Have you ever had a pet that was unteachable? No matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t get it to stop undesirable behaviors. You came to your wits’ end and finally called an expert–a pet trainer who walked through the door of your house and turned your little deviant into an obedient superstar in seconds?

You might have thought to yourself, “How did they do that?” and then took copious notes for the next hour as the trainer taught you simple tricks that really did work.

Perhaps you had that "aha!" moment when you realized that you simply weren’t equipped to teach your pet, but after finding the right strategies and methods, you had the potential to be a pro.

Teaching is a frightening venture for many. I’m a 26-year veteran math and science teacher, and believe me, I have experience teaching people things they do not want to learn. But I’ve also been trained in the education system that you cannot use “unteachable” as an excuse. You have to make an effort to find a way to teach them, no matter how inconvenient it is. That’s part of why teaching is such a work of the heart.

Deuteronomy 32:2 says, “May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb.”

If only it could be that easy.

When I wrote the Cavernous Trilogy, I was inspired by a comment I overheard from a group of preachers. One man said that it grieved him how our church members were once known to have so much ingrained, memorized scripture that courts could swear on us instead of the Bible, and how that's not true anymore. His concern was that we couldn't teach others because we needed to ourselves be taught.

Teaching others about Jesus is no different from teaching any subject in a secular classroom. Many reject the truth, but Christians have been given the charge to go and teach anyway. We cannot make excuses. But sadly, we are living in a society where the vast majority “HAVE NOT EVER BEEN TAUGHT.” Let me say that again, even louder. “HAVE NOT EVER BEEN TAUGHT.” Sure, some are taught and reject the truth. But not having been taught is a different matter altogether.

You see, I work daily with fifteen to eighteen-year-olds who have no context for church. The ones who know hunger and pain but not trust and love. The ones who curse every third word because they genuinely do not understand that some people don’t talk that way. Some have never held a Bible, let alone considered stepping into a church. And why? Because their parents do not know Jesus either. And whose fault is that? Who is responsible for teaching them? Sadly, Christian people have not followed through with teaching our neighbors, our coworkers, and our extended family members. Many of us are not even following through with teaching the ones in our own families, and that decline is showing in our churches.

This can be a hard pill to swallow. How do you fix such a huge biblical knowledge gap? Where do you start revealing Jesus to a world so immersed in sin? It’s like sitting in a math class of 32 students, full of hopes and dreams, and seeing scores like 14, 15, and 16 on their ACT. This score is not even high enough to get into many colleges. It can feel like a desperate situation, like all hope is lost. Is our church education system also in a desperate situation? If all of humanity had to take a test on biblical knowledge, how would they fare? We probably don't want to know.

In education, teachers must see potential beyond the misconceptions students have learned. Likewise, Christians must see the potential beyond the attraction sinners have for wickedness. I’ve heard many preachers say that Christians should not be surprised when the world sins. I’ll add that Christians should not be surprised when sin does not offend the world. Consider some of the recent events and social media content, such as political debates and the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics, and realize the fundamental flaw in all of it. The world does not know Christ.

Consider Colossians 3:16, a verse often quoted concerning singing, but look closely at how it begins: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.” The idea of teaching is directly associated with the word of Christ, and the idea of admonishing is “in all wisdom.”

The bottom line is that no one will be offended by sin until they know the Savior. No one will know the Savior if Christians don’t teach them. And if we are shirking our duties to teach them about the Savior, how dare we judge when the world embraces the sin we find so revolting? If we are admonishing without teaching, we are doing it wrong.

Remember what the Ethiopian eunuch told Philip when he was asked if he understood what he was reading. “How can I, unless someone guides me?”

Some people find humor in the “You Had One Job” meme. You had one job: to paint an arrow pointing left under the word left, but you painted it right. You had one job: to make a sign, but you misspelled it. Many of those epic fails cost a lot of money, and the bosses who assigned those tasks are probably not laughing.

It makes me wonder if God sits up in Heaven thinking, “Christian, you had one job. Feed my sheep.”

Are we like the Christians addressed by the Hebrew writer? “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. (Heb 5:12-13).

I think of Paul, so zealous against the Lord, who turned so zealous for Christ. He had so much wrong knowledge. At first, it was a true challenge for him to adapt and teach others about Christ. Yet he made it a priority. In I Corinthians 2, he said, “And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God (verses 1-5).

Was it hard? Sure it was! Was it perfect? Not even close. Did he try? Absolutely! If what Paul says about himself is true, what qualified him to write letters to all those churches? He kept teaching, and he got better at it.

Christians, we can’t make excuses. We have to help others get to know Jesus. It doesn’t have to be formal. You might have to get creative and find ways to slip Christ into the conversation. It might be as simple as saying “God bless you” instead of goodbye.

I’ll end with Luke 12:8-12. We are not alone in this. The Holy Spirit guides us. God did not give us a charge to teach others about Jesus and leave us unprepared. We can do it! We have to do it! And if you’re struggling, maybe hit up one of your classroom teacher friends to see if they share some of their tricks.

“And I tell you, everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man also will acknowledge before the angels of God, but the one who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God. And everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven. And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”

Blessings and prayers for you all as we get better at sharing our faith.