The Spirit as a Teacher

When he, the Spirit of truth [Holy Ghost], is come, he will guide you into all truth . . . John 16:13
. . . The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost . . . he shall teach you all things . . . John 14:26

When we enroll in a school of some kind, the first two things we have assigned to us are a teacher and a textbook. God has made the same provision for His church. Our teacher is the Holy Ghost, and our textbook is the Bible. This is one of the countless reasons that we need the Holy Ghost; without it, we have no teacher.

It stands to reason that the best teacher of the Bible would be the author of the Bible - whom the Scriptures prove is the Holy Ghost (II Peter 1:21; II Timothy 3:16). When the Spirit begins to teach, scriptures you may have read time after time suddenly become clear and meaningful. There are millions of people who will testify that they did not understand the Bible until after they were filled with the Spirit of its author. The apostle Paul was taught almost exclusively by the Holy Ghost and then went on to write fourteen books of the Bible (Galatians 1:12 ).

If not for the teaching of the Holy Ghost, there would be a great void in our scriptural understanding. If a person has not been filled with the Spirit of truth (John 16:13 ), he should seek it as a promise from God (Acts 2:39 ).

Testimony of the Spirit as a Teacher. I can’t tell you the number of times I have heard explained the difference between conviction and condemnation. Yet when I asked God to teach me the difference, He answered! He used my own daughter to teach me. One afternoon, my daughter was berating herself for having had bad behavior earlier that day. As I listened to her, I understood that she was condemning herself because I tend to do the same thing myself when I make a mistake. I immediately spoke to her that she should not do that. It is the enemy wanting her to feel bad about herself. I further explained that God wants you to feel sorry (or convicted) about what you did wrong, not feel bad (or condemned) about yourself! As I helped my daughter, God helped His daughter -- me -- understand the difference, and He brought to mind a scripture I had read only days before, “For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust” (Psalm 103:14 ). God does not expect us to be perfect, so we shouldn’t expect it of ourselves. Wow!