What makes a good teacher?
Everybody has heard a great teacher. A great teacher can speak for a couple of hours, and make you think it has been fifteen minutes. You will be willing to sit even longer.
The poor teacher will make fifteen minutes seem like hours. Those are the times the students are watching the clock, and wanting the class to get over.
Teaching is not limited to a classroom. It could be a coach teaching the game and the techniques, or it could a tradesman teaching the apprentice, or maybe a parent showing a child a way to do a job.
The good teacher makes the subject live. They can teach a subject that you are not interested in today, and make you want to know more.
How do they do that? A lecture is the poorest form of teaching. Some colleges have an auditorium where several hundred students sit to learn. This makes it harder on the teacher.
A good teacher uses things you know, to help you understand the subject. They use visuals to illustrate the lesson. They can make you think that you are in the middle of the lesson.
A good example is Jesus using the fig tree along the side of the road. The disciples knew all about fig trees.
Jesus was the greatest teacher. Remember the story where he fed thousands of people? He had been there teaching all day, and there was still a crowd late in the afternoon waiting to hear more.
One time he was asleep during the storm. The disciples woke him, to get the answer to the lesson. There they learned to trust him with any problem.
Jesus showed the disciples that he cared about them. He wanted them to understand and learn.
When you read the story of the young boy watching Jesus feed thousands of people with the leftovers from his lunch, you can feel the feelings he was feeling. It was awesome. Jesus the great teacher taught the people, and motivated them to live the story and the lessons. They had to know that he cared about them.
Jesus loves you. He wants you to listen and learn. That is why Jesus came into this world. He lived the life, he did the things he did to show you he cared, and was willing to die on the cross and suffer for you.
He wanted to motivate you to trust in him and believe in what he did for you. Did you learn that?