For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. It is obviously much easier to believe a teacher who provides a good example of what they teach, and because of this teachers have a serious obligation not to contradict what they say by what they do. Every school teacher knows that children will be learning from their attitudes and the way they interact with others as much as from the formal content of the curriculum.
Parents are perhaps even more aware of it.
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. The authority of sound teaching Yet in spite of their bad example Jesus told the crowds they should follow what the scribes and Pharisees taught. He counselled the people to do what teachers of Israel said, not what they did. This is not the only place where Jesus pointed to Jewish tradition as an authoritative guide in spite of the human and spiritual weaknesses of the bearers of the tradition. It is an emphasis that is particularly strong in the Gospel according to Matthew and less strong elsewhere in the New Testament.