A young man named Sasha approached me quietly, shyly. Then he grinned and held out a packet of sugar, offering it to me. “Eto vam,” he said. (“This is for you.”) My Russian speaking skills were limited to a few words and phrases. But I understood enough to say, “Spasiba” (“Thank you”). The truth is, I didn’t want the packet of sugar. But for him this gift was a huge sacrifice, offering me a treasured possession. It gave him great joy to offer it to me, his new teacher.
I learned so much from my Russian students. As a teacher at Moscow Bible Institute, it was my calling to help them become better Bible teachers. Through translation I taught them about learning styles, lesson preparation, and the process by which our brains perceive and process information. But my students taught me far more than I ever taught them. They taught me how to live in Christian community as each day every student put whatever he or she had brought for lunch onto the table, and everyone shared it. As their teacher, I was always given first choice. They taught me about living in difficult and challenging life situations and having a heart set to share the Gospel in a culture that was desperately in need and, at the same time, defiantly opposed to the message. Ultimately they taught me about selfless love by giving up personal rights or possessions when someone else had a need or when they simply wanted to honor that person. I was humbled by their lessons.
Jesus taught many lessons. Great lessons. Powerful truths about who God is and about what walking with God looks like. But perhaps more importantly, Jesus modeled God’s truth. When He was asked by two disciples to be granted positions of great power, He instead told them that they were thinking in the way of this world. He told them that in His kingdom greatness was found in being a servant to others. Jesus lived that way. He modeled it. So His words ring completely true: “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Some lessons are taught with words. Some lessons, like Sasha’s loving gift and Jesus’s powerful sacrifice, are not taught so much with words but by personal example. May we build our lives on both.