Jesus Is the Teacher

I have the pleasure of having a dad as a teacher. As fathers and sons go, we are both, very quietly, extremely competitive… especially when it comes to being right.

I was about 16 and, as every 16-year-old lad will tell you, was never ever wrong. In my arrogance, I said that I would wash the car, doing so without any help or suggestions from my dad. I spent over an hour washing, cleaning, polishing, scrubbing and hovering until the car was glistening in the sun, showing off all of my wonderful work.

My dad, watching from afar with the eagle eye that every dad has when watching one of his children, was surveying my – at least according to him – peculiar methods. He then wandered over, after I’d ‘finished’, and began complaining about the quality, or lack thereof, of my performance.

He himself then spends another hour washing, cleaning, polishing, scrubbing and hovering until he sees the car, glistening in the sun, showing off all of his work.

He then calls me over to teach me what he believes is a valuable life lesson.

Now, given our ultra-competitive relationship, I was wholly unyielding in accepting that the car looked better after my dad had had his go. We ended up having a full-blown argument over the quality of our respective cleaning efforts!

But actually, as he so often was, my dad was right (Please don’t read this dad, cos I’ve still not told you and I can’t face the shame of admitting you were right)!

Jesus is also a teacher.

In fact, Jesus is The Teacher, as today’s passage details:

” 28 When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, 29 because he taught as one who had authority and not as their teachers of the law.”

Ultimately, I was too cocky and ignorant to allow my dad to teach me how to clean a car, and while cleaning a car is not some be-all-and-end-all life lesson, the attitude of being teachable is something that, when it comes to our relationship with Jesus, is absolutely vital.

Let’s not be arrogant and self-centred. Let’s, instead, be humble, moldable and impressionable, allowing Jesus the Teacher to shape our character, our lives and our behaviour.