What's the Difference?

"When Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in their cities." Matthew 11:1

Teacher. Speaker. Preacher. Lecturer. Trainer. Educator. Mentor. What do you see in this list: synonyms, distinct offices, or just confused overspeak? English has so many words for these type of people and, based on how they are used in culture, the differences between them can be miniscule.

When you hear the word preacher, is this what you see?

Or this?


When you hear teacher, do you see this?


Throughout the last few months, a question has ebbed and flowed in my mind: what is the difference between teaching and preaching? My gut tells me there is one, but I have never seen a sufficient definition for them. I'm not implying they aren't out there, but they have yet to cross my path. (I thought about putting dictionary definitions here, but they were too worthless to waste space on.)

Throughout the New Testament we see the words "teach" and "preach" used together and separately, by many different writers. In the near future I intend on doing a word study of "teach" and "preach" in the OT and NT, but for now I want to set the stage. This is the beginning of a thought.

Here is what I think I know:

• American English (the only language for which I can speak with any shred of authority) often uses "preach" as a subset to a more general "teach." I suspect this is inaccurate.
  
• They are very similar, but have key differences.
• It is more than the size of the audience.
• It is more than the style of delivery.
• It is more than the content of the message.

The thing that makes those last three points true is the "more than," because I think audience, delivery, and message are a part of it, but the difference cannot be defined by those. They are more descriptive than prescriptive, perhaps.

What do you think? What is the difference between Teaching and Preaching? Ever heard a good definition of either? Have your own opinion? I want to hear it!

Just Playing

Last night we had Core Team Training, like every Wednesday, at O'Rourke's. I was there much too early, but I was in the area with nothing to do and it didn't make sense to go all the way home beforehand. So I showed up and chatted with Andy and Sara, and worked on my computer a little bit. Ava (3 year old) was enamored with my computer. I opened Photo Booth and she about died. I think we took pictures of her for twenty minutes! If we got a really funny one, she would belly laugh so hard, and scream. It was super funny. Eventually Paisley (8 year old) showed up, and thought it was great too. Of course Lil' Bubba had to some see what was up, but I don't think he quite appreciated it. Well, I can't tell you all of this without showing some of them to you!

Lately

Clearly I am bad at keeping this thing consistently updated, but I figure that if I get up one post a month you won't think I'm dead :) Here are some snapshots of what I've been up to recently:

I went back to camp last week for the Youth Workers' Retreat, but I got to stay at home. This is a storm that kept trying to rain.
A couple of weeks ago, my little sister Anna (age 8) told me a story about how they lost power at the house, an outlet melted, the phone jumped across the room shooting lightening, and pictures fell off the wall during a storm. This is the tree that was struck by lightening, in case you couldn't figure that out on your own!

More has been going on, but that's all I have for now!