The western church holds the teacher above most spiritual callings. While we may not verbalize it, our services and programs say it loud and clear. Most Christians expect the greatest growth and change to happen during the sermon. It's the most critiqued part of any church. He didn't use enough scripture. It was too self-help-y. It was too long/short. I didn't really get anything from it today.
Who is the highest paid pastor? Almost always the teacher. If a church can only hire one pastor, what do they look for? A teacher. What takes up the most time in a general Sunday service? The teaching.
But it goes deeper. How do we structure our ministries to the body? Around teaching. What happens in our community groups/life groups/cell groups? Typically, the sermon is discussed, or a new teaching is presented.
Is the teacher important? Yes. Crucial. Jesus teaches again and again, with the few and the many. In Hosea says that Israel is in sin because it has abandoned the knowledge of God. What are the epistles if not long teachings?
But still, there is a danger here. The western mind values knowledge, understanding, information, above almost every other faculty of knowing, largely, I'd assume, due to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment. Reason, with the scientific method, rules. What does it mean to be a Christian in the West? It means to believe, to know the right things. A Christian has made an intellectual assent to truth. He knows, and therefore he is.
But Jesus did not take the same approach. Jesus taught His disciples, sure, but they seemed to have no idea what He was talking about most of the time. Peter moves swiftly from an affirmation of Jesus as the Son of God to challenging His submission to the cross. On the road to Emmaus, after His resurrection, He must again explain Himself to His disciples. Immediately before He rises to heaven in Acts, the disciples ask if they would soon liberate Jerusalem from the Romans. They still have no idea what He has intended in the proclamation of His kingdom. Jesus takes it in stride, and seemingly ignores the question. They'll find out soon enough, when he disappears into the clouds.
In fact, the disciples seem unsure and confused until the visible arrival of the Holy Spirit. Illumination, perhaps, as one of the Spirit's roles, finally opened their eyes to the gospel. Seemingly so, for after Pentecost there was no stopping them.
All that to say, Jesus's highest priority was not understanding. It was discipleship, in which the life of one is taken onto the other. Yoking. Jesus called the disciples not to a new bible study where the ultimate teacher would clear things up. He called them to follow Him as He lived. Teaching formed only a part of their spiritual formation. An important part, but still, just a part. Much more occurred in walking, watching, doing ministry themselves. They were healing and casting out demons long before they had any idea what the gospel truly meant. They just had an idea that this Guy was something else, and that He loved like no one else, had authority like no one else, and on top of that, He brought a new teaching. He was a teacher, but so much more, and so in discipleship they came to know Jesus the person, instead of Jesus the diagram.
Is this not the good news? That, as Hosea prophecies, God would be called Husband and not Master? What beautiful news that is to hardened ears.
This has massive ramifications. Firstly, those we pour into- do we lead and mentor and disciple as Jesus did, with more than information alone, but with life and ministry and walking and praying and healing? Do we introduce concepts, or Persons? Do we instruct them in worship, or show them the Lamb, before whom all knees bow?
And think alos of how this changes the way we read scripture. Instead of mining for truths, arguments, theologies- we meditate on it. We listen to God in it. We open ourselves to more than the surface-level statement, and begin to see in every page the pursuit of a loving God, the wrath of a holy God, the joy of a chosen people. With instruction- we cannot deny the beauty of truth, of theology, of good sermons and little scriptural nugs. God uses them. But He uses so much more as well. How can we open ourselves to knowing God in a well-rounded, discipleship-driven way, instead of through the west's favorite lens of pure, rational information? That is a good question.
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