This brief outline may serve as a nucleus for thought by the student, and may suggest a general plan, of which the details can be wrought out by the individual teacher.
LESSON V.—THE TEACHER’S PREPARATION.
I. The Necessity of Preparation.—All that was adduced in the last lesson to show the importance of the week-day work, might well be repeated as arguments for the preparation of the lesson.
1. It is necessary from the limitation of time.—The teacher must study his subject thoroughly, in order to employ to the utmost that precious half hour of the lesson.
2. It is necessary from the nature of the subjects.—No one should venture to instruct upon the all-important, the profound, the difficult themes of the Gospel, who has not given them special and intense thought.
3. It is necessary from the condition of the pupil.—Because the scholar is unprepared, careless, unthinking, the teacher must be alert, able, equipped. Any one can teach a genius, but it requires a genius to teach a dullard.
II. The general aims of preparation.—In the teacher’s study of the Scripture three aims should at all times be kept in view.
1. His first aim should be to interpret the meaning of the Word.—We should study, not to interject into the Scriptures our own views, or the doctrines of our school of thought, but to ascertain what God meant in the Book, to learn “the mind of the Spirit.”
2. His second aim should be to satisfy the needs of his own spiritual nature.—No man can feed others unless he has himself been fed. Let the teacher fill his own heart with the Word of life, and then he will be able to inspire his class with hunger for the truth.
3. His third aim should be to supply the needs of his class.—He is a teacher as well as a learner, and must ever study with the full knowledge of his scholar’s needs, seeking in the lesson for that which is especially fitted for them and can be adapted to them.