Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Last week, I asked a pair of questions during the sermon. The first was, "What kind of verb is the word follow?" Immediately, the right answer came from several directions: "Action!" Then the second question, "How similar is that word to what we're doing right now?" Crickets, at least for a few seconds. Then the realization ... it's impossible to follow Christ by just sitting down.
There are times to sit and learn, but we will never be followers of Jesus if sitting down "learning" is the bulk of our Christian experience. Sitting to listen to a sermon, sitting to learn in a Bible study or Sunday school class, sitting in a circle in a small group. All of these are valuable and important. But they do not comprise the phrase following Christ.
To follow anyone, we must do what they do. That's the simplest definition of follow. The word in the original language of John 6:66-71 carries the idea to follow a teaching by obeying it. A follower of Jesus does the same kinds of things He does (within the sphere of human ability). It is a stretch to call oneself a follower of Jesus based just on regular attendance to sitting-and-learning events.
Let's look at this another way. Let's consider the word obey in terms of being a learner. But before we do, let's also look alternate ways to think about the word obey.
Obedience as "ought". Perhaps this is the most common view. We do because we're supposed to. It's what good followers do. We ought do some things, and we ought not to do other things, and getting those categories sorted out well means obedience.
Obedience as righteousness. Take that a step further, and you can look at obedience as a form of righteousness. By obeying, you're becoming more righteous - a better person, a purer person.
Both ideas have some merit. There is some sense of "ought" to obeying Christ - we certainly ought to. There is even a sense that we do become more righteous the more we walk in His ways (even though we cannot merit His favor or earn salvation in any way). However, I think there's a stronger motivation than these that God has for us for obedience.
Obedience as learning. Jesus taught His disciples, sometimes sitting down as a group, sometimes on a hillside or in a boat, and sometimes along the way. But teach He did. However, He also had His disciples do. They handled the fish and the loaves, they retrieved the donkey, they prepared the Last Supper, they went out by two's to tell others about the Kingdom. He did not expect them to obey just because they ought to or to make them more righteous. He did this to teach them! As they obeyed, they would learn.
Why do we expect Him to teach any differently today? Have we outgrown the need to do in order to learn? Can we just study forgiveness and learn it, without actually ever forgiving anyone? Or, will we only learn forgiveness when we actually forgive someone?
That would mean that Jesus wants to me forgive not just because I ought or in order to be more righteous, but to really, truly, actually learn forgiveness. And I need to learn forgiveness because that's one of His key attributes. I cannot get to know the forgiving Christ well without learning forgiveness by forgiving people.
Not just forgiveness. Apply this same idea to anything He wants us to learn: love, joy, grace, generosity, compassion, humility, patience, endurance, surrender, and so on. We won't get to know well the Christ who loves unless we learn love by loving people. Go on down the list.
So, why do so many of our Christian teaching venues have chairs?
Consider the seated learning as the "first half of learning." Then consider the unseated, action verb learning as the "second half of learning." Whenever you learn something about walking in the way of Christ, don't consider that you've learned it until you're doing it. Take that lesson and find some way to do it right away - that day, that week, sometime before you try to learn the next thing. Don't declare you learned something awesome in a sermon until you're doing that awesome thing or actually living according to that awesome thing. Then you've learned it!
The last thing we want for our Bible studies is for us to learn something that we're going to disobey only to come back the next week and learn something else we're going to disobey.
You will get to know Christ better by this. It's a way of learning! Jesus even says so Himself in John 14:21. Rather than some mystical appearing of Jesus for those who obey, I rather suspect what He means is, "As you obey, what you are doing is getting to know Me in ways you can't learn by just sitting in a chair."
The one who has my commandments and keeps them—that one is the one who loves me. And the one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him. (John 14:21)
