Motivational Gifts #6: The Gift of Teaching, Its Strengths and Pitfalls

Motivational gifts are the foundational abilities the Holy Spirit deposits in every believer, and recognizing them lets you see God at work in ordinary service. In this sixth message of the series, the pastor reviews how all seven gifts in Romans 12 see the same situation differently, then gives the whole session to the gift of teaching: what a teacher is, how the gift shows up, and the pitfalls that can make a teacher critical or “drier than dust.” This message continues from Motivational Gifts #5 — Why Did You Call Me, Lord? The Gift of Serving and Martha’s Example.

Below you will find the full video, a structured summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a table comparing how each gift responds to the same moment, a timestamped outline, and practical steps you can take this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries in Merrill, Wisconsin, and posted on July 19, 2023. It runs about 67 minutes and ends with a show of hands as people identify their own gifts. The pastor had planned to cover two gifts, teaching and exhortation, but says the Lord spoke with him early the day before, so he slows down and gives the whole session to teaching.

He opens by echoing a point from earlier that morning: God is happy. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23), and anger is not on that list. God redeemed us, paid the penalty, and now rejoices over us with love. The gifts flow from that joyful, generous God.

Why Did God Call You?

Most people who receive Christ never ask why God saved them, the pastor observes. If someone called you and said, “I need you,” you would ask what for. God called us; we did not call Him. So it makes sense to ask Him what He needs us for and then try to do it. Life is more fulfilled that way.

He uses gift-giving to show why our gifts fit us so well. The better you know someone, the easier it is to give a useful gift. When you do not know a person, you have to ask others about their interests and needs. God knows you better than you know yourself, so the gifts He has given are not helter-skelter. They are exactly what you need.

The source of these gifts is heaven, carried by the river of the Holy Spirit. In prayer he thanks God for the promise of John 7:38, that rivers of living water will flow from within the believer. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all (1 Corinthians 12:7), so no gift should be looked down on. Every one of them exists to benefit the people around you.

That means God’s presence is not only a feeling. If you feel like serving someone, giving to someone, organizing people to finish a task or teaching someone something, the pastor says, that is God in the midst. If the gift of miracles raised someone from the dead in a store, everyone would call it God. When you encourage somebody, it is no different; it is the same God manifesting another way.

When asked how he is doing, he answers “super naturally,” because he works at keeping his mind on the kingdom and the King he serves. Understanding these foundational gifts also cures a critical spirit. Instead of asking why others do not do things our way, we learn to recognize God moving in them.

Three Kinds of Gifts and Where They Come From

The pastor separates three categories of giftings. The motivational gifts of Romans 12:4–8 are deposited within us by the Holy Spirit. The spiritual or charismatic gifts of 1 Corinthians 12 are manifested as the Spirit wills, so you may see one today and another tomorrow. The ascension or fivefold ministry gifts are listed in Ephesians 4.

There are seven motivational gifts. Most believers experience all of them at some point, but one or two tend to dominate, often because they feel more natural and so we grow more skilled in them. A pastor learns to be all things to all people and apply himself to whatever is needed, but even he has a few dominant motivations.

His foundational text is Psalm 46:1–5: God is our refuge and strength, and there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved. The gifts are given for this troubled earth. In the coming age, with Satan bound and no more temptation or problems, we will not need them. We need them now.

Romans 12 also warns against comparison. The pastor links it to 2 Corinthians 10:12: those who measure and compare themselves among themselves are not wise. Two people may share the gift of giving, one giving time and skill and the other giving money. It is the same gift expressed differently. “Different doesn’t mean better,” he says. “It just means different.”

Paul adds instructions to each gift: give generously, lead with diligence, show mercy with cheerfulness. Why spell that out? Because Satan will try to discourage us from using the gift. He compares it to someone afraid to drive over the holidays because another driver might run a stop sign. You can imagine a million scenarios. If a gift is squandered or unappreciated, the temptation is to quit, and Satan would love that.

Seven Motivational Gifts, One Moment

To show how each gift sees the world through its own lens, the pastor tells of a woman crossing a parking lot with an armload of papers. She trips, and the papers scatter everywhere. Each motivational gift reacts differently, and the table below follows his description of each one.

No response is wrong. Everyone in the body of Christ is first class at something, the pastor says, but we are not on a luxury liner with a few people working while the rest relax on the deck. We are on a battleship, and it is all hands on deck. A poster at the church says “I serve,” because everyone is meant to.

