You can connect with God through Learning.

2026 is the year of Encounters & Visitations.

You choose your Daily Encounter, God chooses your Holy Visitation!

The words discipling, wisdom, revelation, understanding, discernment, counsel, and knowledge are biblical ways of describing learning.

A key aspect of biblical learning is knowing.

Hebrew: יָדַע (yāḏaʿ) = To know; to learn; to perceive; to discern; to experience; to know people relationally. It is also the word used to describe marital intimacy.

God is saying: “I know. I’m relationally invested and experientially connected with My people and all their suffering.”

Greek: ἐπιγινώσκω (epiginōskō) = Knowledge; to recognize; it expresses a more thorough, intimate participation relationally in the acquiring of knowledge on the part of the learner.

God’s knowledge of us is already at the yāḏaʿ and epiginōskō level because He intimately knows everything about us—because He created us.

Learning is beyond intellectualism.

The transition from partial knowing to full knowing suggests that yāḏaʿ and epiginōskō are participatory.

Greek: μανθάνω (manthanō) = To learn; to have learned something, to understand it. In this sense it means to learn with a moral bearing and responsibility to know more fully.

Hebrew: לָמַד (lāmaḏ) = To learn; to study; to teach; to be taught; to be learned; learning war, training for war; the lack of training; the acquisition of instruction.

Caution:
When there is no experiential participation with the learner and God, their understanding is incomplete and they lack full comprehension of truth.

In the Dictionary
Learning: One that learns; a student or apprentice; a beginner in some field; to gain knowledge or understanding of, or skill in, by study, instruction, or experience.

Learning Simplified:
When God teaches you new revelation you didn’t know before.

"All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible." — Noah Webster

Knowledge is the accumulation of facts and information.

Wisdom is the ability to apply that knowledge with godly judgment and discernment. 

Caution:
The danger of social media scrolling is that if we are learning everything, we are not becoming proficient in anything.

The world is starving with only shallow knowledge.

All learning is spiritual!

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.” — C.S. Lewis

The beauty of Christianity is that with all the knowledge in the world, we get to connect with the Author of Life to understand His intention, meaning, mores, and ethics regarding anything happening in the world around us.

There are more things God wants us to know than we realize.

Key Biblical Principles of Learning
- The Fear of the Lord: Reverence for God is described as the "beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7). The ultimate goal of learning is to know God more intimately.

Key Biblical Principles of Learning
- Humility: A "teachable spirit" is required to grow. The Bible warns that "knowledge puffs up" (1 Corinthians 8:1) when it lacks the love of God. Learning is a key part of sanctification, the process of becoming more like Christ.

Key Biblical Principles of Learning
- Community: Learning is often presented as a shared journey where "iron sharpens iron" (Proverbs 27:17).  Biblical learning includes practical training in trades or skills to provide for one's family and serve the community (1 Timothy 5:8). 

Key Biblical Principles of Learning
Lifelong Journey: Learning is a continuous process that does not end with formal education. Even Jesus is recorded as growing in wisdom (Luke 2:40, 52).

Key Biblical Principles of Learning
- The Fear of the Lord
- Humility
- Community
- Lifelong Journey

The Bible is meant for more than informing us—it is meant for transforming us.

Learners are leaders.

Teachers are held to a higher standard because they assume greater responsibility for leading others.

Question:
Why do we need learners?

Learners become educators who inspire, motivate, train and empower people into knowing God and making Him known by discipling others in every area of life. The heart of a teacher can be summed up in this verse:

Learners are students for life, who study God and His ways and apply His principles in every area of life as leaders. More than what you learn, who you learn from influences and shapes the world in which you live.

The understanding of yoking comes from farming. Oxen are yoked or united together, and the farmer and the older, stronger ox train the younger, weaker ox. Young, stubborn oxen are sometimes dragged into submission as they learn to follow the master ox. The older ox determines their “way,” in terms of destination. It also determines “the way,” regarding the work it’s trained to do and “the way” in terms of how the two of them work together. I picture the older ox saying, “All right stubborn little fella…don’t be a burden to me. We can do this the easy way, or the hard way. Choose the easy way or I’m breaking your neck.” If they’re unequally yoked in size and strength, the young, immature ox could get severely damaged, even breaking his stubborn neck. Essentially, the older, stronger ox trains the younger ox it’s discipling until the younger ox is covered in the other’s dust and learns how to do life on the farm. As they get better at working together and pulling workloads together, they can create so much exponential power, it's as if a third invisible ox is added—which is called synergy.

In similar fashion, the "yoke of the rabbi" is the ancient Jewish tradition of discipleship: it refers to a disciple's willing acceptance of their chosen rabbi's specific teachings, interpretations, and lifestyle—essentially adopting their spiritual authority and perspective on Scripture (Torah) as their own guide for living.

Rabbis were rockstars in that day, and followers pursued rabbis—not the other way around.

"The dust of the rabbi" signifies deep, devoted discipleship, meaning to follow a rabbi or teacher so closely that you absorb their teachings, actions, and way of life—becoming so intertwined with them that you are metaphorically "covered in their dust," kicked up from their sandals, symbolizing total commitment and transformation.

