Teachable

I am astounded sometimes at the pride I often have in my own knowledge. I think, "What can this person really teach me? I already know all about this passage of Scripture." Perhaps we all have that tendency? Perhaps we all want to know what we know, without any help from anyone else?

Regardless, I was reminded the other day (yet again) of the sinfulness of that kind of attitude. Pride, it seems, is how we got into this predicament in the first place. And I still struggle with the mindset and heart attitude of pride in my own accomplishment, that I can do things on my own and don't need God or anyone else to help me.

Enter the account of Apollos in Acts 18. The great example of teachability. Here is a man well educated in the Scriptures, eloquent in his speech, and fervent in the spirit.

But apparently he didn't know it all. There was something he got wrong because he simply didn't know. It seems unintentional, but he was preaching the baptism of repentance that John the Baptist had preached and did not know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit that came through Christ. An honest mistake - if only Twitter existed back then!

So Priscilla and Aquila corrected him.

Now what would your attitude be in that moment? There are times in my life where something similar has happened to me and I know exactly how I've reacted.

Defensive.

Offended.

Reasserting my position.

Mean-spirited.

While his reaction is not recorded in Scripture, we know the result. He wanted to continue in the work, even to the point of being a better defender of the faith as he continued to preach in another city! That certainly does not sound defensive and mean-spirited to me. It sounds like Apollos understood what it truly meant to have a malleable heart before the Lord.

And so I ask you (and myself) what is your heart more like: stone or clay? Are you staunch in your opinion, even in the face of rebuke, knowing you're wrong yet not wanting to admit it? Or are you like Apollos, teachable and ready to respond to what God is teaching you through His Word and through others?

It is absolutely important to hold to nonnegotiable Truth, those things that are essential to the gospel and not up for question or debate. But it is also important to have a teachable spirit. Some things are negotiable, some things are debatable, some things we just get plain wrong. And we must be ready to learn from those that the Lord puts in our path to show us the truth.

Clay is firm yet moldable.

Put enough pressure on a stone, though, and it will break.

Which will you be?