God Believes

So I was watching a video teaching last night from Rob Bell, the creative and insightful pastor of Mars Hill Church in Grand Rapids. He was making some excellent points about understanding the cultural context in which Jesus lived and breathed and had his being. I figure Palm Sunday is as good a day as any to talk about this.

You see, back then, Jewish children went to school just like ours do, but they also learned the Torah, or the books of the law, or - as we know them - the first five books of the Bible. By the time a Hebrew child was ten, he or she had memorized Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. Memorized.

At that point, the brightest and best would continue their studies. The rest of the children would then return home and be apprenticed to their parents or someone else in the village to learn a trade. The children who went on with their learning then spent the next four to five years memorizing the rest of the Old Testament. Memorizing it. Learning what it means. Studying it.

Then, at roughly the age of fifteen or sixteen, the brightest and best of these students - or the best of the best - would apply to study under a Rabbi. The Rabbi would ask them questions about what they had learned. Question upon question, a real grilling. Most would not live up to the Rabbi's expectations, and he would tell them to go home and learn a trade. Help their parents in their old age, and so on. But one or two, the Rabbi would see in them something special. They would see a person who could do what the Rabbi does, who could one day replace him and carry on the teachings of Scripture. At the end of the oral examination, to that student, the Rabbi would say, "Come, follow me." And from that moment on the student would leave his home and live with and serve the Rabbi, following him everywhere and studying with him.

What does all of this have to do with us? When Jesus called his first disciples, they were all engaged in the fishing trade. Fishing. Do you understand what that means? They had failed the Rabbi test. They were home, learning a trade. They were not the "best of the best." Yet Jesus said, "Come, follow me," and knowing those words meant the Rabbi had approved of them, they dropped everything and followed Jesus.

And those common fisherman and tax collectors, and folks just like you and I ... well, they changed the course of human history.

The moral of the story? Sometimes it's not so much that we believe in God ... for, you see, he believes in us.