Dana Kohlman - Class 2: Five Words… to Instruct Others

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:00

   This is the February study day, Saanich Peninsula, 2014. Our speaker is Brother Dana Coleman, and his second topic is five words. Hi, good afternoon again. I just wanted to put these up here to tell you the story of our ecclesia. The story of our ecclesia was really simple. About eight years ago, Traylon and I were living in the north on Lake One Bay, and it was really cold.

2. 0:37

   And so we decided, man, this is way too cold, so let's fly to some jobs elsewhere. At the same time, Alberta was in a phenomenal peak, and so every resume that I sent out, someone called me back on it. So when you're in the next year of your life, it's probably never going to happen, it'll never happen again.

3. 0:51

   Everyone called me back on it, both of them, both from Alberta. So we went to Alberta, and we moved to a place that we knew was near Calgary. I looked on a map, and we said it's two and three, four hours from Calgary. Please say, hey, we're going to have them just commute to Calgary and become a part of the union.

4. 1:06

   Simultaneous with that, another large family bought a ranch about 20 minutes to the north of us. We didn't know them, and they didn't know us. So we ended up at the Calgary meeting several weeks after we met, or after we arrived. And we were talking, and there's a big brother there, and you'll see pictures of him, big brother there, brother Claude, Claude, and the north was there.

5. 1:24

   And he said, oh yeah, we just live down the road from you. And so the rolling house of Cleasur was born. Shortly after that, some of his children married. Claude's children married, and you see some of them there. And they moved also down the road. So within a, you know, we're out in an isolated prayer.

6. 1:43

   But within five minutes, there's five families that live and support the rolling house of Cleasur. And we have, I think you saw Sister Peggy Hampstead. I know some of you know her. She's an hour and a half away, but she supports or she comes to our meeting. We often go to her house as well.

7. 2:00

   So it's very much a house-based Cleasur. And it's miraculous. The big, tall guy there was Claude and beside him, his brother, or not brother, but Bill Hansen. This is a cowboy breakfast. And this is a study weekend we're having.

8. 2:15

   There are my beautiful girls. The long and short of it is we didn't predict it would just happen. And we're just delighted that we turn around and there's, you know, six or eight of us at Bible class or eight or ten of us at meeting. Because particularly that really big family came along.

9. 2:35

   So that's our ecclesial life. Okay. So I think you guys know, folks, ladies and gentlemen, you know where we're going here. You remember the first class and we were asking that critical question about the first class. And we said there's three tensions. One is the teaching and being. If you aren't the person that people would want to follow ethically, you just would not be able to get the higher or effective outcome.

10. 3:11

    We know how well you know that one thing. That one question is a predictor of instructional failure and success. And then you went on and said, okay, so what is our first question? What's the one thing that we want our community, particularly in my case, where we want our children to know? And we want more than anything else.

11. 3:30

    As opposed to the message of what is out there for our community to know that God wants us to be free. That we don't have to be bitter and we don't have to be negative. There is no pile of darkness that hangs over the laws of God. And we went on to say more particularly we want our children to be and the people we meet to be able Bible students.

12. 3:52

    We want them to know the guidance of scripture that they can bank on it. That the rudiments of balance, the rudiments of self-control, the rudiments of the things that we talked about are worthy. And something that they can cling to for the rest of their lives. And then ultimately we wanted them to have a real relationship with the word.

13. 4:15

    And then we talked at the same time of this other group that didn't get the one thing. They didn't get the embedded hub. They were really busy looking about what other people were doing. And they didn't get the message of the laws of God. And it was just a bitter thing. They didn't adopt the sensibility to overlook the flaws of others.

14. 4:37

    And by extension they went away hurt. They have hurt feelings. And they have bitterness. And it's a wicked thing in our community that our flaws are many. But I think the message is sound.

15. 4:53

    So we have this reading from Paul. And it's an exciting reading because he's talking about something that we'll never experience in our lives. But he did experience. And he talked about the difference between speaking in tongues and prophesying. He was saying speaking in tongues is of people that come in from the outside.

16. 5:08

    You see these people speaking in tongues. And it's a really surreal thing. And they look at our community and say, wow, these people are speaking in tongues. Well, they must have a message from God. And then they would listen. And then the speaking by prophecy was for those people that were established in the ecclesia.

17. 5:22

    They'd go, okay, yeah, I already know the beginning. And here's the next part. And then he said, let all things be done unto edifying. Because he knew at the rudimentary level that you could have all of the tongues in the world. You could speak in tongues. You could prophesy. And then six weeks later, you would have no basis from which to proceed forth.

