real life?” Usually this is in relationship to what is considered an obscure math skill or a particularly boring piece of history. Fortunately when I was a teacher I taught science, which everyone knows is only populated with essential knowledge not the other kind. However, later in life I now realize that even the skills I learned in math were actually essential. Surprisingly they were not really about math. They were about thinking.

The relevant skills in mathematics become obvious when you are trying to make change at your garage sale and someone hands you $4.17 paying for the $3.75Power Ranger suit which has suddenly come back into style. (If you really want to entertain yourself always add in 17 cents to what ever you are paying for and watch the confusion) But more illusive are the reasons you need to be able solve equations with multiple variables or even how to combine equations.   Students might think that they will never ever use that particular skill. They might be right but what that skill did to their brains in learning how to solve it is where the real application takes place. The ability to manipulate variables in the abstract allows one to tease through some of the most challenging and complicated of life’s problems such as the assembly instructions on anything from Ikea.

 Keep this in mind when you begin to think about what Jesus taught. He didn’t teach the particulars of a moral code or what things were sin or not. He didn’t spend much time at all in teaching head knowledge. God had already revealed all those kind of things in the OT so there was no reason to reteach them. Instead of teaching what they already knew, he taught what they needed to know.  

 This week we will focus on Jesus as our teacher and discover what that was. Are you ready to learn?

See you at church,

Pastor Chris