UNSCHOOLED

Part One
I have a confession to make. Some times I feel proud that I graduated from college with a Bachelor’s Degree and am about to do so again with a Master’s. I think to myself, “At least I’ve made the effort to better myself so that I don’t have to labor with my hands like the uneducated.” I imagine this is what the Pharisees thought of Jesus’ misfits; “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13). I don’t think the apostles were ashamed, however, for the same was said of their Lord. “The Jews were amazed and asked, ‘How did this man get such learning without having studied?’” (John 7:15).
You know how school works, right? “For the lips of priests ought to preserve knowledge, and from his mouth men should seek instruction” (Mal 2:7). One person preserves knowledge by dispensing to those who reap from what the scholar has sown. The teacher studies what others have studied from still further others, and then shares his lessons with his students expecting that they might learn from him as he did from his teachers and they from still others. The learned spend time studying books written about Jesus by authors who had studied other books written about Jesus, and then passing it on to us as we learn from their knowledge of our Lord. However, this wasn’t the way our Jesus schooled His men.

Part Two
As some of you know, I’ll be teaching cadets at the United States Military Academy hows to writes gooder come August of this year. Considering what I’ve learned from the University thus far, I’m nervous thinking that it will be my job to educate the future leaders of America in the art and science of communication. What if I don’t know my stuff? What if I teach the way less excellently?
What if the person who preaches to us about Christ isn’t really as in tuned to Jesus as they think? Jesus found common men considered “unschooled” by their religious leaders and trained them to become like the Eternal King of Heaven and Earth. His training plan did not follow the accepted format of educational experts back then or now. Today, we teach about Jesus from a lectern called “pulpit” to a classroom called “congregation” and expect that those who hear truth will inevitably reciprocate its practice. Jesus’ training was hands-on, like the unschooled laborers of today who teach their skill not from the pages of a book but by the sweat of their brow and dirt-caked hands. Jesus trained His disciples to make disciples by teaching them Person to person, not pulpit to pew. You see, if you follow Jesus’ lesson plan then you will never worry if you know your stuff or if you’ll lead others astray. Jesus’ disciple-making methods are not about telling others what you know but rather introducing them to Him who you know.

“My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power” (1Cor 2:4,5).