18. 5:45

    That is, you could actually be someone who in this setting was speaking in tongues and six weeks later have a terrible life in Christ. Right? You could drop your beliefs completely. The speaking in tongues, the gifts of prophecy, they didn't do anything in terms of sustaining people. So he goes on to say, I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others.

19. 6:08

    Because he knows at root that it is about teaching others. In order to support this idea, and I think this is a really easy thing to do in scripture. In order to support this idea that Paul knew that learning trumped the spirit gifts. We can be reminded of what it says in Acts 9 verse 8.

20. 6:34

    Where Paul spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God. Look, there's no magic, brothers and sisters. Here's a brother that was moved, had some knowledge, and he was vigorously, actively involved in instructing. Have a look just for a minute at Matthew 28, 18.

21. 6:56

    Same idea. In Matthew 28, 18, we see, and I mean no flippancy here, Jesus is freshly resurrected. All right? He's freshly resurrected. He appears. He goes with the, or he's, we pick it up, the narrative in verse 16. It says, then the eleven disciples went to Galilee. So I'm at Matthew 28, 16.

22. 7:23

    Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them. When they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded.

23. 7:42

    And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age. You know, when someone says, you know, all authority in heaven has been given unto me, you'd think he'd want to say, let's build some fantastic democracies. You know, let's create a sustainable environment. But actually he just says, you need to go and teach the nations.

24. 8:00

    And the message of Paul and the message of Jesus is broadly the same. That, you know, you can have a Holy Spirit gift, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to know the things that you need to know to have an effective life in Christ. So then, what about this? What about the fact that we have this job to do?

25. 8:24

    Sorry, next question was, what about the pattern of instruction in Scripture? All right? The pattern of instruction in Scripture. Now, the pattern of instruction in Scripture, as I'm going to suggest to you, is that poor instruction was the rule rather than the exception. And it's really easy to support that. You know, we often get discouraged in ecclesial lives and travail in the brotherhood, but actually on the balance, the fact that we continue to do the things that we do is a sign of considerable health, even if in small numbers.

26. 9:01

    Many times in the past, people didn't know the laws of God, even in Israel. The people that saw the miracles, or who were the grandchildren and the children of the people who saw the miracles of God, you'd think they would know best. So I'm struck by the words in the account of King Asa.

27. 9:17

    And you guys, brothers and sisters, you know this. For a long time, Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach, and without the law. All right, so I tried to figure out, and I don't know if I can terribly be successful, because I still can't, even after all this time, assess the quality of leadership that was in David and Solomon.

28. 9:36

    But I tried to figure out, okay, the time place that this was uttered was in the time place of Asa, okay? So he's the king, and you can see him there under the umbrella of Judah. And I figured out how long he was around. I figured out how long his predecessor was around, how long Rehoboam had been around.

29. 9:55

    And I went, I believe, to about the middle of Solomon's life. And I just did a quick analysis about the dates there. And that phrase is uttered about 46 years or so, where there is no indication of quality in instruction or leadership in ecclesial life. So where it says, many times in the, sorry, when it says, for a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a priest to teach, and without the law, from late Solomon to Timed Asa, I'm saying 46 years, that's what they're drawing on.

30. 10:25

    So then in 2 Corinthians 17, verse 9, you know this as well, I believe. You remember Jehoshaphat realizes that there's no one in the land that knows much about anything about the laws of God. And he sends priests throughout Judah to instruct. Well, it follows that the next three kings don't sustain this.

31. 10:47

    And then we read earlier on about, in 2 Corinthians 17, the plague of lions. Now, I want to look up the plague of lions. We're in 2 Kings 17, 27. Okay, so here's the thing I'm arguing. I'm suggesting that it's really easy to argue in Scripture that the pattern of quality of instruction was that it was the exception rather than the rule.

32. 11:10

    And it's easy to do. 2 Kings 17. All right, now, this is fairly lengthy, but I think, you know, given that we introduced this in the first class, but we pick up the narrative in verse 7 where it says, All this took place because the Israelites had sinned against the Lord their God who brought them up out of Egypt and from under the power of the Pharaoh.

33. 11:41

    They worshipped other gods and followed the practice of the nations the Lord had driven out before them, as well as the practices that the kings of Israel had introduced. The Israelites secretly did things against the Lord their God that were not right. So we get the idea. Look, Israel is taken up out of Israel and deposited in a land where the king of Assyria said that they would go.

34. 12:03

    All right? Moving on from there, in verse 12, it says, They worshipped idols, though the Lord had said, You shall not do it. And here is the reason why they had been taken out. But they did not listen, in verse 14, and were stiff-necked as their ancestors who did not trust the Lord their God.