Gifts are not burdens, he adds; they help us carry other people’s burdens. But each gift can misread the others. A leader may seem controlling while coordinating everything. A mercy-motivated person may be put off by a prophetic person’s bluntness. A server may get frustrated with an exhorter who stops to encourage instead of pitching in. A children’s teacher may think everyone should teach children.

He notes that social media would be far better if people understood motivational gifts, since so much online criticism comes from seeing only through one lens. Our gifts shape our personalities. Understanding them makes us more patient with others and gentler with ourselves, and God perfects what concerns us (Psalm 138:8).

He reads from Discovering Your God-Given Gifts by Don and Katie Fortune, which says God has purposely limited our giftedness so that we must work together. They retell the six blind men and the elephant: one called it a wall, others a spear, a snake, a tree, a fan and a rope. Each was partly right; only together did they see the whole animal.

That is why, he says, the church has no job descriptions for its staff after 37 years. People are trusted to make their roles their own. He has also learned he does not have to excel at everything. The easiest way to starve a dog, he jokes, is to think somebody else will feed it. Use your gift.

The Gift of Teaching

Before teaching, the pastor briefly recalls the gifts covered so far. Prophecy (Romans 12:6) is the gift of perceiving: the seers or eye of the body, who discern motives, warn of sin discreetly and stay loyal to truth even over friendship. Serving (Romans 12:7) makes people the hands of the body, doers who love short-term goals and may overcommit.

For all of them he repeats Ecclesiastes 9:10: whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work in the grave. “Our giftings are a now gift,” he says. Even when people reject your gift, keep giving it. Jesus was crucified and still prayed, “Father, forgive them” (Luke 23:34).

Then he turns to the gift of teaching from Romans 12:7, reading the New Living Translation: “If you’re a teacher, teach well.” He teaches that the Greek word behind teaching means to instruct, clarify, illuminate, simplify and illustrate so that others understand. One definition he gives is the extraordinary ability to discern, analyze and deliver information and truth so that others will learn.

This is not the office of teacher from Ephesians 4. It is a foundational motivation. People with the gift of teaching love research, reading and digging into things. Some would rather research than tell anyone what they found, but they have the information ready when it is needed. Counselors are often motivated this way too, breaking things down so people understand.

The pastor explains a principle of hermeneutics, the study of how Scripture interprets itself: each passage has one interpretation but tens of thousands of applications. A teacher focuses on interpretation, laying one verse beside another. A preacher, often speaking to unbelievers or immature believers, stresses application. Teachers can become critical of ministers who apply a verse rather than expound it.

He gives an example from Psalm 23:1, “The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.” A believer might apply it as having no needs, and a teaching-motivated listener might object that this is not what the verse is saying. Both have a place. Jesus told the scribes, the teachers of His day, that they strained out a gnat and swallowed a camel (Matthew 23:24). The law is good, he says, but they missed mercy and love.

Luke is his model of a teacher. In Luke 1:1–4, Luke carefully investigated everything from the beginning and wrote an orderly account for Theophilus so he could know the certainty of what he had been taught, and he states the same purpose at the start of Acts. That, the pastor says, is exactly what a teacher does: research, understand and impart the truth of God’s Word.

Strengths and Pitfalls of a Teacher

When he was first ordained through John G. Lake’s organization, the pastor met Lake’s son-in-law, a teacher whose class on prayer was so dry that he and others nearly fell asleep. Yet that evening, when the man walked into a crowded restaurant, everyone stopped talking and turned toward the door because of God’s presence on his life. He simply had not learned to give practical application.

He also remembers Bill Etters, who never learned to read and had a hard past, but who was on fire after being born again. In Haiti, his wife would read a psalm and he would simply speak, and miracles followed. A teaching-motivated visitor was furious that the man had no grasp of the Word. The pastor answered that he could not even read: “Didn’t you see what God did?”

From there he lists characteristics of the gift of teaching. Teachers want to be accurate and honest, knowing revelation is progressive: truth builds like a house without changing. They are detail-oriented, notice discrepancies quickly, ponder facts before giving an opinion, and value continued learning, line upon line (Isaiah 28:10).

They validate sources, use the Bible as their standard, report facts systematically, love the history of words and prefer helping believers mature over evangelism. The pastor’s own story fits: he read one book cover to cover as a child, but after being born again the teacher in him woke up, and at one point he was reading fourteen books at once while teaching seven college courses.

