One of my favourite movie series was Star Wars. I mean the six original ones, not these new ones that Disney are bringing out, I have no time for them.
Star Wars was great, the whole idea of a master and an apprentice really appealed to me. I started thinking, “oh who would be the ultimate master?” or “who would be the worst apprentice?”. Yeah I’m a bit strange. I might add when I watched these, it was pre-bible reading. So cut me some slack.
My brother Mark did an apprenticeship when he was younger, he did it as an electrician (unfortunately he wasn’t cut out to be a Jedi). He learned valuable craftsmanship skills for the trade. So it works is he would have a qualified electrician take him on, and teach him what to do basically, and eventually the papers would be signed off after 4 years, and there is some college stuff involved too, but I won’t go into detail on that.
The point of an apprentice is to learn, someone above you teaching you the do’s and don’ts of a particular subject. But what I like is, the person who is above you comes to your level and takes them baby steps with you, and doesn’t leave you in the open water.
Why am I telling you all this about being an apprentice? Jesus used a different word for this. He called it discipleship. We are disciples of His. How this works is, we are to be models of Him. We learn off other Christians who have been doing this longer that us. We read God’s word. We also have the Holy Spirit to help teach us. Ultimately as a Christian, we have to look to Jesus as our guide as to what to be like. It is not just an internal thing though, it’s also an external thing. We are called to disciple each other, build each other up, encourage each other, walk with each other and to run the race set before us.
Remember I was wondering who would be the ultimate master and worst apprentice? All I had to do was look at the Gospels!!
I’ll start with the apostles. These guys were un-schooled ordinary men, who constantly failed, constantly let Jesus down. Like why would Jesus choose them? Peter for example he was very rash, always throwing himself into deep water. He was the first to openly say to the group that he believed Jesus was the Messiah. Then fast forward to when Jesus is about to go on trial, he then goes onto deny him three times. But Jesus didn’t stop with him there, he once again came alongside him. He forgave Peter. Not only that Jesus put Peter in charge before Jesus ascended.
Then we have Jesus. The ultimate master, the only one to live a sinless life, the only one who lived a perfect life completely obedient to God. He is the one we should all look to for guidance.
When writing a blog, I usually try to finish it with scripture. The author of Hebrews puts it brilliantly:
“Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls!” Hebrews 12:2