35. 12:18

    They rejected his decrees and the covenants he made with their ancestors and the statues he warned them to keep. Flipping over again, in verse 18, it says, So the Lord was very angry with Israel and removed them from his presence. Only the tribe of Judah was left. And in verse 20, at the last, it says, Until he thrust them from his presence.

36. 12:39

    Long and the short of it is, there's this group of Israel that are taken up into Samaritan and they're deposited there. And when they're taken up into Samaritan, no one's left behind to teach the laws of God. All right. So then in verse 25, it says, When they first lived there, they did not worship the Lord, so he lent lions among them, and they killed some of the people.

37. 12:56

    Well, look, we already know the narrative. They don't know the laws of God to begin with, and that's what got them in trouble in the first place. So we can predict the quality of instruction that they're going to receive when the kingdom of Assyria says, Oh, well, if the lions are attacking them, we should send someone down who knows about the laws of God to teach them the laws of God, and that'll make it till everything will be okay.

38. 13:16

    Well, in fact, it doesn't work out like that at all. And we know that. The pattern of Scripture is it is more often that people were to receive poor instruction than quality instruction. All right. So then one of the priests, in verse 28, So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the Lord.

39. 13:37

    Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in several towns where they settled and set themselves up shrines the people of Samaria had made at their high places. The people of Babylon, like Succoth, Benoth, and those of Kuthah, made Nergal, and those from Hamath, Ashima, the Avites, Nibhaz, and Tartak, and the Sepharovites burned their children in the fire as sacrifice to Adremalek and Amalek, the gods of Sepharvaim.

40. 14:03

    They worshiped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. They worshiped the Lord, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought. Okay, that is the story.

41. 14:17

    The story is, it's easy to trace poor instruction. When people who haven't established themselves as quality instructors go down and try to save the nation of Israel, it just goes, or the people that are then living in the nation of Israel, it just simply goes from bad to worse. Listen to this. Here is Jeremiah 5.30.

42. 14:38

    An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land. The prophets prophesy falsely and the priests rule on their own authority and my people love it so. Brothers and sisters, we are people that innately do not want the accountability of the laws of God. There is something in us that makes it so that we are not easily aligned with the laws of God.

43. 15:04

    Here is a nation, a nation that establishes over and over again. Good instruction, bad instruction, adopting the laws are difficult, but poor instruction was the rule. So in our communities, if we do not have teaching priests or accurate instruction for a basis or a basis for instruction, be not surprised. I mean, sometimes there's just no basis to start the discussion.

44. 15:34

    Think of this. 1945, FDR, you remember FDR, he was the president of the United States through the Second World War, just near the end of the Second World War, he dies. Okay? He dies in a city called Warm Springs, Florida, I think. So in order to take FDR back to Washington, D.C., they put him on a plane, or they put him on a train.

45. 15:55

    It's his own train. And they put him on a train, and the train slowly makes its way up the coast to Washington, D.C. Well, in one city, and I can't remember which one it is, it stops. Now, it stops at various cities, and people come to pay their respects to FDR. And this is 1945.

46. 16:13

    In one city, the train comes by, it stops, 10,000 people come and hoard the train. They get around the train, they pay their respects to their beloved president. And they break out spontaneously singing Onward, Christian Soldier. 1945. Brothers and sisters, we live in a different time. I mean, not to say the least of which, it's debatable what people knew about scripture back then, but now, who would be able to even relate a popular culture hymn of Christianity?

47. 16:52

    It just wouldn't happen, right? So, what's the Trinity now, right? What basis do we have to start talking about the Trinity when we're discoursing with people about the truth? The long and the short of it is, this poor instruction, easy to trace in scripture. Let's not be surprised at all that it's the commonplaceness of effective instruction in scripture is, well, let's just be conscious that it's a foregone conclusion that it's not going to be common in our lives.

48. 17:29

    Here's examples of God's frustration with this. Here's Psalm 95.10. The 40 years, for 40 years, I loathed that generation and said, there are people who go astray in their heart and they do not know my way. So, here's the very people he was relentlessly instructing to and he uses the word loathed. When was the last time he used loathed in a sentence?

49. 17:51

    It's hard. Those are hard words. These people are people I loathed. Here's Isaiah 1 verse 3. It says, the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know my people do not understand. As soon as you're comparing the intelligence of any one group of people to a donkey, this is not polite stuff.

50. 18:12

    This is God's frustration with this people. So, I was thinking about this. You know, we live in a time where it's dubious that there are broadly quality instructors out there. There certainly is no normalcy of exposure to scripture. We've lost the bulk of our Christian traditions. It's going to be really, really tough to sustain what we do.

