Good Teacher, Bad Student. (2 kings 12: 1-21)

The Bible Project Daily Podcast is an in-depth, daily study of the entire Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. 

Episode Notes: 

Many people look back over their lives and say, “I’m grateful for the teachers I had. And of course, they don’t always mean schoolteachers. Sometimes the most influential teachers are the people God quietly places in our path, a parent, a mentor, a pastor, a friend, someone who shaped us without ever holding an official position.

There’s no substitute for a good teacher, but, and here’s the twist, it doesn’t always work.

You can have a good teacher… and a poor student.

Something goes wrong.

Was the teacher unclear?

Was the student inattentive?

Did someone skip their homework?

 Well, there’s a story in 2 Kings that explores exactly that dynamic — a teacher and a student — and it has a lot to teach us….

Transcript

Good Teacher, Bad Student. (2 kings 12: 1-21)

Many people look back over their lives and say, “I’m grateful for the teachers I had.”

And of course, they don’t always mean schoolteachers.

Sometimes the most influential teachers are the people God quietly places in our path, a parent, a mentor, a pastor, a friend, someone who shaped us without ever holding an official position.

 I can say the same.

My spiritual life is marked by the men who invested in me after I came to Christ.

There’s no substitute for a good teacher.

But, and here’s the twist, it doesn’t always work.

You can have a good teacher… and a poor student.

Something goes wrong.

Was the teacher unclear?

Was the student inattentive?

Did someone skip their homework?

Well, there’s a story in 2 Kings that explores exactly that dynamic — a teacher and a student — and it has a lot to teach us….

So, turn with me to 2 Kings 12.

1 In the seventh year of Jehu, Jehoash became king, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah of Beersheba. 2 Jehoash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him. 3 But the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

4 And Jehoash said to the priests, “All the money of the dedicated gifts that are brought into the house of the Lord—each man’s census money, each man’s assessment money—and all the money that a man purposes in his heart to bring into the house of the Lord, 5 let the priests take it themselves, each from his constituency; and let them repair the damages of the temple, wherever any dilapidation is found.”

6 Now it was so, by the twenty-third year of King Jehoash, that the priests had not repaired the damages of the temple. 7 So King Jehoash called Jehoiada the priest and the other priests, and said to them, “Why have you not repaired the damages of the temple? Now therefore, do not take more money from your constituency, but deliver it for repairing the damages of the temple.” 8 And the priests agreed that they would neither receive more money from the people, nor repair the damages of the temple.

9 Then Jehoiada the priest took a chest, bored a hole in its lid, and set it beside the altar, on the right side as one comes into the house of the Lord; and the priests who kept the door put there all the money brought into the house of the Lord. 10 So it was, whenever they saw that there was much money in the chest, that the king’s scribe and the high priest came up and put it in bags, and counted the money that was found in the house of the Lord. 11 Then they gave the money, which had been apportioned, into the hands of those who did the work, who had the oversight of the house of the Lord; and they paid it out to the carpenters and builders who worked on the house of the Lord, 12 and to masons and stonecutters, and for buying timber and hewn stone, to repair the damage of the house of the Lord, and for all that was paid out to repair the temple. 13 However there were not made for the house of the Lord basins of silver, trimmers, sprinkling-bowls, trumpets, any articles of gold or articles of silver, from the money brought into the house of the Lord. 14 But they gave that to the workmen, and they repaired the house of the Lord with it. 15 Moreover, they did not require an account from the men into whose hands they delivered the money to be paid to workmen, for they dealt faithfully. 16 The money from the trespass offerings and the money from the sin offerings was not brought into the house of the Lord. It belonged to the priests.

(2 Kings 12: 1-17)

Verse 1 introduces us to the first character: Joash.

(And yes, the text spells it two ways — Joash or Jehoash, same guy but we’ll stick with Joash to keep it clear.)

He becomes king in the seventh year of Jehu, around 835 BC, and he reigns for 40 years in Jerusalem.

Then comes the key line — the one that unlocks the whole chapter:

“Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.”

There it is.

A teacher, Jehoiada the priest.

A student, Joash the king.

