DISCERNING OUR TEACHERS

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All the material below is from the "A Year With God" devotional by Richard Foster.

Day 56, 02/08/2010, Discerning Our Teachers, Romans 12:2
Discerning Our Teachers

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2

As Dallas Willard observes in The Divine Conspiracy, we are all somebody’s disciples.6 At different times in our lives we are the students of our parents, our playmates, our teachers, and our peers. These apprenticeships are necessary, so that we can learn about the world and our place in it, how to act and talk and treat one another. Whether we mean to or not, we also apprentice ourselves to books, magazines, TV shows, and movies. When we spend a lot of time with particular people, books or TV shows, their habits, ideas, and behavior patterns start to become ingrained in us. That is why it matters who and what we surround ourselves with. God wants to renew us from the inside out, transforming our minds, so that we become ever more like God as revealed in Jesus Christ. But if we are spending time with things or people not of God, we will find ourselves changing in ways we may not intend.

Within the next ten days, take a block of time to consider the central influences in your life. Jot down a time line of your life, dividing it into stages (such as childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, marriage, parenthood, etc.) or organizing it by another system of your choice (such as places you have lived or jobs you have had). Think about the teachers and influences that were most important at each time. Focus particularly on the present.
Ø Ask yourself who your teachers are and what they are teaching you. Scripture tells us that we can know who has been inwardly transformed by God by the fruit they produce.
Ø Ask God to show you if there are people or influences you should minimize in your life.
Ø Then ask God about what new ways you can learn.
Ø Is God calling you toward more frequent study of Scripture?
Ø Are there particular people or books God is urging you to learn from?
Ø Finally, ask yourself who is learning from you and what you are teaching them.

6Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life in God (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1998), pp. 271-72.