The Sabbath School

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Nov 18, 1880

The Sabbath School.

HEART TEACHING.

How much can a Sabbath-school teacher teach? Only so much as he has in his heart. Here is a truth but few teachers realize. They think if they have studied the lesson intellectually, obtained what may be called a fair analytical exegesis of the designated portion of Scripture, secured the geography, history, etc., connected with the lesson, they are prepared to teach. Not so. The Sabbath-school teacher can carry over into the hearts of his class only so much of the lesson as he has in his own heart. It is one thing to have a head knowledge of the lesson, another to have a heart knowledge. The teacher must be a thorough Christian in order to feel what he attempts to teach, for he can impress the hearts of others only as his own heart is profoundly moved.

What our Sabbath-schools need is teachers of deep piety, hearts that are molten love, from which flow out burning streams that melt their way into the hardened and indifferent hearts of others. Deep piety, sincere feeling, profound conviction, are easily discerned, and by none more readily than by children. The possession of these qualities will make almost any one a successful teacher, and without them no one can succeed in doing God's work in the Sabbath-school.

Granting that the teacher is a real Christian, he yet needs to have the particular lesson he teaches in his heart, and the question remains, How shall he get it there? Let him begin early in the week to study the lesson, Sabbath afternoon, an "eight days" before, is the best time. Now, every lesson, has a heart in it. Let the teacher go straight for the central thought. Suppose the central thought is Christianity, pure and simple, as set forth in Matt. 25:35, 36.

The teacher should ask himself, Have I this kind of Christianity? If not, I must obtain it, or be set down at last as a hypocrite. If I have it, O God, give me more and more. The week previous to his coming before his class should be a period in which he has performed these very duties, or duties which involve the same spirit; then will he come with the lesson in his heart. He will not lack illustrations, for the past week has suggested a score or more. He will not lack pathos, for the spirit of the week has been a spirit of prayer and active Christian service, and he will realize with a realization fresher and deeper than ever before, that the spirit of these verses is the animus which brings him to the Sabbath-school, and renders his labors there a positive joy.

The following, touching another side of the subject, is to the point:—

"Every man has a heart, but not every man has a head," said an old minister to a younger one, on giving him his ordination charge; "therefore, if you go for the hearts in your preaching, you will be more likely to hit all your hearers than if you go for their heads."