And as long as the teacher was present, the student walked with the Lord.

But the verse adds a subtle hint: “…all the days in which the priest instructed him.”

Which suggests that a day came when the priest was no longer instructing him… and things changed.

We’ll get to that later.

For now, the focus is simple: A good teacher and a student who responded well, for a time.

Scripture makes it clear that we all need teachers, and if you’re a believer, you are a teacher.

Let’s start with the most basic classroom: the home.

Deuteronomy tells us that parents are teachers. 

Deuteronomy 6 says:

Love the Lord with all your heart. Let His words be in your heart and then teach them diligently to your children.

When?

When you sit in your house. When you walk along the way. When you lie down and when you rise up.

In other words, teaching happens in the ordinary flow of life.

A good teacher doesn’t just lecture they weave the Lord into everyday conversation.

And before they teach, they model.

A good teacher is an example of what they teach.

 Pastors as Teachers. (2 Timothy 3–4)

Paul tells Timothy:

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God… therefore, preach the Word.”

A pastor is to:

Convince, Rebuke, Encourage, Teach, and do it with patience

Because people don’t “get it” instantly. Spiritual growth takes time.

Believers are Teachers. ( Hebrews 5)

Hebrews 5 says something surprising:

“By this time you ought to be teachers…”

He’s not talking to pastors.

He’s not talking to parents.

He’s talking to every believer.

How do believers teach?

Not usually by preaching sermons, but by being examples and by talking about the Lord in ordinary conversation.

That’s why fellowship matters.

That’s why meals together matter.

That’s why community matters.

A good teacher:

Loves the Lord, obeys the Word and lives as an example

They talk about the things of God naturally and regularly and that’s exactly what Jehoiada the priest did for Joash.

But that only one side of this relationship.

What about being a good student… Mostly

Back to 2 Kings 12.

Verse 2 says Joash did what was right in the sight of the Lord. But verse 3 adds:  “But the high places were not taken away…”

Ah.

There it is.

He did what was right, but not completely.

He obeyed, but not fully.

He listened, but not entirely.

He was a good student… but not a perfect one.

And that tension, that gap between good intentions and incomplete obedience, is where the rest of the story unfolds.

So, Joash is a good student, but not a perfect one.

Sound familiar?

Most of us aren’t exactly spiritual straight‑A students.

We’ve got a few A’s, maybe… a handful of B’s, a couple of C’s, and if we’re honest, maybe a D or two tucked away somewhere.

Some of us even have an F for fail we’d rather not talk about.

That’s Joash.

That’s the setup.

Now the passage shifts to show us some of the good things this student actually did.

They had a plan. Joash’s first big project was to repair the temple

Money was raised, priests collected it and used it to repair the temple.

Now remember the context.

Before Joash, there had been a queen, the daughter of Jezebel, and she had neglected the temple.

It had fallen into disrepair.

So, Joash decides to fix it.

And he doesn’t fund it through taxes or royal decree.

He says, “Let’s repair the temple using voluntary giving — whatever a man purposes in his heart.”

That’s remarkable.

But there’s a problem.

This was, on the surface, a good plan, but it didn’t work. Because it says that in the 23rd year of King Joash, the priests still had not repaired the damage.

Twenty‑three years.

Nothing happened.

Josephus, the ancient Jewish historian, suggests the priests didn’t think anyone would willingly give. So, the system stalled.

Joash, being a good student, steps in. He confronts the priests:

“Why haven’t you repaired the temple? Stop collecting money for yourselves. Use it for the repairs.”

He’s doing exactly what he was taught, holding people accountable to the Word of God.

So, the priests agree to a new plan. A building‑fund box.

If you’ve ever been in a church that doesn’t pass a plate but has a box in the back, well, they may have gotten the idea from Joash.

People could give voluntarily, privately, and purposefully…. And this time… it worked.

When the box filled up, the royal secretary and the high priest counted it, bagged it, and handed it directly to the workers — carpenters, masons, stonecutters and the people actually began repairing the temple.

No middlemen.

No bureaucracy.

No skimming off the top.

Just honest work funded by honest giving.

Verse 15 says: They dealt faithfully. That’s high praise in Scripture.

