Spiritual Disciplines: Staying a Student
By Zach Chronley
This is part eight of a nine-part series on spiritual disciplines meant to edify the church on disciplining ourselves to fulfill Jesus’ commandment to love one another. Now more than ever, we need to be reminded, challenged, exhorted, and conscious of what we’re doing with our time and how we’re disciplining ourselves according to God and his word.
Learning
Most things in life take practice. Very few things can be mastered quickly and even fewer people have natural talents or aptitudes that make learning easy. For most of us, learning new things is intimidating. But the call of Jesus in Matthew 11:19 begins with, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jesus desires us to learn from him. Being disciples means being learners. If we can learn how to be teachable, or if we learn how to learn, we will be amazed at what God can do in our lives and through our lives. We’re called to learn many things and being in the practice of learning well will serve every follower of Christ.
Maybe the largest category of learning most Christians are involved in is committing to hearing the teaching of God’s word through Sunday sermons, but just as many heard Jesus preaching and walked away, it’s important that we approach sermons or any Christian learning with a teachable spirit. The Bible has a word for this: humility. Before we even hear the words, we need to remind ourselves that we are there to learn. If all we do is let our minds wander like a bored high-school student, we shouldn’t question why we don’t feel like we’re learning!
We all learn at different speeds and in different ways, but our calling to learn is the same. When our formal education ends, we tend to leave our strategies for learning behind us. Many recall information by taking notes while listening or reading. However we learn best, we should use these strategies towards learning in church. One of the surest ways to remember what we learn is to teach it to others.
Learning and Discipleship
Learning is like a reservoir that needs outlets to stay healthy. When we hoard information, we become like the Dead Sea. This doesn't necessarily mean that everything we read needs to be broadcasted to social media or that every dinner party needs us to be informing everyone of the new trivia we’ve been learning, but there should be outlets in our lives in which we specifically share and teach others.
Traditionally in the church, this is discipleship. We share what we know. Finding someone younger in the faith and teaching them what we know and what we’re learning. Too often, we feel we don’t know enough, and that leads us to be too fearful to participate in discipleship. But even if you’ve been sitting in churches for thirty years and have never read a single book, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you haven’t learned anything.
Reading and education is really only a small part of learning. Our life experiences have a lot to teach us. Many young men and women need to be shown the lessons about marriage or singleness that only experience can bring. Failure is also a powerful teacher. The fear of failure actually keeps us from being able to learn the lessons that only failure can teach us. Nothing is wasted if we can learn from our mistakes and our heartbreaks. What a gift it is to learn from the failures and warnings of others.
Humility and Learning
We also learn through observation. Jesus commonly asked his disciples to observe natural things as an exercise in learning more about how God is the master over creation. He told them, and us, to consider the birds of the air and the flowers of the field (Matt 6:26-27). He revealed that this can teach us about what God values as well as the futility of worrying. God is always trying to teach us and will do so, as long as we’re humble, paying attention and being teachable.
A humble person values being interested more than seeming interesting. The Bible declares us to be slow to speak, and quick to listen (James 1:19). It’s amazing how much we can learn from others if we are simply interested in what they have to say. What a blessing it is to our spouses and children if we listen to them, even if all they teach us is more about themselves. Similarly, God is always speaking to us, and if we have a teachable spirit we can learn so much more about him.
Everyone knows more about something than you do. A person disciplined at learning can learn at every opportunity. We’re operating in pride when we believe we’re the only ones with something important to say. The apostle Paul knew how to learn the values of who he spoke to and was able to contextualize the gospel to best communicate it to them as he did at the Areopagus Paul writes in Acts 17:23 “For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” Paul learned through observing his audience.
Testing for Truth
1 Thessalonians 5:21 tells us we should, “test everything and hold fast what is good.” And how do we know what is good? The Bible shows us what God has told us is good. We have a standard to test everything against. We continue to grow in our knowledge of him, because as 1 Peter 1:3 tells us, “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence.”
It’s important that we learn the truths of the Bible because scripture paints a portrait of some who are evil that will twist the words of God that are “always learning, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 3:7). This is why ultimately it is so important for us to know and grow in our understanding of Scripture because even Jesus used the Word of God to deflect the attacks of the enemy.
The Bible also contains warnings about unhealthy attitudes towards the increasing of knowledge. Paul warns the Corinthians that if we do not grow our love and the same or greater rate as we grow our knowledge, we become puffed up or more arrogant (1 Cor 8:1). We need to guard ourselves against feelings of superiority because of what we know. Remember that God chose to use the weak and the foolish to shame the strong and the wise (1 Cor 1:27). We need to stay humble. Rather than gaining facts, we need to learn to love others more.
Donald S. Whitney said that freedom is the reward of discipline. As we mature as followers of Christ and undertake this lifelong journey of learning, we will find in ourselves the freedom that comes from discernment and wisdom. The more we have learned, the freer we are to make choices that lead us on the paths towards godliness and life. Let us learn with humility what it is that God wants to teach us each day.
Learning Resources:
Learning God’s word: How To Read The Bible by BibleProject
Learning virtues from reading: On Reading Well by Karen Swallow Prior
Learning from the natural observations of the Bible: A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Phillip Keller