Have you ever felt like you wouldn’t account for anything? This week, Pastor Ian from Garstang Free Methodist Church brought the message as we worshiped outdoors in Wyre Estuary Country Park.
Teachers and parents can sometimes write off troublesome children as not accounting for anything, and this negative prediction can overshadow a child for the rest of their life and become a self-fulfilling prophecy as the child believes that they will always be a failure.
What’s worse is that this can affect how the child perceives God throughout their life, and they might live a life with no interest in God because they believe that God also considers them as useless and good-for-nothing.
16One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simong and his brother Andrew throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. 17Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!” 18And they left their nets at once and followed him.
19A little farther up the shore Jesus saw Zebedee’s sons, James and John, in a boat repairing their nets. 20He called them at once, and they also followed him, leaving their father, Zebedee, in the boat with the hired men.
(Mark 1:16-20)
2000 years ago, the Jewish education system worked like so.
Firstly, it was only for males.
The first tier was for ages 6-10 years. The Jews believed that the children should be “stuffed like an ox” with the Torah. The children had to memorise the entire Torah, the entirety of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Numbers.
The second tier of education was for 11-14 year olds. They had to learn the entire Old Testament, so the Writings, Prophets and Psalms, in addition to the Torah. It wasn’t uncommon for a 14 year old to have committed the entire Old Testament to memory!
The boys were tested by the Rabbis asking them theological questions. For each theological question, they had to rephrase it in a different way, including the answer. Imagine the following conversation between a maths teacher and student, and then imagine the conversation with theology and Bible verses instead of maths:
Teacher: “What is 4 multiplied by 2?”
Student: “What is 8 divided by 2?"
As the boys became young men, they had to sit a further exam, likely as complex as an Oxford or Cambridge exam today. They would be questions that asked for Scriptures that referenced other Scriptures, such as “Give me 4 references to Deuteronomy that appear in Habakkuk in order?” Very complicated!
This education was known as the “Rabbi’s Yoke”. It was a heavy complex burden, and as we review it, we can see why Jesus described His burden as “light” in comparison!
The Jewish students had to follow their Rabbi around everywhere they went, and Orthodox Jews still do that to this very day!
Following the very difficult examination step, anybody who didn’t pass was told to go home, learn a trade, have a good life and pray that their sons would do better than them. In other words, they were told that they wouldn’t account for anything.
As you can see, this system shows the context behind Jesus’ disciples lifestyles and why they were so willing to drop everything to follow Jesus. They will have failed their Scripture tests and been rejected by their Rabbis. Jesus didn’t choose the most educated people as Hid followers, He chose those who the culture saw as failures. Jesus was planning to transform them and make something of them more than they had ever thought!
So ask yourself today: the risen Christ is asking you to follow Him. You don’t have to work to earn His favour, He is calling you to merely follow Him and trust in Him as your Saviour and Lord.
Will you follow Him?