Teach like Jesus: Starting the Discussion
About twelve years ago I remember sitting at my desk pondering about the idea of preaching narratively, or preaching as a storyteller. At the time I was wrapped up in reformed theology and all of the baggage that comes with it. I loved the things I was hearing at the time, but for some reason it just wasn’t jiving with my own voice or communication tendencies.
As I drifted away from that camp of the church, I became less intrigued with weekly sermons and more focused on the idea of discourse, saying this phrase quite a lot, “Why do we go, sit, and listen to one person’s opinion on scripture for 45 minutes every week?”
Mind you I was in a form of deconstruction at the time, so part of that was deconstructing the evangelical method of communicating the teachings of Jesus.
I spent several years just discussing the Bible and the implications of the way of Jesus, with others. Most of the time I found myself in a dedicated moment of teaching with a group of people and feeling like my voice was being found.
Everything Coming Together
As I continued to discuss the way of Jesus with others, I began to find that more people felt the way I did about the emphasis on monological teaching. And that there were a lot of people out there with teaching gifts, but no where to put them into practice.
Before, I get ahead of myself I want to make the statement that I'm not anti-pulpit ministry - there's a time and a place. I just think that we have created so much time and space for this one practice and to an extent it's created a cult of celebrity in the church.
Seeing these young men and women with excellent natural ability to teach, and a lot of times the spiritual gift of teaching, with no where to share broke my heart. I remember feeling this way the Summer of 2012, seeing a bunch of my peers aching to unpack the scriptures and point to Jesus, but no where to do it. It pushed me to start a preaching and teaching lab out of my house, where one person would teach every week to a group of around 10-20 - we called it The Underground.
My desire is to see everyone activated in their God-given abilities, so I made space for it.
Back to where I am at in all of this.
Sitting in these moments of discourse gave me multiple epiphanies about the way Jesus taught - what we were doing wasn't that different than what happened during Jesus' ministry.
Teaching the Jesus Way
Look at any moment Jesus is teaching in the Gospels (let's exclude the Sermon on the Mount for just a moment) and you will find Him sitting at a table, outside someone's home, or in the synagogue. And people are always, seemingly, interrupting Him - they weren't.
Jesus made room for interaction with His teaching, even from His opponents.
There are three operative Greek words associated with Jesus' active teaching;
Theologi - to converse in the company of others.
Homileo - to discuss or discern with companions.
Didasko - to hold discourse and expect action.
Every single one is about open dialogue and leaving space for interaction with the message, in the form of questions and speech. This was the way of a Rabbi - it's how they taught. Dan White Jr. illustrates this well,
"Jesus was a Rabbi. We naturally project our Enlightenment lens onto Jesus’ teaching style and turn him into a platform orator who could hold thousands of people’s attention with his hour-long sermons. Instead, Jesus used many rabbinic teaching methods that were less performative and more interactive and disruptive."[1]
What we are used to in the West would have been categorized with the Greek word "kerygma", which is only used in relation to Jesus' ministry when the Gospel writers are talking expressly about the nature of Jesus' ministry, not it's operation. And we assume so much with the Sermon on the Mount, that he taught all the way through it with complete silence from the crowds - the culture at the time was used to listening for a moment and then interacting instantly with what was being said.
And if Jesus isn't enough for you to see that this dialogical method of teaching was in operation, let's look at Paul in Acts 20v7-12:
"On the first day of the week we came together to break bread. Since Paul was ready to leave the next day, he talked to them and kept on speaking until midnight.
Now there were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a certain young man named Eutychus, seated in the window, was sinking into a deep sleep as Paul talked on and on. When he was sound asleep, he fell from the third story and was picked up dead. But Paul went down, threw himself on the young man, and embraced him. “Do not be alarmed!” he said. “He is still alive!”
Then Paul went back upstairs, broke bread, and ate. And after speaking until daybreak, he departed. And the people were greatly relieved to take the boy home alive."
Paul talked all night long, or the words used here was "dialegomai" (to ponder, to converse, dispute, discuss, to reason with, to discourse in a more conversational character, mingling thought with thought) and "homileo" (definite above).
They created a hermeneutic (interpreatation) of the scriptures and way of Jesus, together. Each one brought something to the table.
What Now?
I was trying to learn how to teach the scriptures and through my study of Jesus, I learned.
The rabbinical style of teaching is much needed in today's world. We are do enthralled with "rockstar" teachers and don't think much of ourselves or how the Spirit is working in and through us. Some of you have a gift of teaching and are being asked to use it, some have a gift of encouragement and are being asked to use it; the list could go on.
I ultimately bring up this way of teaching because we have lost the idea of "the body" in being "the body of Christ" - this way of teaching is one of many ways to recapture, "every part working to the benefit of the whole".
My desire is teach in such a way that leaves space and room for the Spirit to work through others, in the midst of that teaching. I'm still learning and struggling through it, and there are moments where I need that full 45 minutes to unpack something. That's ok - we just need to sometimes acknowledge that a gathering or small group is going to go a little longer than expected.
Following Jesus is a sacrifice - a lot of times a sacrifice of your time.
Citations
[1] White, Dan. “The Act of Dialogical Preaching.” The Art of Dialogical Preaching, pp. 6
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