Articles
The Personality and Style of Teachers
A large part of a teacher’s approach is determined by his personality. Since personality variations abound, there will be different teaching styles among God’s people.
Apollos. Luke describes this early Christian in glowing terms: “an eloquent man and mighty in the Scriptures … being fervent in spirit” (Ac 18:24-25). “A learned man … or eloquent, as the word can mean either a man of words (like one ‘wordy,’ verbose) or a man of ideas, since logos was used either for reason or speech. Apollos was doubtless both learned (mighty in the Scriptures) and eloquent, though eloquence varies greatly in people’s ideas” (A.T. Robertson, Word Pictures, Vol. 3, p. 306). “Fervent” literally meant “boiling” – energetic, demonstrative. Apollos was dynamic, effective and skillful in presenting his knowledge. In whatever local church he taught, he probably had a lot of people signing up for his class.
Paul. Second Corinthians is an impassioned defense of Paul’s apostleship, and in it he confronts opponents who are trying to destroy his influence. He sarcastically says he is taking precautions “lest I seem to terrify you by letters. ‘For his letters,’ they say, ‘are weighty and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible’” (2 Cor 10:9-10). “Contemptible” means “to regard as nothing, to despise utterly, to treat with contempt” (Vine on exoutheneo, p. 163). Paul later says of himself, “Even though I am untrained in speech, yet I am not in knowledge” (2 Cor 11:6). Paul apparently was unimpressive in presence and style; he did not seem to have training in rhetoric as Apollos likely had. Consequently, Paul may not have had many people signing up for his class.
But whose style did the Holy Spirit choose to utilize in communicating to us the majority of epistle-material in the NT? Paul’s. Let us resist the natural tendency to “glory in appearance and not in heart,” as some of the Corinthians were doing (2 Cor 5:12; cf. 10:7). This weakness was so pronounced that Paul warned: “For if he who comes preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached … you may well put up with it” (2 Cor 11:4). In other words, they could be swayed by personality, glibness, boldness. Do not choose style over substance. Let us look past the teacher’s presentation skills and search for the truth being spoken.