To be "covered in the dust" was a sign of honor, showing a disciple's zeal and dedication. It represents absorbing the rabbi's whole way of thinking, living, and acting, becoming changed and renewed in their likeness.

Being covered in the dust of the rabbi represents how many things for spiritual learners are less taught—but more caught—in relational, teachable moments due to nearness and proximity.

Remez (hint) is a rabbinic technique where a rabbi or teacher uses a phrase that subtly refers back to a specific Old Testament passage, inviting the listener to apply the full context of that original Scripture to the current teaching or moment.

It's like Jesus is saying: “Come to Me, I Am the ancient path that will give you rest. The yoke is My Word! Take My Word, the Bible, and do life with Me! Learn how to do life with Me and absorb My lifestyle! I’m the humble Prophet Moses spoke of that you’re looking for! Come to Me! Get discipled through being yoked to Me and learn from Me! Come follow Me!”

Greek: συνεργός (sunergos) = Fellow laborer or worker; helper

When we are yoked and work together in unity, God works with us, multiplying our efforts, making our loads lighter as we learn how to work together.

The New Testament refers to the yoke of legalism and rules (Acts 15:10; Gal. 5:1). But Jesus’ yoke is none other than commitment to Him in relationship, gaining his authoritative understanding of God’s truth. To learn from Jesus is to receive His revelation of what the law truly intends (cf. Matt. 5:17–48).

Every leader and nation places a yoke on people.

That yoke either forms sons and daughters or slaves.

When the Church is lukewarm, it’s a sign that instead of the Church discipling the nations, the nations are discipling the Church!

Three Demonic Yokes Discipling the World Today
- The Yoke of Bad Political Laws and Policies
- The Yoke of Social Media
- The Yoke of Islam

Juvenile Justice
- Roughly 85% of all juveniles who interface with the juvenile court system are functionally illiterate.
- 85% of prison inmates say they grew up in fatherless homes.

This is what it looks like when Uncle Sam becomes Father Sam! Education is the key to freedom! This is why slave masters got laws passed preventing slaves from learning how to read and write—because if you can’t learn, you stay yoked and enslaved!

It’s time to break this yoke! I’m daring to believe that the same God who broke the yoke of Dred v. Scott and ended slavery; the same God who broke the yoke of Jim Crow Laws and ended segregation; the same God who broke the yoke of Roe v. Wade to save our unborn children—is the same God breaking the yoke of fatherlessness off the inner city!

Our children will read and be learners! Our babies are brilliant! Our schools will stop being a pipeline to prison! God is turning the hearts of the fathers back to the children! Malachi 4:5–6

Social media is a yoke that is discipling people into division and information silos; people are ever learning and not coming to the knowledge of the truth.

Bottom line:
Who is discipling you—the algorithm, or the Holy Spirit?

The yoke of Islam is breaking off Iran and the Middle East!

A sign that yokes are breaking is when boldness comes on people because the anointing has brought increase and the yoke of fear doesn’t fit anymore!

Spiritual eyes get opened when daily bread is broken with Jesus.

Learners become burners when they spend time with God!

Practical Tools for Learning the Bible
- Start with one book of the Bible — John, Psalms, proverbs, etc.
- Study a person in the Bible
- Study a topic in the Bible
- Use a YouVersion Bible plan

Different Ways to Approach the Bible
- Choose a translation you understand
- Choose a time, place, and plan to study
- Pray for God to speak to you and apply what He shows you
- Ask for the Spirit of Wisdom and Revelation every day

Methods and Techniques for Studying the Bible
- Check context – Understand the historical, cultural, and literary setting
- Go deeper and look up words — Use the Strong's Concordance, Thayer's Bible Concordance, or Blue Letter Bible to study the original Hebrew and Greek words
- Find key themes — Identify recurring words or big ideas
- Take Notes — Journal insights, questions and key words

Practical Tools for Learning the Bible — Do the Four R's
- Read
- Reflect
- Respond
- Request

Utilize Scripture Engagement by
- Memorizing Scripture
- Praying Scripture
- Picturing Scripture
- Discussing and sharing insights with others

Hebrew: מָצוֹק (māṣôq) = Distress; anguish; hardship; anxiety; disability

Hebrew: נָשָׁא (nāšāʾ) = Debt; to lend; to charge interest; to serve as a creditor; a person who has made a loan

Hebrew: מָרָה (mārāh) = To be bitter

Hebrew: נֶפֶשׁ (nephesh) = Soul

In the cave of Adullam, King David writes many of the Psalms. According to scholars, at least three for certain: Psalm 34, Psalm 57, and Psalm 142.

Imagine the impact David’s Daily Encounters had on these men. They worshipped and prayed with David, reading and learning from his journals before they were known as Psalms.

The cave of Adullam was holy ground; it was a cave of Daily Encounters, where yokes of hopelessness were broken because of the increased anointing on their lives.

Your cave was really a cocoon, and you’re being transformed!

No eye has seen nor ear has heard all that God is going to do through you!

Jesus becomes the fulfillment of what Adullam represented.

David gathered broken men in a cave; Jesus gathered broken people into a Kingdom.

Jesus is saying "Come, follow Me."