Teachers often prefer preparing a message to presenting it, and they meditate on a truth. When someone interrupts, they lose their train of thought, so do not take it personally if a teacher is not very social while working something through. Meditating day and night is what brings success (Joshua 1:8).

Then the pitfalls. Teachers can be loners who prefer books to people and neglect family and friends. They can look down on those with less education, though God can give a child more revelation than fifty years of study. They may reject a whole message over one inaccurate detail. He cites Kenneth E. Hagin’s advice: eat the hay and spit out the sticks. They can be dry, stubborn, suspicious, and miss the spirit of the law.

His principle for every teacher is to invest time in meditation, not just study. Study alone becomes all word and all law. Meditation lets the Spirit of God bring love, understanding and goodness into what you know, so that it becomes God’s strength rather than the strength of your own mind.

Living Your Motivational Gifts This Week

Here are the practical steps drawn from this message on motivational gifts and the gift of teaching:

• Ask God why He called you. Take time this week to ask what He needs you for, and listen.
• Name your dominant gifts. Use the parking-lot story to notice how you instinctively react, and identify your one or two strongest motivations.
• Recognize God in ordinary service. When you feel the urge to serve, give, organize, teach or comfort, treat it as God’s presence, not just a feeling.
• Trade criticism for understanding. When someone handles a situation differently, ask what gift is motivating them before you judge.
• If you teach, add application. Pair accurate facts with practical life application so people stay awake and grow.
• Meditate, not just study. Set aside time to reflect on one verse so the Spirit brings love and mercy into what you know.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 God is joyful, not angry
• 1:59 Why did God call you?
• 3:03 The more God knows you, the better the gift
• 4:09 Three categories of gifts
• 6:37 Psalm 46: the river that makes glad the city
• 7:39 God’s presence is more than a feeling
• 11:19 Romans 12:4–8, the foundational text
• 13:51 Different doesn’t mean better
• 14:57 Satan tries to discourage your gift
• 19:28 The woman who dropped her papers
• 21:48 A battleship, not a cruise liner
• 24:28 How gifts misread one another
• 28:14 The six blind men and the elephant
• 33:12 Review: prophecy
• 35:41 Review: serving and Ecclesiastes 9:10
• 37:56 The gift of teaching defined
• 41:36 One interpretation, many applications
• 44:08 The teacher who was drier than dust
• 48:35 Luke as a model teacher
• 50:57 Bill Etters and the miracles in Haiti
• 53:20 Characteristics of a teacher
• 59:24 Teachers and meditation
• 1:01:45 Pitfalls of a teacher
• 1:05:28 Who has which gift, and closing prayer

Motivational Gifts Series

This message is part of a ten-part teaching series at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or continue where this one leaves off:

• First message: Motivational Gifts #1: The River, the Streams and the 21 Gifts of God
• Previous: Motivational Gifts #5 — Why Did You Call Me, Lord? The Gift of Serving and Martha’s Example
• You are here: Motivational Gifts #6: The Gift of Teaching, Its Strengths and Pitfalls
• Next: Motivational Gifts #7: The Gift of Exhortation and Why We Need Each Other

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I have more than one motivational gift?

Yes. The pastor says he does not know anyone with only one. Most believers have a combination and should see all seven in their lives to some degree, because they are all God’s grace. Usually one or two are dominant and shape how you think and react. In the closing moments he identifies himself as motivated by both teaching and prophecy.

Is the gift of teaching the same as being a pastor or Bible teacher?

Not necessarily. The pastor separates the motivational gift from the office of teacher in Ephesians 4. Many people with the gift of teaching never feel called to stand in a classroom or pulpit. They are interested in knowledge for themselves and others and simply want to be helpful. There are many more ways to teach than standing in front of a class.

Why does the pastor say teachers need meditation and not just study?

Because study alone can turn into all word and all law, the very trap of the scribes who strained at gnats. Meditation gives the Spirit of God room to bring love, understanding and goodness into what a teacher knows. The result becomes the strength of God rather than the strength of the teacher’s own mind.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Romans 12:4–8 — the motivational gifts
• Psalm 46:1–5 — the river that makes glad the city of God
• 1 Corinthians 12:7 — the Spirit given for the profit of all
• Ephesians 4:11–12 — the fivefold ministry gifts
• 2 Corinthians 10:12 — do not compare yourselves
• Ecclesiastes 9:10 — do it with your might
• Luke 1:1–4 — Luke’s careful account
• Matthew 23:24 — straining at a gnat

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

If this message helped you see your own gifts more clearly, there are many more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep discovering how God has designed you to serve.