These qualifications, however, are by no means all.  There are also

moral qualifications that are essential.  This we may gather from the passage

already quoted from 1 Timothy 3:

'A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant,

sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach; not given

to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a

brawler, not covetous; one that ruleth well his own house, having his

children in subjection with all gravity; (for if a man know not how to

rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)  Not

a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation

of the devil.  Moreover he must have a good report of them which are

without; lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil' (1 Tim.

The domestic qualifications mentioned here belong not so much to the

teacher as to the bishop, for in these early days the Church was in the

house.  The rest of the passage, however, may be taken as indicating the

qualities that should accompany aptness to teach, if the teacher is to be

approved of God.  It should be remembered that the words translated 'teacher'

(didaskalos) and 'teach' (didasko) give us didaskalia, which is translated in

most passages by the word 'doctrine'.

Throughout the Scriptures we find a salutary insistence upon the

necessity for the life to correspond with the teaching given and received.

The balance of doctrine and practice is very noticeable in the epistles, and

also in the lives of the apostles.  Paul himself draws the attention of

Timothy to his consistency in this matter, saying:

'Thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life' (2 Tim. 3:10).

'I ... have shewed you, and have taught you' (Acts 20:20).

The relation between 'shewing' and 'teaching' was a very practical one

in the apostle's case, as verses 34 and 35 reveal:

'Yea, ye yourselves know, that these hands have ministered unto my

necessities, and to them that were with me.  I have shewed you all

things, how that so labouring ye ought to support the weak, and to

remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how He said, It is more blessed

to give than to receive' (Acts 20:34,35).

The subject of the teacher and his teaching is so great that we at

first thought of taking some lesser theme, and of reserving the subject of

teaching for a more thorough treatment.  However, we have presented very

briefly one or two aspects of it here, and trust that the service of each of

us may be the better for the brief consideration we have given.

At the close of the Sermon on the Mount the Lord likens His hearers to

two builders, the one who built his house upon a rock, and the other who

built his house upon the sand.  The figures vary in different parts of

Scripture, but the underlying truth remains that the believer, while in one

sense he may be said to grow and run and wrestle, is nevertheless in another

sense 'unmoved'.