“Come, Follow Me”: Apprenticeship in Jesus' Approach to Education

Abstract

Over the years, there has been a great deal of scholarly work focusing of the life, teaching, and ministry of Jesus. In this article, the author contributes to this body of literature by examining Jesus' ministry through the lens of legitimate peripheral participation, an approach to learning that surfaced during the last decade of the 20th century. After explaining this educational approach, the author offers an examination of Jesus' ministry as it relates to legitimate peripheral participation and then briefly discusses some implications for contemporary Christian faith communities.

David Csnios is completing his ThM in Christian Education at Union Theological Seminary and Presbyterian School of Christian Education in Richmond, VA. E-mail: [email protected]

Notes

¹In this article, I will use the term “reign of God” as a gender-inclusive alternative to the masculine “kingdom of God.”

²I am indebted to Amanda Miller, a doctoral student in Biblical Studies at Union Presbyterian Seminary, for her thoughts regarding biblical scholarship, the Gospels, and legitimate peripheral participation. I am also thankful for Joyce Bellous for her comments on an early manuscript of this article.

³Linguistic and biblical studies argue that Jesus' invitations to follow him “carry the weight of an invitation to an apprenticeship” (Milavec 1982, 107).

⁴For more information about the methods of teaching that Jesus employed, see Stein (1994), especially chapter two: “The form of Jesus' teaching.”

⁵In the chapters leading up to this passage, the disciples witnessed Jesus heal a woman (9:20–22) and some men (9:27–30), raise a dead girl (9:23–25), cleanse a leper (8:2–4), and exorcize demons (8:28–32).