Verse 16 clarifies something important: The building fund went to temple repairs and the regular offerings; the sin and trespass offerings still supported the priests.

Two separate streams.

Two separate purposes.

Joash’s plan was simple: Repair the temple and do it with voluntary giving. But keep the finances separate…. And it worked, “As He Purposed in His Heart.” 

Now I want to camp here for a moment, because this is a New Testament Principle in an Old Testament Story

That’s New Testament language sitting right in the middle of 2 Kings.

Most preachers, when they talk about giving, talk about tithing.

But the Old Testament tithe wasn’t 10%. It was tithes, plural:

10%

another 10%

and every three years, another 10% for the poor

That’s 23⅓%, averaged out, if you’re counting.

And the New Testament? Tithing is conspicuously absent.

So, what does the New Testament teach? Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16: “Let each one give as he prospers.”

And in 2 Corinthians 8–9, the most extensive teaching on giving in the New Testament, Paul says:

Give willingly

Give not grudgingly

Give cheerfully

Give generously

Give as you purpose in your heart

And then he adds the law of harvest:

“He who sows sparingly will reap sparingly; he who sows bountifully will reap bountifully.”

You reap what you sow.

You reap more than you sow.

And you reap later than you sow.

That’s the principle Joash tapped into long before Paul ever wrote it down.

Which is why Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9:7: “Let each one give as he purposes in his heart…”

And that is exactly what Joash was practicing back in 2 Kings 12.

He was ahead of his time. He understood the principle long before Paul ever wrote it down. God loves a cheerful giver, not a pressured giver, not a resentful giver, not a guilt‑driven giver.

The New Testament is far more concerned with your attitude than your amount.

If you want a number to start with, fine — the Old Testament tithe might give you a baseline and aim to work up from there.

But the New Testament never commands tithing.

It commands cheerfulness, willingness, and purpose of heart.

And then Paul adds the law of harvest: You reap what you sow.

And then he says something astonishing: “God is able to make all grace abound toward you…”

In other words:

If you give with the right heart, God will see to it that you always have enough to keep giving.

That’s the principal Joash was living out here.

He repaired the temple, he organized the giving, he acted faithfully, and he did what was right in the sight of the Lord.

So far… so good.

But do you remember that little phrase back in verse 2? “…all the days in which Jehoiada the priest instructed him.”

That was a hint.

A shadow.

A warning.

Because now the story turns.

When the Teacher Dies, the Student Changes.

17 Hazael, king of Syria, went up and fought against Gath, and took it; then Hazael set his face to go up to Jerusalem. 18 And Jehoash king of Judah took all the sacred things that his fathers, Jehoshaphat and Jehoram and Ahaziah, kings of Judah, had dedicated, and his own sacred things, and all the gold found in the treasuries of the house of the Lord and in the king’s house, and sent them to Hazael king of Syria. Then he went away from Jerusalem. 

19 Now the rest of the acts of Joash, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?

20 And his servants arose and formed a conspiracy, and killed Joash in the house of the Millo, which goes down to Silla. 21 For Jozachar, the son of Shimeath, and Jehozabad, the son of Shomer, his servants, struck him. So, he died, and they buried him with his fathers in the City of David. Then Amaziah, his son, reigned in his place.

(2 Kings 12: 17-21)

As the text says, if you want the rest of the story, you have to go to 2 Chronicles (Ch 24) and that’s where the tragedy unfolds.

Here’s what Chronicles reveals:

When the priest died Joash stopped listening to the Lord and he began following the advice of ungodly officials.

He rejected the prophets God sent to warn him and worst of all he killed the son of the very priest who had raised him.

Imagine that.

The man who taught him.

The man who protected him.

The man who saved his life as a child.

And Joash murders his son.

A good student has become a bad student.

One commentator says Joash’s forty‑year reign can be divided into two halves:

Before the death of his spiritual mentor — faithful, obedient, teachable.

After the death of his spiritual mentor — unstable, compromised, disobedient.

And here’s the remarkable detail:

Chronicles says Jehoiada lived to be 130 years old — extraordinarily long for that era.