51. 18:34

    There's just no getting around. This is going to be work. So, I was thinking about this and I was driving to work one morning and I was listening to a CBC commentator and he had some really interesting things to say. And what he was talking about was this, okay. Most of us know that the unemployment rate in Canada is, you know, for free nations, democratic nations, it's pretty low.

52. 18:52

    But what he was observing as a statistician was really curious. What he was saying is that when the unemployment rate is about 6.5%, 6.6%, 6.7%, it's traceable how many people are looking for work. That is, stats can, they can figure out who's on unemployment insurance, who's on social services, who's actively looking for employment, who actively isn't.

53. 19:15

    And he said, the trend is that people looking for work keep looking for work as it goes from 6.6%, 6.7%, 6.8%, 6.9%, then 7%. Well, 7%, boom, there's a drop-off in people that are looking for work. And what he explained is this. He said, you know, broadly, expectations get in the way. You know, people think, oh, 7%, well, I'll never find a job now.

54. 19:40

    I might as well stay in bed all day. And he said, you know, that pattern of people looking at data with really bad analysis, he says, that's part of our culture. And he said something that struck with me. He said, you know, it doesn't matter what the data says. You always have to live the smartest way possible.

55. 20:00

    And I think that's a great message for us. And we don't talk about our teachings as being, quote-unquote, smart, right? But are the teachings of God perfect or aren't they? Are the teachings of Jesus Christ the best possible way to live or aren't they? It's not untoward in my way of thinking to talk about living the smartest way possible when we're talking about the laws of God.

56. 20:24

    I mean, look what we've got to compare it to. We've got passionate humanism. We've got democracy. We've got Oprah. Do you want to put your trust in man or do you want to put your trust in the laws of God? So, it's really important as we live in these times when the laws of God are not easily transmitted.

57. 20:46

    Those effective outcomes don't come so readily to our population. It's really important we don't throw up our hands and go, oh, this is way too hard. We'll never make a difference now. We still have to live, brothers and sisters, the smartest way possible. So, what about this? What about this expectation or what is the message in so many people not knowing throughout scripture?

58. 21:14

    So many people coming up against the word, listening to the laws of God, seeing the miracles, and then going away and not being converted. What's the message there? All right? Well, I would say one of the messages of God is the expectation that you and I are seeking. We are seeking people. Here's Proverbs 8, 17.

59. 21:36

    I love them that love me and those who diligently seek me will find me. Deuteronomy 4, 29 says, if you seek me with all of your heart, you will find me. In Jeremiah 29, 13, it says, you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart. Do you remember in the time of King Asa, God is with you when you are with him.

60. 21:55

    In James, it says, draw near to God and he will draw near to you. The expectation is that we're seekers of the laws of God. We want this in our lives. That's an expectation. God isn't going to do that for us, right? That's you lying awake at night saying, on the balance of probabilities, where best should I put my hope?

61. 22:18

    In men or in the laws of God? So here's what we found out so far. First of all, we know that Paul knows that learning and active instruction totally trumps even a miracle of God. You can have the Holy Spirit, but that doesn't compare to having had solid learning. There's a pattern of poor instruction and limited response.

62. 22:44

    That's the pattern. It is normal for populations to have no basis for discussion. The fact that the word of God has not been collectively embraced throughout history is not a reason for us to throw up our hands and get all frustrated. Brothers and sisters, we cannot let our expectations get in the way we have to live the smartest way possible.

63. 23:14

    And to me, that's all the more reasons to have these discussions about what effective instruction is. All right. So now I'm going to talk to you briefly about some of the things that related to the conversation that Mark and Melissa and Cherry Lynn and I had months ago about principles of instruction in Scripture and broadly.

64. 23:35

    But I would say this. When I think about the purpose of instruction, all right, when I think about that, it really dovetails with what we're talking about. But I start with the purpose of the ecclesia. All right. So I think, okay, that's the purpose of instruction specifically. But I start with the purpose of the ecclesia.

65. 23:51

    Okay. So what is the purpose of ecclesias? All right. I think that the purpose of the ecclesia, and I haven't had anyone come up with a better definition, and I'm certainly prepared to listen. There might be one out there, would be that the participants would be more willing to serve God. So that at the end of the meeting, you come away from the meeting, and you say, I totally, more so, want to comply with the laws of God in my life.

66. 24:22

    I want to engage with the ecclesia. I want to engage with the word. That's the currency that we're working for. That's the purpose of the ecclesia. So then, what's the purpose of instruction? And to me, it's exactly what we talked about at the beginning, which was, you're looking for that real-time relationship relationship with the word.

