Teaching Teachers

SCRIPTURE: Ezra 7-8; Luke 20

Ezra 7:25
I authorize you, Ezra, exercising the wisdom of God that you have in your hands, to appoint magistrates and judges so they can administer justice among all the people of the land across the Euphrates who live by the Teaching of your God. Anyone who does not know the Teaching, you teach them.

Luke 20:45-47
With everybody listening, Jesus spoke to his disciples. “Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preen in the radiance of public flattery, bask in prominent positions, sit at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they’ll pay for it in the end.”

OBSERVATIONS: Ezra is delegating. And the delegates are disseminating. Knowledge is being shared in the interest of living in right relationship with one another. In Luke, the opposite is the case. Knowledge isn’t being used to build up the church, but the teacher. It is to be shunned and avoided.

APPLICATION: More small group emphasis? I think so.

PRAYER: I think I understand what I am to do, God. But I know that there is so much I don’t get, so many factors and variables that I am leaving up to you. Send those who will provide the next right answers–and the next right questions after that!  For Christ’s sake, Amen.