Who You Think You Are
Have you ever loved the idea of something but the actual thing was not something you loved? For example, I love the idea of the beach. The sun, the sand, the sea! But the reality of it is less than joyous for me. My skin turns red. I quickly dehydrate. The squinting gives me a headache. And the sand, let’s just say it gets everywhere.
Teaching the Bible can feel like that. You might have read one of the other posts or a newsletter that reminded you that you can be imperfect and feeling unprepared and under qualified but God can still work through you. You might have felt encouraged… until you started your next class.
You’ve been learning but you still feel like a slot filler, running the program. You’re just a teacher. Not a bringer of transformation.
It’s time to attack that thinking. Not because it’s not natural but because it’s not helping you. And the science proves what Scripture was already saying.
Identity Shapes Teaching
You might be a teacher now but you were a student first. Your experience as a student, the quality of your teacher training, and the environment and leadership around you as you teach, impacts how you see yourself as a teacher. (1) The way in which you choose to teach and the effectiveness of your teaching is a direct result of your teacher identity. Beyond this, the research is showing that teacher identity shapes the students but it has a larger impact in society.
As a teacher, you teach as you perceive yourself to be. Your knowledge matters but your identity as a teacher matters more.
This is something echoed several times in Scripture but Paul sums it up with he’s talking to Timothy.
Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers. 1 Timothy 4: 16
In this portion, Paul is encouraging Timothy to know who he is in Christ. He’s telling him to set the example because other people are watching him and learning from him. This final verse in Chapter 4, urges Timothy to watch his teaching but to also watch himself.
Paul knew that Timothy’s self-perception mattered to his leadership.
Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. 1 Timothy 4: 15
Paul encourages Timothy to practice. He wants him to track his own progress. He wants Timothy to be aware of his own ability to grow and his actual growth.
I Timothy 4 shows us that Paul understood what science is confirming, teachers are not just deliverers of content. Teachers are communicators of identity in Christ.
Life Beyond the Classroom Matters
You can be given the best training, told countless times who you are in Christ, and even teach Truth clearly but if you don’t actually believe it outside the Bible teaching time, then your students will never truly believe it either.
What you believe about yourself impacts how you communicate.
There are multiple influences including motivation, task interpretation, commitment, experiential background, and even your belief in your own ability to actually teach. (2) These factors all impact what you’re actually communicating.
That belief in your own ability to actually do the teaching is not just as simple as telling yourself that you can do something. It’s built through experiences, cultural and social messages, and your general state of mind. (3)
Once again, we see science is not telling us something new. Science is just stating Biblical Truth with more scientific language.
We can’t help our students walk in the fullness of what God is calling them to if we don’t believe that it’s possible. And as much as we might say that it’s possible, if we don’t actually live that way, our students see it. We need to check ourselves first. We need to be mindful of our thoughts and how they come out in classroom.
It’s for this reason that we need Romans 12: 2:
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12: 2
We don’t have to stay trapped in the thinking built by experiences, warped messages, or less-than thinking. We can do as David did and strengthen ourselves in the Lord.
That renewal isn't a one-time event. It's the ongoing work of the teacher who is committed to becoming.
What This Means For You
Timothy hadn’t reached his full potential before he started teaching. Paul wasn’t trained in church planting before beginning. From Nehemiah, Moses, Peter, and Jeremiah, no one started after they learned it all. You don’t have to wait either.
You are being built and shaped even as you teach. Your teacher identity doesn’t have to be fully established. It’s a process and your identity will build over time. (4)
You are constantly becoming a teacher.
Every challenge you see as an area for growth rather than a defeat. Every victory you celebrate and remind yourself of. Every time you practice, you are changing the way you view yourself as a teacher. (3)
However, you must make the effort to take the time and reflect on your teaching. It’s not enough to do it. You must take the steps to honestly look at your teaching - the good and the areas for growth. (5)
The Bible uses the word “consider.”
Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Luke 12: 27
So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Romans 6: 11
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 1 Corinthians 1: 26
Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead… Philippians 3: 13
Bible teachers must constantly be considering themselves with a heavenly point of view. Your starting point is not the end. Your brain is constantly telling you something. Is it repeating what it has always heard? Is it continuing to tell you that you can’t or that you’re not enough?
It’s time to re-consider.
It’s time to practice what we actually teach. Our students need to not just hear the words but they need to see the lessons in action.
You have never been just a teacher. You have always been the most loved child of a King.
Zhang, Y., & Wang, P. (2022). Twenty years' development of teacher identity research: A bibliometric analysis. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 783913. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.783913
Kaplan, Z., & Göl-Güven, M. (2025). Teachers' SEL identity (SEL-ID): An intersection between teacher identity and social and emotional learning (SEL). Behavioral Sciences, 16(1), 58. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs16010058
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. W. H. Freeman.
Mastandrea, A., & Palaimaitė, G. (2021). Identity development of foreign language teachers in Lithuania. Verbum, 12.https://dx.doi.org/10.15388/Verb.24
Hamman, D., Gosselin, K., Romano, J., & Bunuan, R. (2010). Using possible-selves theory to understand the identity development of new teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26(7), 1349–1361. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2010.516975
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