Teaching Through a Glass Darkly

Today on Facebook, Stephen Crosby said this:
One of the problems in "ministry" as one gets older, is that you have to come to grips with the fact that, unfortunately, people actually believe the stuff you taught them when you were crazy!! You can't be upset for people for still hanging on to garbage you taught them, after you have "moved on!" Someone once said: "I used to "kill" people over things I don't even believe in any more!" Ah . . . God, you truly put your treasure in "clay pots" . . . crazy clay pots at that.  

It not only drives me crazy for what I have taught in the past, it drives me crazy when I broach any spiritual subject (to even comment on it) in the present. 

Even Paul said that we see through a glass darkly - that now he knows in part but then (life after?) he shall know fully as he is known.

The Message says this:  "We don't yet see things clearly.  We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist.  But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright?  We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!  But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.  And the best of the three is love.

How do teachers do it?  How do we teach through this dark glass, this fog, this mist?  How do you know that what you believe and impart to your students, family and friends is true?

If Paul himself admitted that he didn't see everything clearly and clung to Faith, Hope and Love...I think that is a good example for me.  

If my life centers on NOT what I know, but on my behavior that exemplifies Faith, Hope and Love, and if I encourage anyone who happens to be following me to center on these things too, then there may be a place for me as a teacher.  If it is dependent on what I KNOW about God, or Scripture...then I'm sunk.  All I can do is tell you what I THINK I CAN SEE.

It is also what I look for in a teacher.  I want someone who tells me that he "thinks it might mean ...."  I don't want a teacher that makes it seem like he has figured it all out.  And if I don't see faith, hope and love as a central part of his behavior, you won't find me listening at all.