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Are you teachable within the family of believers?

We all have our own process for who we’ll allow ourselves to learn from, who we take information from and how we apply it to our own lives. I made a formula a long time ago that was formed around what the word of God tells me, but there’s personal discernment behind who I glean from.


Personally, I think we’ve lost the art and respect of discipleship and teachability within the church these days. Being discipled goes hand in hand with practicing humility. So my biggest question is, are you humble enough to be corrected? Be honest in your evaluation of yourself. The Bible gives us a map on how to go about teaching. It teaches us why age, experience and trust is vital to finding someone who can disciple and teach us how to go about a Godly life. Developing a relationship with someone over time is what leads to trust, but being open to being taught by that individual comes much later. It’s by design. Think about your relationship with your spouse, or with God. You slowly developed in your relationship, which led to love, which led to trust, and then you allowed space for that person to admonish you because they know you. They're for you, and they love you so you're willing to heed to their correction. But here’s the kicker - most people don’t want to put in the time to develop the relationship, the first step towards allowing someone to speak into their lives. Time allows the posture of being teachable, to grow.


The word of God also tells us the older teach the younger:

These older women must train the younger women to love their husbands and their children, to live wisely and be pure, to work in their homes, to do good, and to be submissive to their husbands. Then they will not bring shame on the word of God. In the same way, encourage the young men to live wisely (Titus 2:4-8)


To be humble and gentle with one another: Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love (Ephesians 4:2)


To abide in love but to do so with discernment and knowledge, affirming excellent behavior so we're properly upholding Gods word: And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ (Philippians 1:9-10)


That His word is useful for all these things: All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16-17)


With many advisors plans succeed:

Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed (Proverbs 15:22)


That we are not to correct someone older than us, but encourage. Age does matter to God!: Do not rebuke an older man but encourage him as you would a father, younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, younger women as sisters in all purity (1 Timothy 5:1-2)



These are such a guide to our relational lives as Christians. They implore and require us to be led by the Holy Spirit in discernment and knowledge. The body of Christ, the church is where this comes to life! We can’t teach or encourage in the church without the wisdom of Gods word. Have you taken time to truly build trust with leadership, elders or someone wiser than you in your church? Have you reciprocated by being eager to grow? More than that, are you open to it? If not, ask God why and ask Him to help you to become humble and teachable!


I’ve discipled women and I myself have been discipled. I think it’s imperative to have both! But it’s also vitally important to choose wisely. I believe with every generation, it starts with small hangouts here and there with opportunity for encouragement and trust that builds over time. With trust built, the ears open to encouragement.


Where do I begin?


If you’re not sure how to start, here’s how I go about it based off of my interpretation of scripture, as someone in my thirties - I’ve directly asked women in the church I know that are older than me, to disciple me. Usually, this was because I already somewhat knew them, have seen how they’ve gone about life and how they treat people first. Most of these older women have told me that they’ve never had a younger person ask if they would disciple them. To me, that’s such a wasted opportunity. In my personal experience, the best way to be discipled and to disciple others is to simply do life together. Show mutual interest and care and don’t view it as being one sided (you can always learn from people younger than you, too!). This also allows space to see real life scenarios pan out to glean from how they handle them. Sharing your hopes can be important, by letting them know you would like to be discipled.


Don't go in with expectations


Ultimately, we have to be humble and recognize that the person we’ve chosen to learn from is probably more experienced in life than us. But they’re not immune to sin or hardship, and this is often where we see it go wrong. We forget that the person we esteem is human and assume that because they’ve been through and have overcome more, they’ve got it all figured out. The beauty is, they need grace just as much as us! They’re imperfect people in need of Jesus just as much as we are. The difference is, they’ve been in training longer.

"Wisdom is with the aged, and understanding in length of days" (Job 12:12).

"Let days speak, and many years teach wisdom" (Job 32:7)

We choose to be discipled by these people because we respect the way we’ve observed them handle life and exemplify Jesus. We adopt their attitude and practices and apply them to our own lives. This doesn’t mean you minimize yourself! We authentically bring who we are to that relationship. With confidence but humility and respect too.


So who can you disciple? Who can disciple you? Who can you ask to help develop you and walk with you in your faith? Maybe it’s for a short season. Maybe it’s an older sister in Christ who’s doing motherhood really well. Maybe it’s an elder who’s doing marriage in a way that has Godly fruit that you want to learn from. We’re given the gift of relationship to make life easier. Don’t miss the opportunity to be edified by someone a little older because of pride or fear. Observe and see who you see good fruit and character in, and ask the Holy Spirit if it’s a person to walk with in your faith journey.

Let’s listen more than we talk. Let's not have expectations, but instead we should uphold the standard of the word of God.



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