The voice of the Good Shepherd

   Back in the early nineties, I worked in Washington D.C. for three and a half years commuting on the subway from northern Virginia.  My dad commuted to Washington D.C. on that same subway line from Virginia, though he lived in a different town than myself once I was an adult.  We rarely saw each other on the subway.  One point about the D.C. subway is there are certain lines which overlap for a certain length, and then split.  Thus before you get on a train you need to look to see if it is the correct line you want.
   Once I was at a subway station which is a junction for two different lines, the orange line and the blue line.  I was waiting for an orange line.  A long blue line train came to the station and slowed to a halt.  Suddenly I saw my dad in a seat in the car just to the right of me.  He was sitting reading a book.  The doors opened and people immediately departed the train.  Then I jumped in the doorway and said, “Dad!”
   My dad, who was bent over reading, after a moment, raised his head.
   “You’re on a blue line,” I stated as he looked at me.
   He grabbed his briefcase and walked off the train.  As the train pulled away, we were both glad and amused I happened to be just at the right spot on a rare time when dad happened to be on the wrong train.
   And though there may have been a number of fathers on that train, my immediate reaction was to call him what I always call him.  And my dad said in the midst of reading, when he heard someone loudly say “Dad,” he recognized my voice.  Before he looked up, he thought, “That’s Hunter.”
   In a sermon in a church where I worshiped this past Sunday the pastor was teaching on John 10 and made the statement that all followers of Jesus are in one flock.  He said there is only one flock and there is only one Shepherd.  Sounds obvious, but sometimes we Christians are so enamored by our human institutions we do not act like there is one flock.  Jesus does not divide the sheep based on denomination membership or ethnicity.  There are no sub-flocks.  The flock of God started out with Jewish believers within the Mosaic Covenant, and in the time of Christ was expanded to consist of people from all ethnic groups of all nations who believe in Jesus.  Jesus has one flock, children of God who have been adopted into the forever family of God.  Those of us who truly believe in Jesus have God as our Father in heaven.  People are not in the flock if Jesus is not their Savior and Lord, however active they are with a church institution.  Membership in the flock is not based on human merit or family history.
   Jesus stated, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10: 27-28 NIV).
   Have you heard the voice of the Good Shepherd?  The Bible records teachings, discourses, and discussions by Jesus.  In my Bible, His words are even in red letters.  Though words on a page, the longer I follow Jesus, the more I hear the “voice” of Jesus as I read what He stated.
   I started with an old subway story, and I conclude with one.  When I was a rather new Christian, I got that job in Washington D.C.  Every day after work, I read the Bible on the way home.  Having only read a small amount of the Bible from the Old Testament in high school, I started by reading the entire New Testament for the first time.  Months in the future I shifted my Bible reading to the morning subway ride so I would read when more rested.  As my learning journey continued, Bible reading became more of a “study.”  Then came the ultimate; Bible time on the subway involved personal reflection and meditation.  All this happened on a subway over the course of six years.  And all along I grew in my understanding that when reading the Bible, Jesus was talking to everyone, including me.
   Soon after those six years of Bible learning and much other education at my special church, I became a youth pastor.  Though I had only been a Christian for seven years, time listening to and learning from the Good Shepherd predominantly on a subway train of all places, resulted in me being able to discern His voice.  And throughout all these years, I have been able to follow Jesus because I have listened to His voice in Scripture.
   To hear the voice of the Good Shepherd, you simply need to read the Bible trusting God that you will hear from Him, the One who loves you.
Hunter Irvine

Teach

   What is the name of a teacher who had a large impact in your life?

   My dad had a life changing teacher in junior high school.  Over forty years later, standing in an airport my dad heard two people talking behind him.  Without seeing either person, my dad recognized the one voice as that influential teacher.  The man was working as a volunteer at the airport information desk.  My dad went to him, introduced himself, and then told his former teacher what a great influence he had been in his life.  That story is one of my favorites because I think it is incredible my dad recognized the voice of a teacher he had not heard in over forty years.

   I have had some great teachers over many years of schooling, and two professors at Virginia Tech, Professor Ed Falco and Dr. J.W. Tubbs, had a life long influence.  Yet the personal story I will share here is from my freshman year at Virginia Tech.  The university was still on the quarter system, and the general education requirement for all students, besides engineering and math students who had even more advanced freshman math classes, included a quarter of Algebra, a quarter of Trigonometry, and a quarter of Calculus.  Not being a math person, they were hard for me.  (General education requirements are different at Tech these days.)  For those three classes, and a required entry level English class, Tech used graduate students as teachers.  My teacher for Calculus for the spring quarter was a graduate student from Tennessee.  That man turned out to be one of the best teachers I have ever had.  A Calculus expert, he would go through an equation problem on the chalk board at a nice pace for our sake.  Each step was explained!  Then he would ask if everyone in the class understood how he carried out the equation.  If only one person in the class did not understand, he would do it over again.  A few times he even went over a tricky step three times.  His patience was epic.

   One day around noon I was in the dining hall as usual.  Normally I sat with friends, but none of my friends were around that day.  Sitting alone at a large round table, I saw the Calculus teacher.  After he got a milk, he came over to my table and asked if he could sit with me.  I was honored to have my teacher sit with me and I enjoyed talking with him during lunch.  No other teacher had done that before, and none has done it since.

   We all have different gifts, and each of us prefer some subjects to others.  Whatever the subject, if your teacher was great, I speculate he or she has a passion for that subject.  And if your teacher was life changing, I speculate he or she cared about you.

   The last point Jesus instructed in the “Great Commission” is for followers of Jesus to teach everything He commanded.  Just as most of us have been aided by others in our Bible education, Jesus wants us disciples to be a part of the teaching process and assist in the education of others.  First we must learn from Him.  Preaching, teaching, and healing were grand aspects of the ministry of Jesus, and now His teachings are recorded in Scripture.  I personally am always learning from daily Bible study.  Second we must truly teach.  I love teaching, and promoting discussions by asking questions and being open to questions are one mode of teaching I employ to keep folks engaged.  Yet the call to teach is not only for those of us with a teaching gift.  You parents teach your children simply by how you live your life.  And if teaching is not your thing you can still foster Bible education by buying someone a Bible, treating your Sunday school teacher to lunch, or aiding the tuition of someone engaged in ministry studies.

   For twenty-two years of my life, though I had some prime education experience, I did not know the Gospel, I could not have named the first five books of the Old or New Testament, I had only read a small bit of the Bible, and I had never taken a theology class.  Boy has my life been radically different the past twenty-six years!  May that encourage us both when I say that right now education is more widespread and accessible than ever in history due to technology, however Bible unfamiliarity is common.  As education accessibility increases, Bible expertise seems to be diminishing.  Possible reasons might include the fact information overload is common, and our culture is more complicated.  Our duty remains, thus followers of Jesus need to keep learning from the Bible, and then share our knowledge in appropriate manners.

   For those of you who are not followers of Jesus, I invite you to take the opportunity to learn what Jesus taught.  His teaching can have even more than a “life time” influence; His teaching can have an eternal result.  Jesus, God the Son, gave teachings which reveal the Way to eternal life.

Hunter Irvine