IBS Application for Luke 2:46

“After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.”

It is astonishing to me to reread this passage and see just how far Jesus had gone in humbling Himself in becoming a human being like us. In becoming a servant, He submitted Himself to the will of the Father, and therefore submitted Himself to the world’s authorities. In this case, He sat and learned from the teachers in the temple. Though He would not have needed to necessarily learn Scripture, seeing as how He was God in the flesh, He still went through life as we did, learning the same way that we do. Although, if the rest of the passage is indicative of anything, it would be that Jesus, even as a child, may have taught the teachers more than they taught Him!

But the thing that I think fascinated me the most about this passage is the fact that Jesus asked questions. Again, He didn’t have to do so necessarily, yet He did. And He had been asking questions for three days. There were things that Jesus was curious about, having been in such a state of humility as to not shed His omniscience, but instead to have “suppressed” it in a way before His death and resurrection.

While it is certainly clear that being God while also being a man afforded Him exceptional wisdom, as we see in verse 47, Jesus still sat under the teaching of others. He functioned as a student when He was a child. And as a student, He asked His teachers questions. He didn’t challenge them, or at least, not with intent to undermine their authority-for all we know, He may have given them something to think about! But instead He simply asked questions to learn and to understand the Scriptures.

I feel as though I have to keep establishing that God doesn’t *have* to learn anything, but Jesus sat under other teachers to bring into perspective for us just how humble He made Himself. He asked questions as their student, and in this way, He helped set the model for what a good student looks like. Good students ask questions of their teachers when they seek to have a greater understanding of the Word.

We should likewise ask questions of our teachers when we do not understand or seek to have a greater understanding of Scripture.

My application for this IBS will be to do just that for the remainder of this week here in training, and make a greater effort to try to see if there isn’t something about a reading assignment or some part of Scripture that I read in my devotion time that I do not understand so that I can ask questions.

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