Learning and Teaching

Most people have been through school. You go in not knowing math, science, or English, and someone spends their time trying to teach you or train you how to do something like addition. Most of us have been on the other side, trying to train a new employee or teach a child to drive or your spouse some new ability. Those in both positions can find the experience very frustrating. The student can struggle with not understanding how 2+2=4, and the teacher might struggle with how the student cannot understand that 2+2=4. It takes a lot of humility and patience for someone to learn something new.

Have you ever thought about that when it comes to following Christ? We are to become students of Christ. In some ways that might be easy, but in other ways it can be confusing and frustrating. Why do I need to be kind? That is not the way I have always done it, and the old way has worked for me. So Jesus came along and showed and taught us how to live through the Bible. We must be humble enough to accept that. Something else that Jesus has given us is a family to help us grow. We call that family the church. According to Titus chapter two, we are to learn from those who are older or more experienced. That can be tough because of my pride. I can think I have it all figured out and do not need to listen to anyone. Humility.

The opposite side of the coin is teaching those less experienced about how to handle life as a Christian. I think about Jesus trying to teach his apostles and how many times I might have yelled at them all for their immaturity. But Jesus just patiently teaches them. I want to teach the lesson once and be done. However, the reality is that did not always work for me as a student, and it will not always work for my students. Patience.

Who do you need to have patience with or humility to learn under?