67. 24:41

    The word of God is living and active. We want to capitalize on that sensibility. And this is in contrast to the characteristics of the flesh that we talked about, the self-engrossment, the self-centeredness, the concern of how one is being perceived, the fear, the unease, the anxiety, all of those things. So then, what do I know that I can tell you about, that I can confirm in scripture?

68. 25:07

    It's remarkable how easy it is to confirm this in scripture. What can I tell you about instructional theory that will help you as you go down this road, girding your loins, as it were, to be more effective instructors in the word? Well, I will say this about instructional theory. There is no industry more adept at fads and pendulum swings as instructional theory.

69. 25:33

    There is no industry more subject to conflicting research and data data. There is no industry at odds with itself. And here's how. We know. Because we know this. Most of the learning that we do, brothers and sisters, is incidental. That is, if you want to sit down with someone in front of you, teach you how to sharpen a lawnmower blade, it's kind of dicey.

70. 25:56

    If I give you the lawnmower blade and I put you in front of a grinder, I can show you exactly the arc of spark that you're looking for so that you're cutting exactly at the right angle. We can talk about that loosely, but until I've hired you to come and mow my grass, and I've seen that the grass isn't getting cut too well, and I say, you know what, Johnny, you need to get off there.

71. 26:20

    I'm going to show you how to sharpen the lawnmower blade. that's when learning occurs, when you actually have a reason to do it. All right? We know the best learning is exactly like that. It's authentic, but it relates to the real world, and I've taught surface area and volume and the diagonals of squares so many times, and it is incredible how hard it is for young people to attach to mathematical concepts that they have no idea.

72. 26:53

    Getting that, those ideas, into an authentic setting is really, really tough to do, and yet we put children, whether you're homeschooled or not, we put children in environments that are immensely contrived, and we promote a curriculum that's so far from a child's reality. We know intellectually learning is authentic. All right? It doesn't work if it doesn't relate to someone's reality.

73. 27:23

    It's really hard to do. We do it all the time. We don't give children an opportunity in an instructional setting to do real learning very often. Some people can do it very well, but I'm going to tell you why that is. The reason that is that we put them in this environment is because as adults, we know they need to know stuff before they know that they need to know stuff.

74. 27:52

    Employee would be really frustrated with me if he said, you know, would you measure this room please and find how much carpet we need to replace, and they go, area? What? Length times width? What? We need children to know that before they actually have to do that, and it's true of almost all learning.

75. 28:09

    We set them up for this curious situation where as adults we're saying, look, you've got to learn this. Even though we know this setting is artificial, you've got to learn it so that when you get to a place where you actually have to use it, you can do it.

76. 28:28

    We just don't know what kids will know, so we just keep teaching them, hoping, hoping that it'll attach. But here's the unique thing about teaching in scripture. Here is a unique thing about the laws of God. There is no principle of scripture that our child won't broadly be able to identify with and use in their life real time all the time.

77. 28:55

    Unless the Lord buildeth the house, he that buildeth it buildeth in vain. And you keep your head in all circumstances and endure hardship. In this life, you will have trouble, said Jesus. Shall we accept good from God and not ill, said Job? Draw near to God and he will draw near to you, said James.

78. 29:18

    Live a quiet life, said the Apostle Paul. Get rid of all malice, said the Apostle Paul. Brothers and sisters, there are things that we're teaching our children that are so removed from the contrivedness of their school environment and I'm delighted that instruction in scripture has that to it. There are five fundamental instructional questions.

79. 29:46

    Can you just remind me, Brother Duncan, how long do I get to go to? I think if you go to 22 of New York. Perfect. Okay. There are five instructional questions and we talked about the first one. The first one is fundamental. If you don't understand this, you're done before you start. What is it that I want my audience to know?

80. 30:09

    And we know from this that the person you are is critical. All right? That is, if at the end of the day you're not a nice person, then transmitting those higher order effective outcomes is going to be limited because you don't have the skills to have the relationship that carries learning over a period of time.

81. 30:30

    You can have a whole bunch of technical skills, but at the end of the day, if you can't actually have relationships with people, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough. It's not impossible, but it's going to be tough.

82. 30:42

    The third thing is experts. All right? This is what I would say about experts is the place of experts in my opinion is incredibly high. All right? And we're only talking the first question, which is, what do I want my audience to know? And it is really important when we are setting people up to go into the instructional setting, whether it's about the truth or anything, but we're talking about the truth, that they be the most qualified and knowledgeable that we have.

83. 31:11

    It is so much more fun learning from someone who knows what they're talking about. It's so much more fun actually knowing what you're talking about when you teach. And they're ultimately the most effective. You can get away with much if you're an expert. And I'll put this to you gently. And the reason I know this is I went to a school with a fellow who I don't know, in your life, how many geniuses are you going to meet?

