February 1, 2016

Mark 4:21 He said to them, “Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don’t you put it on its stand?”

The “he” is Jesus. Teaching by asking questions is sometimes called the Socratic Method named after Socrates the Greek philosopher. As far as I can tell there is no indication that Jesus was aware of Socrates who lived around 400 years before him, but who knows for sure? Jesus was a consummate story teller but also used questions to teach as the above exemplifies. Many people have a teacher who influenced them. Do you? If so, they probably challenged you to think in ways that you hadn’t previously realized you could. They probably raised questions you had to struggle to answer but in the struggle found something deep and rich. They opened some aspect of the world to you in previously unimagined ways. How grand! We continue to revere and read about Jesus today for many reasons. One reason is that he is one of the most powerful teachers in human history. We have his teaching in the gospels- what a treasure! This week, how are you learning from Jesus?