the one who stands as the exponent of religious truth and the representative of gospel principles.

The apostle Paul recognized this. To Timothy he wrote: “Be thou an example of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.” The minister of the gospel must be all this if he expects power to attend his ministry. To the extent that he fails will his labor be fruitless.

It is openly advised in many religious quarters to-day that the gospel minister should widen his field of operation; that he should be a man of affairs; a student of, and a leader in, the questions of state; a strong factor in society, as well as an exponent of religious truth. This so-called wider sphere is fraught with many dangers, and to the extent that the minister of Christ fully enters it does he lower the character of his sacred calling in the estimation of his fellows. He may shine as a brilliant center of influence at the social function; he may excel as an orator in religio-political discussions; he may circulate among men as a half-fellow-well-met, a man of affairs and of the world; but when he does these things, he loses out of his life, in a large measure, that holy influence that should make Christ’s representative.

When we consider the simplicity of life and the carefulness of living that actuated the men of God in the past, it is painful to recognize to what extent the world-wide gospel ministry of to-day has departed from this high standard. The spirit of the world has invaded the church of God. Pride, fashion, love of display, show, and ostentation are all too plainly manifest among those making up the congregation, and in many instances the one who occupies the pulpit has partaken of the spirit surrounding him. The fear of men has taken possession of his heart. In consequence his arm is palsied to strike against sin, and his tongue dumb to give the warning.

We find a growing tendency with some professed ministers of the gospel to attend the theater and other places of questionable amusement. Indeed, in some communities it is no uncommon thing for them to be recognized as baseball fans. They are leaders in social parties of pleasure and entertainment. They foster raffles and other questionable forms of church amusement for the purpose of raising money. They may be found at the political primaries electioneering with all the fervor of regular ward politicians for some favored candidate. They are lobbyists in legislative halls in urging through some measure that they feel will aid their cause. Such was not the work done by the ministers of God in the ages of the past, and in direct proportion as the ministers of the gospel have yielded to these influences in their lives has the power of the Spirit departed from their labors. The apostle Paul knew but one thing, and that was “Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Of his own experience he says that he kept under his body, and held in check his own natural desires and inclinations, lest while preaching to others he himself should become a castaway.

This same spirit of high and holy regard for the gospel cause actuated the men of the Reformation. It inspired John and Charles Wesley, and hosts of other Reformers who might be mentioned. There is no place in the gospel ministry for milk-and-water men; for men who will play to the galleries and at the same time pose as teachers of divine truth. God can not work with power through men who call good evil and evil good; who tell the people they can live as they list and reach heaven at last; who by their own lives set the example of carelessness, indifference, and pleasure-loving.

Those who are giving this message to the world need to be on their guard lest this spirit unconsciously pervade their lives. Without God’s keeping power Seventh-day Adventist workers stand in just as great danger from these worldly influences as do those of other denominations. We can not take their standard as our standard. We must not take the standard even of our own churches as the gage of our lives. It is for the workers of every class in this denomination to recognize that God has set them as watchmen over his people. It is for them to exalt the standard, and to call the people to a higher plane of Christian living. But this can not be done by them unless their own lives are in harmony with their teachings. The leaders in this church, whether ministers, teachers, or church offices, can not sound the warning that should be given against the great evils of worldly pleasures, with which our people are threatened on every side, if they themselves are not casting the influence of their own example against these things. They can not safeguard the young men and women against the demoralizing influence of the cheap moving-picture show if they themselves are attending such shows. They can not hold our young men back from being carried away with the wild gambling spirit connected with the great national games of football and baseball if they themselves patronize these sports. They can not bear effective testimony against questionable speculation or wild investment if they are connected with such enterprises, or are promoting them. They can not sound a true warning cry against the evil influence of pernicious literature, as found in story-books and novels, the sporting page and the comic-picture section of the newspapers, if they themselves greedily feed upon this mental food from week to week.

These things are of the world, worldly. God calls his remnant people, he calls his workers, to a better heritage. He asks us to cast aside every weight that holds us back, and to arouse ourselves for the conflict in which we are engaged. God does not want us to take a gloomy

outlook, to go about with solemn, long-drawn faces, or cherish pessimistic and morose dispositions. But O, he does want us to lay aside the foolishness of the world! He wants us to become examples “of the believers, in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, in purity.”

Says the apostle Paul, “Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.”

A solemn responsibility rests upon the teachers and leaders in this last great movement. To them the believers have a right to look for an example. It is but right that they should expect that the lives of their teachers should conform to their teaching. O, let us seek as ambassadors for Christ to do this in so far as it is possible through divine grace! We may fail and come short of the perfection of the standard which we present; but we can at least demonstrate that we are aiming at the ideal, and that our failure is of accident and not of purpose. “If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever.” F. M. W.