84. 31:37

    But here was a guy. He's a really, really bright guy. And I remember we were doing, learning grammar. And I can't grammar my way out of a wet purple bag, but we were taking this course. And the course was, you actually had to give a 10-minute lesson on grammar. Okay? So I could do that.

85. 31:53

    Okay? I did my lesson on grammar. Okay? So I went up there, 10 minutes later, sat down, la, la, la. We had a discussion. My friend David, he was on his fifth degree. Okay? This was his fifth degree and he had a master's degree in linguistics. And I didn't say, hi, I'm David, I have a master's degree in linguistics.

86. 32:08

    He got up and he taught the grammar lesson. Okay? 50 minutes later, five, zero minutes later, he was still talking. And we were all there going, yeah, but what, what about this? And well, he said, well, you know, that's, those are, that's actually a Russian word and it's, you can see it's French heritage coming through.

87. 32:27

    You see that? See the ending? We're going, no. He was, he was an expert in languages. And the long and the short of it is, there is not a person I've met, certainly not a child I've met, who doesn't actually love to learn about what they want to learn about. And here we had a whole bunch of very nerdy teachers in the room and they were doing, he was doing a lesson on grammar and he was just really, really gifted.

88. 32:51

    Look, the role of experts is broadly indisputable. Now there's a role for people who don't know what they're talking about to approach learning differently. I get that. But the role of experts under the umbrella of the first question is what do I want my audience to know is very high for me. The next one, who are my audience?

89. 33:09

    This is a really straightforward thing. There's some debate about whether or not this is actually the second rule at all. Some people just say there's four questions but I think it's really important that you ask yourself who are my audience? There is no point talking about things that are over people's heads. There's no point and I think you've all been there talking about things that no one broadly would have an interest in.

90. 33:30

    You actually have to think about if you're dealing with 14 year olds there are certain ways to teach 14 year olds as opposed to a bunch of 50 year olds. All right? Under the umbrella of who are my audience when you're asking okay who is it that I'm going to teach here's another principle that I've learned and I bear the scars.

91. 33:47

    You can only do what your audience is ready for. All right? There's no point doing something that they don't have the maturity to handle. So if you're going into a setting and it's a brand new setting and they're 12 year olds and you've got water balloons and squirt guns duck and cover. It's a science experiment that won't work.

92. 34:08

    I'm sorry. They won't be able to follow through. Don't set people up to be in a situation where they can't do what they've set out to do. You can only do what you're ready for and I know this to be true because Jesus did it all the time. Do you remember when Jesus was talking to people about how people are healed?

93. 34:23

    You know, healing people? They were, there's evidence in scripture that he was dealing with people who were clearly schizophrenic. Right? Clearly schizophrenic. Well, he didn't spend any time saying, well, this is schizophrenia. He didn't spend an iota of time doing that. He just said, look, we're going to heal these people. The message I need to send to you is that I am from God and that I'm going to be able to heal these people and you're going to give me that much more credence as a result.

94. 34:47

    He didn't say, you know, actually, this is a medical malady. He didn't go into the detail. People weren't ready. I mean, if he sat there and had this debate about that, they'd be lost in a minute. Jesus did this all the time. We must adopt and customize our message to our audience. All right.

95. 35:05

    The next one, the next part of this is who are my audience is particularly when we're dealing with young people. Remember, we're getting a group of people who just by disposition and their experience have minimal investment in attention. right? They have no experience having to put a lot of attention into people just by dint of the fact that they're between the iPod and the computer and the TV and all the other things that they don't really have to pay a lot of attention to.

96. 35:42

    They don't have the attention span. There's lots of data to say that we're a culture of declining attention spans. There is no debate. There's no experience with debate for many of our young people. We don't have a venue for it. There's no place for them to broadly exchange ideas. And so, this is a setup for us.

97. 36:07

    You're going into this setup or you're going into this situation where you're instructing these people and they have no pattern, no experience with having had to provide considerable attention. So, 1 Timothy 4, 13. Devote yourselves to public reading of scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching. Here's a message 2,000 years old. Think of the message it's sending to us now.

98. 36:33

    Devote yourselves to public reading of scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching. Who are you going to devote yourselves to? Who really wants to hear scripture? Who really wants to hear exhortation? We're in a really, really tough place where culturally, we don't have any experience in sustaining the attention required to learn about the laws of God.

99. 37:01

    Before we get to this slide, we are on the third question now which is, how will I teach them? Alright? First one is, what do I want my audience to know? Second one is, who are my audience? The third one is, now how am I going to go about teaching them? Well I want you to remember this because this is a hard learned lesson.

