Editorial May 8, 1989 Issue

There's learning, and then there's learning

Michael D. Rissler

Some learning comes as you'd expect it to, through things like schools and teachers and books. Other times it comes like a wave washing over everything in your life. And then there are moments when learning actually is like the time in the Old Testament when Elijah heard the "still small voice." Yet, it's pretty difficult to conceive of any guarantees that wisdom and understanding will come precisely the way we think they might.

On the other hand, when you read through the Gospels, don't you begin to feel that many people did expect Jesus to know exactly what to do, even when everything seemed unpredictable? There was something bedrock solid in his capacity to understand and to know—even to know the Scriptures as well as a scholar of the law. Yet, John's Gospel says that people marveled at his knowledge, wondering, "How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?"^{John 7:15.}

One thing we do know about Jesus is that he understood what it is for man to be the immediate child of God. And he uncovered this spiritual reality in others and brought it out in their lives. This flowed through everything that he did. Jesus understood God to be the actual Father of man—no theoretical thing with him. Surely this explains something of Jesus' great capacity to care and to understand life. Wouldn't this also be the reason why he was so quick to discern the character or thoughts of the men and women he met? Out of sublime, spiritual care for others—ultimately identifying man's true nature as God's expression—came tremendous powers of discernment. He saw the good that conformed to this reality as well as the awful evil that obscured an individual's true selfhood and that needed to be cast off.

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