In the midst of the crowd, Jesus affirmed, “The teachers of religious law are the official interpreters of the Scriptures. Therefore, practice and obey everything they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t do what they teach.”

Jesus was using irony to refer to those teachers who teach but do not practice; those he directly called “hypocrites.”

A “religious hypocrite” is someone who definitely wants to please God but is totally focused on the external, the superficial, the visible to others, and has neglected their inner condition.

The situation worsens if this hypocrite becomes a teacher. For them, there is the warning: “Dear brothers and sisters, don’t let many of you become teachers, because those who teach will be judged more strictly. And we all stumble in many ways” (James 3:1).

The advice is not aimed at discouraging us from being teachers of the Scriptures; rather, it’s about not skipping steps and following the natural process that Jesus carried out with his disciples.

First, we are called, then we are taught, then we begin to live out what we’ve learned, giving a good example to our family and community, and only then, are we trained to teach the Word of God with love and gentleness.