Session 1

The Master & The Apprentice

READING:

WHO IS OUR TEACHER?
Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy (p. 297 - 299).

Who teaches you? Whose disciple are you? Honestly.

One thing is sure: You are somebody’s disciple. You learned how to live from somebody else. There are no exceptions to this rule, for human beings are just the kind of creatures that have to learn and keep learning from others how to live. Aristotle remarked that “we owe more to our teachers than to our parents, for though our parents gave us life, our teachers taught us the good life”.

It is hard to come to realistic terms with all this. Today, especially in Western cultures, we prefer to think that we are “our own person.” We make up our own minds. But that is only because we have been mastered by those who have taught us that we do or should do so. Such individualism is a part of the legacy that makes us “modern.” But we certainly did not come by that individualistic posture through our own individual and independent insight into ultimate truth.

Probably you are the disciple of several “somebodies,” and it is very likely that they shaped you in ways that are far from what is best for you, or even coherent. You are quite certainly, as I am, the student of a few crucial people, living and dead, who have been there in crucial times and periods to form your standard responses in thought, feeling, and action. Thankfully, the process is an ongoing one, and is to some extent self-correcting.

Originally we are the disciples of our parents or other family members most intimately related to us. Usually this is very good. They may be dear, strong people who know God and walk in his ways. It has mainly been so for me and for many others.

But not always. Our original family connections may be anything from mildly debilitating to disastrous. We know much more about this today than we did just a few decades ago. We have a pretty good idea, for example, of how children raised with alcoholic parents turn out. They learn from their relationship to their alcoholic parent how to be in this world—fairly tragically in many cases.

Then we are the disciples of our teachers, then of our playmates and peers—one of the most potent of “discipling” relationships—then perhaps again of our teachers. But now, in our teens and twenties, our teachers play quite a different role. They do much to set in stone the major thrusts of our more or less consciously chosen self-image that will make or break us in the important connections of our life.

These last teachers often include some very glamorous and powerful people. They may indeed be teachers—instructors of some type, as in the armed services, or even academic professors. But they may also include public figures of various kinds: artists, musicians, writers, professionals. Nearly always they convey to us a strong impression of what life as a whole is all about. This provides the absolutely necessary orientations of conscious behaviour toward ourselves, others—and God. We must have such orientations, even if they be wrong.

It is one of the major transitions of life to recognize who has taught us, mastered us, and then to evaluate the results in us of their teaching. This is a harrowing task, and sometimes we just can’t face it. But it can also open the door to choose other masters, possibly better masters, and one Master above all.

The main goal of this reading is to help you think about who has shaped your life up to this point and discuss the critical influencers of our lives.

A few questions to help you think:

1.      We are all somebody’s disciple. Who have been the major ‘teachers’ that have made you who you are?

2.     How have they shaped you? (discuss your behaviour, worldview, attitudes, opportunities, interests, hobbies, fears, experiences)

3.     How have they failed you?

Takeaway thoughts from the reading

• Maturing as a Christian means we prepare ourselves to do life like our Master Jesus did life. We become ‘apprentices’ to Him and seek to learn from Him.

• During our younger Christian years, we are shaped by the many Christian influences in our life. Now that we have matured, we deliberately choose to be ‘shaped’ by Jesus through His life in the Bible.

• Apprentices choose to become like Masters. You are choosing to learn from Jesus in the hopes to one day become more and more like Him (1 John 2:6 NLT).

Read Matthew 5 NLT

The main goal of the study of Matthew 5 is to understand what Jesus requires from us as committed apprentices of Him. Consider firstly about what today’s tradesmen & tradeswomen would require from their apprentice in terms of their attitudes and actions.

 Matthew 5-7 is Jesus’ first major teaching in Matthew’s Gospel to the crowd that followed Him and the Disciples who devoted themselves to Him. Matthew 5 gives clear teaching about some of the most important attitudes (v. 3-12) and actions (v. 13-48) he expects from His apprentices.

Helpful points & context to consider

• Matthew 5 – 7 is popularly known as The Sermon on the Mount. It is the one of the most famous passages of scripture and some of its key teachings are well-known even outside of Christian circles.

• The Sermon is a remix of the 10 commandments seen through the new Kingdom reality of Jesus coming to earth and bringing in the New Covenant. The themes Jesus teaches about is a reimagining of the Law of Moses.

• The teaching is very practical and provides many opportunities for reflecting on how well our lives currently line up with Jesus’ teachings. Be warned though: the point Jesus is trying to get across is that we all fall massively short of every one of these. And that’s the point he is trying to emphasise to all who would follow Him.

Let’s think about some of the attitudes and actions that come out of Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 5.

A few examples include:

Can you see any others in these passages?

Want to go deeper?

You could also watch a lecture from The Bible Project’s Tim Mackie on the full Sermon on the Mount to more deeply understand the significance, background and Biblical connections of the passage @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GHcEsIfu2Y

Reflection Questions:

What are some major heart ‘attitudes’ I need to work on to be ready to learn from Jesus as His apprentice?

At our next meeting on Sunday 15th May, we would love each of you to come prepared to share a testimony of attitudes that Jesus is continuing to shape in your life and past attitudes that have changed as you have submitted yourself to His teaching.

Now let’s find out our challenges from Session 1!