By Joy L Wong
These days, the times when I most realize that good teachers should not be taken for granted is when my daughter asks me for help with her math homework. Despite my own knowledge of the subject matter, in the process of my explanations, somehow she nearly always ends up in tears. I then realize that I should have deferred the matter to my husband, who used to be a math teacher. A few minutes of explanation from him and she understands!
Clearly, good teachers not only know the subject matter that they are teaching, but they know how to explain things in a way that their students will be able to understand (and hopefully, without too much frustration in the process). But if ever there was a teacher with one of the most difficult subject matters to teach, it had to be Jesus. His teachings in regards to his coming suffering and death and what it would mean to all people were incredibly difficult to understand, and his teachings of the Kingdom of God were often surprising even to the learned religious leaders and teachers of the law (ie. Pharisees), and certainly difficult to live out and follow, even for us today.
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