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Written by BJ Richardson for “The River Walk” @ http://tworiversblog.com/

Original post @ http://tworiversblog.com/2014/05/28/john-714-15-education-through-interaction/

John 7:14-15 (Education Through Interaction)
by BJ

Then, midway through the festival, Jesus went up to the Temple and began to teach. The people were surprised when they heard him. “How does he know so much when he hasn’t been trained?” they asked. (John 7:14-15)

Read: Proverbs 5:1 – 7:27

Relate:

What good is a college education? What is the point behind the tens of thousands of dollars we drop annually into a piece of paper that will sit on a frame on an office wall for the rest of time? Why do we spend a decade trying to pay off a downloading of knowledge that has long since proven itself of very little worth?

I think college is good for two things: First, it points our learning in the right direction. The learning and education is up to us. We need to earn it for ourselves and getting a PhD from an Ivy League school is of no greater worth than graduating from Hamburger University if it isn’t put to good effect. A good professor or teacher will direct your learning and provide a foundation a lifetime can build on. They won’t just spit out facts they expect you to be able to regurgitate on a test a few weeks later.

Also, college is a place for a person to build relationships with others who will be working in the same field and who are working together in the process of learning both their education and life lessons. I would say 90% of what I learned during my college years I learned through interaction with other students and during my internships. It did not happen in the classroom but rather in the chapel or the student union. It happened in the dorms and the dining halls. My book learning truly took off once I had already graduated.

React: Education through interaction. That was Jesus’ training as well. He didn’t sit at the feet of one of the great Rabbis. He didn’t get His education or His understanding of the Father through the rigorous memorization and recitation program that was so prevalent in His day. No, He simply spent time with the Father. Lots of time. They say it takes ten thousand hours of intentional time spent on a thing to become an expert. That is twenty hours a week, fifty weeks a year, for a decade. I think it would be fairly safe to say that Jesus was an expert at least twice over by this point in His life. The question is, how much time am I spending with the Father? In what other, pointless things, am I well on my way to becoming an expert?

Respond:

God, I long to be an expert in You. Help me to narrow my interests. All too often I find myself flitting from one pointless thing to another going nowhere in my life and doing nothing with my time. Help me to be intentional. Help me to be focused. Help me to live in the discipline of spending time, and more of it, with You daily. I need You. And those I know and interact with need me to share the education of that can only be acquired through interaction with You.