All Things TogetherSample

Day 4

THE APPRENTICESHIP PARADIGM

Apprenticeship is a whole-life way of being in the world. It cannot be compartmentalized. It is not and cannot be ab­stract or theoretical. It is intensely analog and presence ori­ented.

Consider the origin, practices, and aim of following Jesus:

1. Union with Jesus is the origin of apprenticeship. This grace-born miracle of a with-God life is given to us through the work of Jesus and ministry of His Spirit. This union with Jesus is the grace of being drawn into the triune life of God, becoming “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4, ESV), that leads to re-imagining the world and re-inhabiting the world because we have been given a new nature.

2. Abiding with Jesus and obeying Jesus are the interlaced “being and doing” of an apprentice’s life—they are the renovating practices that constitute the essence of an embodied life of apprenticeship. It is the life of becoming who you are, working out one’s “salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:12-13, ESV).

3. Imaging Jesus is the aim of apprenticeship. The daily and ultimate purpose of our lives is to be conformed to the image of Jesus (Romans 8:29)—flourishing in His presence as we grow in His likeness, degree by shimmering degree. That we would be like Jesus—that is the glorious ambition of apprenticeship. This is the hope of glory we have (Colossians 1:27).

Paul speaks about this paradigm in chapter 2 of his letter to Titus: Jesus has come to save us. Through His work of sacrificial love, through giving “himself for us to redeem us” (Titus 2:14, ESV) we are united to Him (union). He is with us (abiding), as we are “a people for his own possession” (Titus 2:14, ESV). He is “training us to renounce ungodliness” (Titus 2:12, ESV) (obeying). And now as a people “who are zeal­ous for good works” (Titus 2:14, ESV) (again, obeying), we await “our blessed hope” and His appearing, in which we will see Him face-to-face and be like Him (imaging).

How does understanding apprenticeship as a “whole-life” and analog way of being shift the way you think about your daily routines and decisions?