You Who Teach Another, Don’t You Teach Yourself?

Today's passage deals with the apostle Paul sharply confronting the Jews who boasted in the Law and taught others. Although they had received God's word, they fell into pride instead and lived lives opposite to their own teaching, stealing and committing adultery. Paul rebukes their double standard of teaching others while not teaching themselves, and makes clear that formal religious rituals alone cannot glorify God.

The sermon warns that the more grace and knowledge we receive, the greater the responsibility, and that when our words and actions do not match, we become instead a tool for dishonoring God's name. In particular, it stresses that if those who call themselves pastors or teachers teach only as a formality, without examining their own qualifications, they will only bring on God's wrath. It conveys that true faith lies not in outward acts but in living a changed life by the Holy Spirit's leading, and that such an obedient life is the true glory given to God.

We must keep asking whether those who teach others are really living by that word, and whether our lives glorify God. What must we prepare in order to become true Christians who please God, not with a formal confession of faith but with a life born again by the Holy Spirit?