“And He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. And He was stating the matter plainly” (Mark 8:31-32).
That someone is teaching doesn’t mean you are being taught. Learning requires listening; being open to the unfamiliar and that which challenges everything previously understood. Too often we limit God on the basis of our expectations. Such was the case for Jesus’ disciples. Suffering and death were far removed from their entrenched ideas regarding the Messiah. It took a resurrection for them to finally see; for Jesus’ teachings to finally make sense. When holding to beliefs, traditions, and practices based upon our personal preferences but lacking in biblical merit, we, too, can find ourselves in a place of being unteachable even while being taught. Maybe the needed remedy is a resurrection of our hearts.
Bobby Dagnel 