Becoming a More Profitable Teacher

In today’s world of steady self-centeredness, teachers who are profitable for God’s kingdom are more needed than ever before. The teacher has the enormous responsibility to chart the course for the world, to shape its worldview and to define its destiny. For Christian teachers, the task is even greater. As imitators of the Great Teacher, Jesus Christ, we are called not only to do what is required of other teachers, but also go an extra mile to help learners be successful in this world and the world to come. Luke 17:10 says, “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, we are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.” As teachers, when we do only what we are required to do, God and our students gain from us nothing more than what is due them. But Christ’s calls us to greater profitability. He calls us to sacrifice for those in need, to serve selflessly, and to provide timely assistance.   

Being a profitable teacher means doing more than our curriculum requires. Being a more profitable teacher includes doing things like:

• Setting apart extra time for that academically weak learner in your class who needs more attention but cannot afford to pay for extra tutoring.
• Assisting that learner in your class who walks long distances to come to school every day.
• Ministering to that emotionally broken learner whose family relationships are disintegrating.
• Investing some of your free time to attend to that trouble-making learner who distracts others in class. 
• Sharing your lunch with a hungry learner or providing clothing for the poorly clothed learner.
• Sparing your school from hiring a contract teacher to temporarily replace one of your colleague teachers who is indisposed.

Resolve to do things like this without aiming for any personal gain. Do them because Christ has done great things for you without requiring any wages from you. You have been empowered and equipped for the benefit of those in need; God’s blessing has been entrusted to you to reach the undeserving, those who cannot pay, those who need it most, those who don’t even know that they need it.

Remember, no matter how excellently you perform your duty, you remain unprofitable as long as you do only what you are required to do. Aspire to being more profitable by doing more than your duty requires. Do it selflessly, without murmuring, ungrudgingly, and wholeheartedly. 

Author

Juvenal Balisasa

Dr. Balisasa currently serves as Education Director of the West-Central Africa Division. He is an ordained minister of the Gospel. He holds degrees in Agriculture, Religion, Business, and Religious Education. He is married to Victoria, and both are blessed with three young adults. Before now he served the church mainly as a teacher at all levels of education and pastor in education institutions. He is regularly engaged in counseling young people and is passionate about creating, developing, and sustaining Adventists schools.