100. 37:23

     Do you know, I read an article probably 15 years ago, 10 years ago between that and that time and I still remember it. Okay? And the article said a whole bunch of things. It said, but there are five predictors of instructional effectiveness. That is, after you go and you instruct someone, what are the measures that say, okay, they actually know what you had set out to instruct them in?

101. 37:44

     And he said, the third one is, clarity of mind. That, when we're dealing with our children, when we're dealing with brothers and sisters and we're dealing in the instructional setting, we've got to keep in mind if we're muddled in our thinking or we're wound up or anxious or worried, that clarity of mind is not going to carry us through that process.

102. 38:06

     You'd be surprised. The third most significant predictor of whether or not you're going to be instructionally effective is clarity of mind. Now, no doubt there's a relationship in the first one, which is what do I want my audience to know and clarity of mind. But if we're anxious, if we're not calm, it's a setup for us to be not effective in instruction.

103. 38:33

     All right. Now, here is 1 Peter 8. Scripture just resounds with inscriptional principles. Be clear-minded and alert. Your opponent, your adversary is prowling, looking for someone to devour. Here's a message of clear-mindedness. Here's James. Clean, cleanse your hands, you sinners. Clean up your lives and clear your minds. 2 Timothy 4, 5. But you keep your head in all circumstances.

104. 39:02

     There's lots to choose from in Scripture to remind us to be of clear mind. But I want you to think about what this looks like. Here's Jesus in John 8, verse 6. They said this, listen to what is going on here. They said this, and you can just predict who's speaking here. They said this, tempting him that they might have to accuse him.

105. 39:22

     But Jesus stooped down and with his fingers wrote on the ground as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lifted himself and said to them, he that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her. And again, he stooped down and wrote on the ground.

106. 39:41

     You want to talk about clarity of mind? These people were looking to hurt Jesus at the first possible opportunity. It wouldn't be inconceivable for these people to kill Jesus in this setting. And he's stooping down, writing on the ground. He knows what it is that he needs to say. He knows it in his mind.

107. 40:02

     He's an immensely clear mind. All right. This we have to keep in mind. Now this is, as you can see, is the pyramid of instructional efficacy, which cracks me up about this, is knowing what you know about instruction, knowing now what you know, what this shows you about instructional efficacy, what is the pattern we consistently fall into as believers?

108. 40:27

     Someone talking at us is the least effective way for people to learn. And we do it over and over. We're trapped. Brothers and sisters, we're trapped. Remember we talked about that little analogy about public schools, cramming learning into kids going, you've got to learn this. Knowing full well that it's really a lousy way to do it.

109. 40:44

     Because we're terrified that they're going to get to an employer and they're going to be asked how to add and subtract and they won't be able to do it. Well this is the same with us. This is convenient for us. I don't know how effective it is when we're simply talking. I was saved, brothers and sisters, by the orange one there in discussion.

110. 41:06

     I don't know if you know this, I'm going to presume you know this, but this Ecclesia, and I'm sure it's the same now, really saved me in this because I remember years ago meeting at Keith and Moe's place and Carl and Sylvia's place and Andy Phil's and Uncle Don's place and all of those places over years and having a class and having a discussion and everyone was broadly polite, everyone was engaged, and those who weren't, well didn't have to be.

111. 41:36

     My point is in our Ecclesi's we must be talking about scripture. We always go to the first, the tip of the iceberg, the least effective, which is someone talking. Our saving grace I'm suspecting is for us to sustain and promote the place of discussion in our community. It was really helpful for me.

112. 41:58

     I grew up in a time, or I came through the Ecclesi's in time, where brethren would give a CYC on Friday, and I was able to think about what those brethren said for a week. That's the quality of discussion that was going on. Now, that happens and doesn't happen in Ecclesi's, I recognize that, but to know that that is broadly at least 50% effective as opposed to 5%, I think is really important.

113. 42:26

     The next part here is when we compare instructional effectiveness with the place of higher order methodologies. Now, you can see that this is the last triangle, the 10% of what you read, the low effectiveness, and these are the things that we ask people to do in those settings. But I want to talk about this side for a second.

114. 42:57

     On the far side, you can see what I would describe as higher order methodologies. If I ask you, how many friends did Daniel have, that's three. As far as we know, the account of Daniel, Daniel had three friends. So on the low end, it's a very low end, what do you know? It's a simple number.

115. 43:16

     So if I said to you, if we went to scripture, who was the most important of Daniel's friends? Can we read that out of scripture? And now all of a sudden, we're doing some assessing and analyzing because now we're looking at the text and we're trying to figure out which friends said what in what situations.

