Today’s reading: Zechariah 9-10; James 3-4
Especially since starting this blog, I think about James 3 a lot…
I have had the privilege of teaching the Word for many years now, but it was almost always for a house church of 20-30 people, a men’s group of 10-15, or a youth group. With only a couple exceptions, I haven’t been teaching large crowds or having my teachings recorded and available for people to come back to in the future. Even still, it has been a regular prayer of mine over the years that God would never let me lose a sense of the immense privilege it is to teach the Word, or of the incredible responsibility I am taking on in interpreting and teaching His very words!
But writing these blog posts is an entirely differently beast.
On the one hand, I don’t actually know how many people are reading these posts on any given day, but the potential for them to be found and read/referenced is much greater than a non-recorded small-group teaching since they live out publicly on the internet. And given that that’s kind of the point and hope of these posts, to be an encouragement, support, or reference to help others get excited about getting into and learning the Word, God can obviously use this blog for whatever reach He desires to use it.
The other side of these posts though is that I’m not spending weeks studying and praying about the passage, preparing the post, and editing it for content and organization like I would for an actual teaching. I’m reading and praying about the passage for somewhere between a few hours and a day, and then writing up my thoughts with a quick read-through for editing. Some days take longer than others, but the nature of writing posts alongside the reading plan necessarily means I’m not able to spend significant amounts of time on each post. I would say it’s a couple hours of dedicated time per day on average, plus whatever time I’m thinking about it throughout the day (I tend to try to stay one day ahead of the plan for this reason, so I have a little more time to think about, pray, and process a passage before writing about it, but still having it ready early enough for people to red alongside the day’s reading).
So when James warns, “Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness,” I don’t take that lightly.
So I just want to invite you all to pray with me and for me, that God would continue to guide me in wisdom and understanding as I write these posts, and that He would give me a heart humble enough to follow His leading as I am writing, pointing people back faithfully to Him and His word, rather than to anything of myself I might feel like I have to offer. And if this blog would be at all valuable to others, please pray with me that God would use it to draw them closer to Himself and grow in them a fascination with and excitement for the Word.
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