Lesson 8 | Teaching genres
Your personal style
A different perspective
God has made each of us unique and given us gifts which differ from those given to others—and this includes the styles with which we teach. Some are better suited to preach, and others to lead an interactive Bible study. Some of us are great at conceiving and delivering the perfect illustrations, while others specialize in unpacking the logic of the deep wonders of the wisdom of God. Perhaps you are anointed in calling people to repentance, and perhaps your gifting is in telling a gospel story.
Have you come across the quotation below?
[Preaching is] truth mediated through personality.
Phillips Brookes
It certainly is a glorious thing to see the great truths of Scripture proclaimed through different personalities!
Which is it?
So are we to communicate the text in a Bible-like way, or should we be ourselves?
Of course we need not be forced to a mere binary choice here, but we also cannot have it all. The more I buy into the a Bible-shaped word in a Bible-like way, the less I will simply be myself in my teaching. And of course it works in the other direction as well. Therefore, let's close off this question by enumerating the advantages to each that might pull us more in one direction or another.
Advantages to conforming our style to the style of the text we are teaching
We want people to be excited about the text far more than about us as its mouthpiece. Thus, we want to be a window through which people encounter the text, and this includes its genre and style.
Different people connect to different genres and styles differently. If you only teach in a highly logical way, then you will likely have a church solely made up of people like that. But this leaves out the psalmists and story-lovers in the Body of Christ. To prevent this, teach the style of the text at hand.
Even the most talented teachers will eventually lose people's attention if their teaching is one-dimensional. That is one reason why the Bible itself is not one dimensional in its teaching style. Neither should we be.
Advantages to teaching in your personal style
Biblical authors do not often switch genres themselves in their teaching. Paul teaches in Paul's style, David in his, etc. And so we should not be ashamed to teach in the style which is most natural to us.
If we frequently shift our style, our delivery will always be subpar and therefore ineffective.
God has given you certain giftings and not others, and this includes style of communication. Thus, perhaps an ideal is to be on a teaching team made of men with different styles, with everyone teaching in the style that he does best.