116. 43:35

     All of a sudden, it's changed. Great. It's easy. I can teach you how many friends Daniel had. There's three. No problem. But when we ask young people, people were teaching the truth about scripture, the most effective, the greatest currency, greatest return is going to be when they start analyzing and connecting on their own.

117. 43:58

     It's easy to just get facts and figures and it's part of the package. You have to. But what we're seeing more and more of is the more they're actively engaged with the learning, that is thinking about, analyzing, comparing, contrasting, the more likely it is those dendrites are being built. Now, dendrites, in short, dendrites are the parts of your brain that you actually physically grow when you learn.

118. 44:20

     That is, there's plenty of brain research data out there now to say, broadly, children in high literacy households have more dendrites, which are the connections that come from vocabulary. So when we're asking young people, when we're in our Sunday school classes, when we're in Bible classes, we're asking the people, or our students, as it were, to think more highly rather than simply regurgitate facts.

119. 44:45

     And that is, there's high correlation between that and actual learning. And again, if you look at the data, another component of this is the place of variety. If you're doing the same thing over and over again, you have a problem. Look, there's oil presentations, there's audio presentations, there's tons of technology available for us, there's videos, there's drama, there's all the creativity that you can bring, and I come back to, I come back to the role of discussion.

120. 45:15

     Just, if in doubt, you have the role of discussion. Look, the teacher's role is huge. You know, simultaneously, you have to engage, you have to entertain, you have to inform, and you have to inspire. Look, brothers and sisters, that's actually the responsibility. So if you want to just stand and blab, you can, okay?

121. 45:34

     Your effectivity is going to be virtually no, but you are keeping, when you're in the instructional role, a whole number of balls in years. One other thing that we've learned in the last couple of years, is the role of engagement. That is, the more children are engaged, the more evidence there will be of engagement.

122. 45:56

     Now, it seems like pretty obvious, hear me out. When you look at a group of people, what we consistently do to find out whether or not the instruction is effective is look at the speaker. Guy's up there doing his thing, let's watch the speaker. Well, I can tell more or less exactly how engaged we are right now by looking at you.

123. 46:16

     So when we're in a classroom and we're assessing teachers, I don't spend two seconds working at the teacher. I go, what's Johnny doing in the back? Oh, Margo's sleeping in the back there. Okay, there's a disconnect, right? I mean, I can tell, we can tell what quality of engagement is occurring in a setting when you look at your audience.

124. 46:35

     And if your audience is comatose, it's time to change, isn't it? Right? And what do we do? We go right back to talking more, right? Oh, golly, we gotta talk more. We're sleeping, we talk more. Okay, so anyway, long and short of it is. The last part is assessment. I'm gonna leave that for the time being because we're running out of time.

125. 46:58

     But those are things that we've learned over the years about instruction that I know I can confirm in scripture. That is, it's really easy to know or to see that in scripture these things are echoed. So Paul knew that the rudiment of faith were found in real-time relationships with the word. When he said, I would rather speak five intelligible words to instruct others.

126. 47:20

     what we're figuring then is that instruction, the act of teaching someone trumps a miracle of the Holy Spirit. What we also found is for the most times good instruction was nowhere to be found in Israel's history. For a long time, Israel was without the true God, without a priest to teach, and without the law.

127. 47:43

     That is the pattern of scripture. Look, we can't be surprised by that, brothers and sisters. We can't be frustrated. These times are difficult. We have little or no basis to start discussion. We must, brothers and sisters, this is life and death for us, we must be clear what our one thing is. And I'm confident the message of scripture is that God wants us to be free.

128. 48:07

     We don't have to live in darkness. We can live in light all the time. There's another principle. God expects those who want him to find him. This is the part that we play. Deuteronomy 4.29, if you seek me with all of your heart, you will find me. Principle number five, our expectations do get in the way, brothers and sisters.

129. 48:29

     We want the process to be easier. There were times in Israel there were no teachers available, and the ones that were, were inept. It's too hard, we say. We must, brothers and sisters, live the smartest way possible. Now we've talked about the five instructional questions. questions. We know about the role of the person you are.

130. 48:51

     The person you are trumps virtually everything else. The strong role of expertise, the strong role of clarity of mind. We're seeking now higher order tasks. We don't want to just think blah, blah. We actually want people engaged. Then, brothers and sisters, it suits us that we attempt to undo the patterns of the least effective strategies.

131. 49:15

     1 Timothy 4.13 says, devote yourselves to the public reading of scripture, to exhortation, and to teaching. That's a very high calling. Thank you very much.