It’s as if God extended the priest’s life to try to keep Joash steady for as long as possible.

But once the teacher was gone… The student collapsed and the downward spiral begins.

Back in 2 Kings 12, the consequences unfold quickly.

A foreign king — Hazael of Syria, marches down the coast and threatens Jerusalem and Joash panics. Instead of trusting the Lord, he raids the temple treasury, the sacred things dedicated to God, and uses them as a bribe to buy off the enemy.

The man who once repaired the temple is now stripping it.

And then we see his own servants conspire against him and assassinate him.

And in verse 21 he is buried, but not in the royal tombs.

The people did not honour him because they no longer respected him. They don’t even mourn him.

A tragic end to a promising beginning.

This story is painfully simple:

Joash followed the Lord as long as his teacher lived, but when the teacher died, he stopped following the Lord…. And the consequences were devastating.

The problem wasn’t the teacher. The teacher did everything right, the problem was the student.

He never learned to stand on his own.

He never developed convictions of his own.

He borrowed someone else’s faith — and when that person was gone, so was his obedience.

And that brings us to the question this passage presses on every one of us:

Are you following the Lord, or are you following the person who taught you about the Lord?

That, I believe, is the core learning opportunity in this passage.

Now let me ask you a question — and I want you to sit with it for a moment.

Why do you give to Christian ministry?  

Think about that.

Some people give out of habit.

The religious institution may be perfectly happy with that, but the Lord isn’t always.

He wants cheerful giving, purposeful giving, giving that flows from the heart.

But this passage presses a bigger question than giving.

Why do you come to church?

I grew up in church, so early on, my parents made me attend. But when I first became a Christian as a teenager, I remember walking into a service and thinking. I’m coming voluntarily now. Nobody pays me. Nobody tells me, I just show up.

But as a young teenage as I got more involved, I began to notice something:

Some people come for social reasons.

Some come because their parents come.

Some come because their spouse comes.

Some come because their friends come.

And I found myself asking:

Why are you here? Is it social… or is it spiritual?

That question becomes especially important for children.

How many young people grow up in church, graduate, go off to university and then immediatly walk away from the Lord?

What happened?

They were following a human teacher, not the Lord Himself.

And that is exactly the lesson of 2 Kings 12.

Joash did what was right as long as the priest was alive.

He even understood the principle of giving “as you purpose in your heart.” He repaired the temple and he acted faithfully.

But the day his teacher died, he listened to other voices.

He  eventually ended up murdering the priest’s son and he handed the treasures of the temple to a pagan king.

He abandoned the Lord.

He was doing what was right in the sight of the priest… but not in the sight of the Lord.

And that is the danger.

There are people who get involved in Christianity because of a human influence, a parent, a pastor, a mentor, a friend.

And when that person is removed… we discover who they really were following.

So let me ask you plainly:

Are you a good student of the Lord… or just a good student of a human teacher?

Scripture warns us about this.

Some said, “I am of Paul.”

Some said, “I am of Apollos.”

But the right ones said, “I am of Christ.”

You can follow a human leader and look spiritual.

You can imitate their habits, their convictions, their vocabulary.

You can even convince yourself you’re doing what’s right in the sight of the Lord.

But deep down… you may not be following the Lord at all.

In preparing this message, I came across a pastor who wrote:

“During more than fifty years of ministry, I’ve occasionally witnessed the Joash tragedy. A godly wife dies, and the widower soon drops out of church and drifts into a worldly life. Sons and daughters go off to university and abandon the faith because their parents are no longer there to guide them. 

A good beginning is no guarantee of a good ending.

Joash had every opportunity to become a godly man. He had the best teacher he could have asked for but he never took God’s truth into his own heart.

So here is the question this passage leaves us with:

Are you following a leader…

or are you following the Lord?

That is the heart of 2 Kings 12. And that is also the heart of discipleship.

Outro:

Next time, we’re going to step 2 Kings 13 and ask, what happens when Christians don’t believe. 

It’s a further waring about faithlessness, and the quiet sovereignty of God.

I hope you’ll join me for that.

Until then, follow the Lord, not the teacher, unless that teacher is Jesus Christ himself.