We know the maxim: Live it before you teach it. But is this always practical, or even necessary? Depending on the setting, answers, like car mileage, may vary.
It’s noble to distinguish our professional Bible time—prep for talks, sermons–from our personal Bible time. We all know the value of wrestling with an issue or a biblical question before presenting any kind of teaching or life application. Further, we’ve all been burned by the consequences of teaching on an issue or subject that’s still a bit too raw or uncooked in our hearts and minds. There is, however, one area where personal and professional Bible time can overlap, and even should overlap: discipling teens.
Not only can this help us pick up a tailwind in our increasingly busy schedules, it gives us an opportunity to enter into the spiritual journey of our teens with real-time grappling. In fact, we will be more able to enter in to their questions with powerful responses that are guaranteed to bring deeper discipleship. Here are three such powerful responses.
I don’t know:
A key building block for discipleship is authenticity. Nothing screams authenticity more than simply saying “I don’t know.” Don’t be afraid of sacrificing Bible credibility; you’ll gain any lost ground in personal respect. Plus, it opens the door for the next powerful response, which is…
Let’s dig this out together:
One of the goals of discipleship is to develop self-feeders. We all know the adage about giving someone a fish vs. teaching someone to fish. Diving into Scripture with mutual curiosity on a subject provides the perfect framework for teaching a disciplee how to dig into God’s Word on his or her own.
Me too!
These two words deliver more encouragement than just about anything else we could say or do. They tap into the building block of authenticity and they provide the common bonds that get us to the level of fellowship that’s stressed throughout the New Testament.
Maybe the better maxim is this: live it as you teach it. Our teens, and your calendar, may be better served.