Chapter 1: The Foundation of Spiritual Education

Reading: Ezekiel 40:2-4, 43:10-11, Matthew 3:17, 11:25-30, John 1:51, Luke 9:23, Ephesians 4:20-21.

The basic word out of those read, for our present purpose, is Matthew 11:29 - "Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me." Learn of me. The Apostle Paul, in a slightly different form of words, gives us what the Lord Jesus meant - "Ye did not so learn Christ" (Eph. 4:20). Leaving out one very little word makes all the difference and gives the true sense. The Lord Jesus, while He was here, could only put it in an objective way, for the subjective time had not arrived: and so He had to say, 'Learn of me'. When the subjective time came, the Holy Spirit would lead the apostle to leave out the 'of', and say 'learn Christ'.

I am quite sure that many of you will immediately discern that is just the flaw in a very great deal of popular Christianity today--a kind of objective imitation of Jesus which gets nowhere, rather than the subjective learning Jesus which gets everywhere.

So for this little while we are to be occupied with the School of Christ, into which school He brought the twelve, whom He chose "that they might be with him and that he might send them forth" (Mark 3:14). They were first of all called disciples, which simply means they came under discipline. Before ever we can be apostles, that is, sent ones, we have to come under discipline, to be disciples, to be taught ones, and that in an inward way. It is into this school that every one who is born from above is brought, and it is very important that we should know the nature of it, what it is that we are going to learn, and the principles of out spiritual education.

The School of Christ - T. Austin-Sparks