Teach Like a Disciple

Exploring Jesus' Instructive Relationships from an Educational Perspective

Lederhouse

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781498289801
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Although much has been written about P-12 teaching from a biblical perspective, this study focuses on Christ's relationships with a diverse group of individuals: wealthy and poor, women and men, unschooled and well-educated, loud and quiet, influential and powerless, those whom Jesus knew well and those who were strangers to him, those of his own faith and culture as well as those outside of it. These individuals are remarkably similar to the students we teach in our public and private school classrooms today.Each interaction between Jesus and an individual focuses on what we can learn from the student and Jesus as well as what we, as teachers, can apply in our profession. As in our own practice, some students learned their lessons well; others failed. For some, we are uncertain when or if they achieved Jesus' objective for them. Whether we are novices or experienced educators, we can learn through these instructive relationships how to be teachers who follow Jesus' example in seeing our students' potential, holistically caring for them, and ultimately having a positive impact on their lives. Through exploring these biblical relationships, we can gain a better understanding of how to teach like Christ's disciple.

1

Teach Like a Disciple

As an adult Christian, I have always been intrigued by the Apostle John’s words at the conclusion of his Gospel:

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you might have life through his name. (John 20:30–31)

This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true. Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. (John 21:24–25)

Because of these references, I have often wondered what other signs or miracles Jesus performed and what impact he had on the individuals who witnessed these amazing acts. Three years of a teaching ministry had to produce a large number of conversations and supernatural events, no doubt requiring the four authors of the Gospels to leave many of these interactions out of their written accounts. This insight, in turn, has led me to wonder what specific criteria the Holy Spirit and gospel writers used for determining which signs and encounters would lead to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and which ones would not be instrumental to this process. These criteria for inclusion would create an amazing rubric, wouldn’t they? I can picture Luke looking at his outlined list and deciding to include the account of the crippled woman healed on the Sabbath but determining that the healing of another individual should not “make the cut.” I look forward someday in heaven to learning this rationale and to hearing all these other individuals tell their perhaps less instrumental but still significant, life-changing stories.

These two questions have led me to a conclusion. Since these Spirit-led authors followed a careful selection process for relating Jesus’ impact on our world, those encounters that were included must be critically important for us to study. They deserve our repeated attention even after our journey to conversion. Jesus himself did not come to simply write down the plan of salvation for us; rather, his ministry focused on teaching others, healing others, and ultimately saving others. His was always a relational ministry. The authors of the gospels recorded his engaging interactions with those he sought out and those who searched for him. In effect, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s task was, in large part, to record the lesson plans of the Master Teacher. Although Jesus’ objectives may not have been aligned to state or national standards, these exemplary lessons provided a powerful means for understanding that God loved humankind to such a degree that he sacrificed his only Son for our redemption.

Although much has been written about teaching from a biblical, Christ-centered perspective,1 few of these books have started from Christ’s relationships with specific individuals. It is my hope that through these instructive relationships, we can be teachers who follow Jesus’ example in engaging our students and communicating how we value them along with the wonders and realities of the world we inhabit. My goal in studying Jesus’ content and pedagogy within these stories is that we will learn to teach with the same mind-set he taught. As his followers, we will gain a better understanding of how to teach like a follower of Christ—how to teach like a disciple.

Why should teachers study these relationships?

The first reason we should study Jesus’ relationships is that God himself is relational, as defined most succinctly in 1 John 4:8: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” One cannot love without being relational, because genuine love must be directed toward others. The overarching theme of Scripture is the redemptive story of a God who loved his creation even after it rejected him. This love was so great that he rescued it through the sacrifice of his own Son, Jesus. Throughout the Old Testament, God revealed this plan of rescue through covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David.2 These covenants, which reflected God’s unfailing love, were his promises to those who were faithful in their relationship to him.

In the New Testament, we see a loving relationship between the Father and the Son expressed in the prayer Jesus offered at Gethsemane. Within this prayer, we see both their love for each other and the love Jesus has for his followers, as indicated by his desire that they experience the same type of relationship he had with his Father. “I have made you known to them and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26). This prayer, offered just minutes before his arrest, trial, and crucifixion, demonstrates the depth of his love for us and his commitment to God’s rescue plan. This commitment resulted in a new covenant through which Christ’s sacrifice provided a ransom for our sin, enabling us to receive the promise of a great inheritance (Heb 9:15). The Father’s love for us is also communicated in Paul’s Letter to the Romans. He writes, “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:32).

