1. 6. Sunday Service Live - 23rd April, 2023 | Jos - Facebook Teachers do, nevertheless, use words. Such an approach challenges the highly problematic individualistic mentality and values of most models of Western schooling, now spread throughout the world, with their emphasis on personal achievement and the consequent divisive competition for individual prizes on the part of both scholars and students. According to one set, especially prominent in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), Jesus admonished his followers to observe the law unwaveringly (Matthew 5:17-48). 43a. The synagogue required no priest to minister; this and the reading of the Old Testament prepared the way for the gospel. ; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994). [33] Hagner, Matthew, xlviii. Accordingly there were innumerable and well-known occasions on which some event or dispute or question became a moment of spontaneous education and enlightenment. [15] Lachs disagrees with this, arguing that while sitting was a standard teaching position in the later half of the first century, in the early part of the century the . . [my translation]). Adultery Who brought in a woman caught in adultery? [55] Gupta and Lingenfelter, Breaking Tradition to Accomplish Vision, 25. The Gospels refer to the disciples apparently frequent disputes about relative positions of status and power, even during the last supper (Mark 9:3337; 10:3545; Luke 22:2430). Jesus himself did not belong to the intellectual elite of his day; Paul perhaps did, but the visible priority of his life was to know and declare Christ crucified with all that that entailed (1 Cor 2:12; Phil 3:711). [10] P. R. Gupta and S. G. Lingenfelter, Breaking Tradition to Accomplish Vision: Training Leaders for a Church-Planting Movement (Winona Lake: BMH, 2006), 38. The great purpose for which theological education exists, however, is that men and women who have been fished should be baptised and integrated into Christs body, so becoming functioning members of a community in the midst of which God himself dwells. Jesus structured their lives and activities in such a way that they were constantly being challenged to question and learn from a multiplicity of informal situations.45, There are clear implications for theological education. While such a goal is by no means inappropriate, in the light of our discussion it is scarcely adequate. He taught the twelve, and he taught the crowds. They spoke of everyday, well-known realitiesa sower sowing, a merchant trading, fishermen hauling in their catch, a traveller attacked by brigands, labourers waiting for work in the marketplace, and so on. In doing so, Jesus sent a surprising message to the crowds waiting for him. Before Jesus spoke to the people, he said to his followers, "Be careful of the yeast of the Pharisees. 4. Indeed, not only the explicit curriculum but the hidden and null curricula will also be deliberately and consciously shaped to reflect that single outcome above all else. 3. Indeed, the most fruitful learning experiences are invariably collaborative: iron sharpens iron. The disciples learning was not simply a cognitive process, but a reorientation of life, values, and character, through experiencing the life of Christ quite as much as through hearing his words. [16] Coleman, The Master Plan of Evangelism, 34. The teachings of Christ suggest relatively little emphasis on testing of knowledge. And he spake to them many things in parables." Matthew 13:1-3 ASV <p>Illustration of Jesus sitting in the stern of a small fishing boat, reaching out to the people on shore and teaching in . The style of Jesus teaching, his educational approach, was obviously rich and varied. . [54] Banks, Reenvisioning Theological Education, 105. Indeed, after the earlier calming of the storm, the disciples were already pondering the issue together: What kind of man is this? . There's no denying that Jesus knew, believed, and warned against the absolute reality of hell. Context. Jesus' custom is described as "He started teaching them" (Mark 10:1 Clear Word Version). Its distinctive featuresthe dynamic and informal didactic approach, communal character, missional goal, and, most important of all, the transparent integrity of Jesus own life at its very heartmust surely challenge our own often rather anaemic efforts in Christian training. [31] R. T. France, Matthew: An Introduction and Commentary (Nottingham: IVP, 1985), 113. .35. On each occasion Jesus rebuked the attitudes that lay at the heart of the quarrel, but also turned the moment to advantage by teaching about power and service and especially drawing attention to the character of his own mission as the paradigm of true discipleship: For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). See also Frame, Proposal for a New Seminary, in n. 56 above. Perhaps the greatest drawback of the church-school dichotomy is that theological education takes on the individualistic mentality of Western culture, rather than the community model of Scripture.53 Such a community emphasis also raises a question mark over the implications of distance learning, which tends to isolate learners from one another as well as retaining a heavy emphasis on the cognitive dimension of education to the exclusion of more or less everything else. Perhaps then, as well as wrestling with the scholastic structures actually in place in order to bend them to the purpose Jesus had in view, we might seriously ask ourselves whether more radical, even iconoclastic, approaches are needed. In so doing the teacher would be responding to questions people were really asking and connecting timeless truth to contemporary realities.
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