Am I teachable?

 

 

My husband has worked with people from dozens of different countries. At times, one would approach him and ask questions like, “Do I stand when my boss comes into my office?” Living and working in a new and unfamiliar culture, they wanted to know how to behave.

In the OT, God’s people were instructed how to live so they would not be like the pagan cultures around them. The OT word for INSTRUCTION is a noun. Eventually, other meanings developed for this word such as law or teaching, but the main idea is that God instructs His people to be distinctive, unique because they were chosen by Him.

For the most part, they didn’t do very well with this. Their unwillingness to hear and obey the instruction of God was rebuked many times through the prophets. As Jeremiah questioned, “ ‘Will you not receive instruction and listen to my words?’ declares the LORD”

Unlike my husband’s coworkers who wanted to do well in their new profession in a new country, the OT children of God seemed to miss the point of changing their lives. Their response illustrated the power of sin and the reality that what God wanted was impossible in their own strength — even if they had been willing to listen.

I found many verses using this word instruction. The first one is that familiar event when the Lord said to Moses, “Come up to me on the mountain and wait there, that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.”

Later on, David sat before the Lord and asked, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God!” He recognized that God had our good in mind. His instruction would transform us into the people He had designed us to be.

Several OT people understood this also. Job 36:10 says, “He opens their ears to instruction and commands that they return from iniquity” and the book of Proverbs repeats this in many ways such as, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.” This wisdom book also says:  

Proverbs 4:13. “Keep hold of instruction; do not let go; guard her, for she is your life.”

Proverbs 8:10–11. “Take my instruction instead of silver, and knowledge rather than choice gold, for wisdom is better than jewels, and all that you may desire cannot compare with her.”

Proverbs 9:9. “Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.”

Proverbs 13:18. “Poverty and disgrace come to him who ignores instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is honored.”

Proverbs 15:32. “Whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to reproof gains intelligence.”

Jeremiah is blunt: “They are both stupid and foolish; the instruction of idols is but wood!” and “They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction.”

Malachi records God’s words about those who instruct wisely and those who do not: “True instruction was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts. But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the Lord of hosts, and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”

The NT says, “Whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope” and “Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.”

GAZE INTO HIS GLORY. Instructions come from an Instructor. In the above verses, this is God. He created me and He knows what is best for me. No invention tells its inventor that it knows how to function better than the inventor intended. When God speaks to me, listening and obedience show that I know His instructions are better than my ideas. If I don’t, then I have a problem — it is called sin!