The relational aspects of the Holy Spirit were promised by Jesus when he assured the apostles that they would not be alone after he returned to his Father:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16–17)

We are so privileged to be loved by such a relational God.

The second reason for this type of study is that good teaching is relational. Charlotte Danielson, creator of the “Framework for Teaching,” a structure that is used for teacher evaluation in most states, devotes an entire domain to the teacher-student relationship and the guidance he or she provides for student-to-student relationships. Both of these components are critical to forming a positive classroom environment for learning. She states, “Teaching depends, fundamentally, on the quality of relationships among individuals.”3

Parker Palmer also emphasizes the importance of the relationship between student, teacher, and content in The Courage to Teach:

Good teachers possess a capacity for connectedness. They are able to weave a complex web of connections among themselves, their subjects and their students so that students can learn to weave a world for themselves. . .The connections made by good teachers are held not in their methods but in their hearts.4

Professional educators rely on their ability to connect to learners and connect those learners with content, but teachers also need the ability to read people as well as the textbooks that supplement their instruction. Although they use this skill to determine whether students understand a new concept, this type of social perception extends beyond academics. When students or parents walk into a classroom, teachers need to perceive their emotional states by reading nonverbal cues. If visitors show signs of being upset, teachers need to be able to quickly determine whether they are angry, heartbroken, resigned to an outcome, or ready to protest. Teachers also need to determine whether the conflict is due to something they have done or due to a school policy, or if it is personal in nature. The ability to connect well with a diverse group of learners, parents, and colleagues is a rather sophisticated but essential interpersonal demand of the profession.

The third reason for studying the relationships of Jesus comes out of a need for justice. Teaching is a complex profession, but one of its key components is to make a rich and rigorous curriculum accessible to every learner. This would not be challenging if every learner had the same background experiences, economic resources, interests, and primary language. But this has not been the case. The history of American public education can be characterized as a struggle for educational equity. It chronicles the broadening of learning opportunities to include women, students of color, particularly students who are non-native English speakers, as well as those students who require special education services in order to achieve their academic potential.5 But school achievement today is still determined largely by economic factors. What you learn and how you think are often dependent upon the wealth of your family and school community. Yet research has indicated that teachers committed to implementing culturally responsive pedagogy can make a significant difference. Eric Jensen states, “The relationships that teachers build with students form the single strongest access to student goals, socialization, motivation and academic performance.”6

For educators who are committed to serving Christ, teaching and advocating for educational justice are not optional. They are required elements of being individually and corporately obedient to him. Timothy Keller writes:

The justness of a society, according to the Bible, is evaluated by how it treats these groups [widows, the fatherless, immigrants, the poor]. Any neglect shown . . . is not called merely a lack of mercy or charity, but a violation of justice, of mishpat. God loves and defends those with the least economic and social power, and so should we. That is what it means to “do justice.”7

Jesus’ response to the individual, despite the dictates of unjust cultural norms and poverty, consistently communicated respect, inclusiveness, and empathy for his diverse students. He has much to teach us about “loving our neighbor” within an educational context.

What does this study involve?

Each of the subsequent chapters focuses o...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Chapter 1: Teach Like a Disciple
• Chapter 2: The Relational Jesus and the Heartbroken Student
• Chapter 3: The Demanding Jesus and the Student Who Craved Success
• Chapter 4: The Holistic Jesus and the Student Who Needed Healing
• Chapter 5: The Multicultural Jesus and the Student Who Needed Acceptance
• Chapter 6: The Challenging Jesus and the Gifted Student
• Chapter 7: The Patient Jesus and the Student Who Craved Attention
• Chapter 8: The Perceptive Jesus and the Quiet Student
• Chapter 9: The Provocative Jesus and the Judgmental Student
• Chapter 10: The Purposeful Jesus and the Students Who Wanted Him to Please Them
• Chapter 11: The Transforming Jesus and the Student No One Believed in
• Chapter 12: Parting Words
• Bibliography