This article was originally posted at Exploring the Faith.

In the last post, we saw that Scripture doesn’t call pastors to preach, in the familiar sense of delivering sermons, but there is a repeated call for pastors to teach the church. I noted that—contrasted with preaching—teaching has different priorities, a different focus, and different expectations. So we should want to see this kind of teaching modeled for us in the Bible, right? How did Jesus and Paul teach? What can we learn from their examples?

I want to focus on a characteristic of their teaching that isn’t discussed very often. If we read the text carefully, we begin to see references to the interactive nature of both Jesus’ and Paul’s teaching. We know from historical studies that the format in the synagogues of the first century was interactive. They even arranged their seating in the round to facilitate this interaction. We see evidence of this interaction in the synagogues in such passages as Mark 3:1-5; John 6:25-59; Acts 17:1-4; 17:17; 18:4-6; 18:19; 18:28; 19:8-9. Read through the Gospels and see how many times Jesus asked questions and answered questions—often answering questions with questions! And we see him doing this in one-on-one conversation, in small groups and in large group settings. He did most of the talking, to be sure; these weren’t large group chats, but they were interactive.

Notice in the passages above how often it says that Paul reasoned with the people in the synagogues. The Greek word used here is dialegomai. From this word we get our English word “dialogue,” and it had the same kind of meaning in the first century. It meant “to discuss,” so what we see happening in the synagogues in these passages was very interactive.

We see Paul teaching interactively in the church, as well, in Acts 20:7-12. We often joke about this being the favorite verse of long-winded preachers because it shows Paul preaching all night long! The problem is this isn’t quite accurate. The same Greek word is used here as above, plus another one with a similar meaning. What Paul was doing wasn’t preaching to the people, he was dialoguing with the people. He didn’t preach all night long, but he did talk with the people all night long.

So what happened to this interactive style of teaching? How did monologic preaching become the norm? Over time, leaders in the church began adopting more of a Greco-Roman emphasis on eloquent rhetoric. This became even more widespread after Christianity was legalized and “the Church” even became seemingly predominate. Huge numbers of people joined the Church (without necessarily becoming truly Christian), churches began building large cathedrals, the bishop had already become the preeminent person in church life, and now eloquent sermons with all the desired rhetorical flourishes took the place of simple, interactive teaching. The Reformed churches, with their intellectual strengths, retained and even intensified this focus on monologic preaching, viewing it as virtually indistinguishable from the proclamation of the gospel and the teaching of the Word. Over the centuries, some groups followed a more interactive teaching model, and there’s been renewed interest in interactive teaching the past few decades.

But why teach interactively? What are some of the benefits of interactive teaching? Here are a few:

It’s a much more effective way of learning.
Studies have consistently shown that the more we’re actively involved in the learning process (rather than just passively listening), the more we retain and apply what we’ve learned. First, people remain engaged at a much higher level when they realize people can ask questions, and that the teacher may ask the people questions—and expect an answer! It avoids the problem of people not understanding something, being frustrated at not being able to clarify what’s confusing them, and then zoning out because they’re lost in the sermon and no longer able to follow. And the truth of Scripture just has greater weight to a person when they’re part of the discovery process. Rather than telling everyone, “. . . and this verse shows again that Jesus is God,” it makes much more of a lasting impact for someone to respond to a question from the teacher with, “Wow, this is saying that Jesus is God!” Rather than truth being something they’re told, they’re now apprehending the truth in a deeply personal way. They now own it, and are responsible for doing something with it.

A monologue is just about the least effective way to teach people anything, but strangely it’s the most common model we find in the church. The more people actively participate in the learning process, the more they truly learn, the more they retain, and the more they apply what they’ve learned in their lives.

Interactive teaching also keeps the focus rightly on the text of Scripture.
This is true even in the preparation process. Rather than putting a great deal of time and effort into crafting a beautiful speech, I need to understand as thoroughly as possible the whole passage we’re studying because I can get questions on anything in the passage. Rather than being immersed in my message, I have to be immersed in the text itself. Secondly, the focus during the study time is not on my rhetorical skills, on how funny or moving I am, but on how clearly they understand the Scriptures. This way of teaching helps the teacher become more invisible and draws the people’s attention to the scriptural text, the Word of God.

This form of teaching can also inspire people to study the Scriptures on their own.
Rather than saying to themselves, “I don’t know how he got those points from this passage, but that’s beautiful,” it can cause people to say, “Oh, wow, I’m seeing where the text is making this point! I’m following the flow of this, and actually understanding it! This is great!” To borrow from the old saying, instead of giving them fish, this helps them learn how to fish for themselves. [Side note: using a translation in our teaching that the people can actually understand—without the need for the teacher to translate the translation(!)—helps greatly with this also. It’s wonderful to hear people tell me they’re understanding what they read in Scripture on their own for the first time.]

This kind of teaching also encourages more people to become teachers.
The unpleasant truth is that there are just not that many truly great preachers. Many churches endure preaching every week that is painfully subpar. This reality is even more evident today when we can watch the best preachers online anytime we like. And the pressure is real and somewhat understandable; after all, if you’re doing all the talking, you should be really good at it! But the encouraging thing is that there are a whole lot more people who can be effective teachers than can be excellent preachers! And seeing excellent teaching will often excite them that they can do this, too, instead of concluding that they could never do what the preacher does.

This way of studying the Scriptures seems much more authentic to a lot of people.
To many—especially those without a church background—a typical church sermon can feel canned and artificial. At best, it’s still a presentation, and they already get bombarded by too many presentations. But if people are studying the Scriptures and allowing people to ask any questions or make any challenges they want about the text in question—that feels real. I can’t tell you how many people have said to me something like, “Wow, you really take the Bible seriously. You’re okay with us checking everything out and asking you hard questions.”

For the reasons above (and I’m sure there are more I could have included), this kind of teaching can be a more effective component of making genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. But do we really want active participants . . . or do we actually prefer a passive audience? Do I want them to be moved by my message, or by the Scriptures themselves? Is it more important to me that they appreciate my opening and my closing, that they laugh and cry and are appropriately moved in the right places? Or is it more important that they’re actually learning and understanding more of the Word of God? Do I want them leaving being impressed with my preaching or excited / challenged / motivated by the truth of God we’ve studied together in Scripture? Please understand, I’m not at all suggesting that those who preach traditional sermons have wrong motives! I’m saying that interactive teaching is much more conducive to right motives. It helps get the focus off of us, and it becomes all about assisting the people of God to better understand and live out the Word of God.

So why wouldn’t we teach interactively? In the next post, we’ll look at some of the challenges of interactive teaching.

If you’re thinking of benefits of interactive teaching I didn’t include, please add a comment below and share them with us!