Students in YWAM’s Schools of Biblical Studies have been given the world’s greatest mentorship opportunity: by studying the 66 books of the Bible, they will actually be mentored by 40+ of the most influential men and women of faith who have ever lived. SBS leaders are convinced that each of the 66 books included in our Bibles represents an opportunity that the Holy Spirit took- through the unique gifting and experience of each Author– to mentor the Authors’ various communities of believers. Hence those 66 books earned the label “inspired”. I urge every Bible student to consider the mentorship of those 40+ Authors to be equally inspired.
The Holy Spirit is excited about your 9 months of SBS! He sees it as another mentorship opportunity: He gets to re-live the personal and community mentorship that He desired to accomplish in Biblical Israel, but this time in your heart, then through your unique gifting and calling to your unique communities of relationship.
Thus, every time you research the background of a Biblical Author, you will be discovering the CV, or resumé, of one of your new mentors. Moses has his own style of mentorship; David’s is quite different; imagine being personally mentored by Job! Get to know them all like intimate friends during your nine months of SBS, so you can effectively introduce them as mentors to your neighbors, cities, and nations. Then, if an acquaintance dejectedly mumbles something about a hopeless dilemma he faces, you can offer to introduce him to a range of time-tested counselors who are available 24/7 (but who apparently prefer to hang out at coffee shops…)
If students actually understand what I am proposing (it happens, occasionally), I then challenge them to take this mentorship model further. Moses didn’t mentor in a vacuum- he was mentored by his own stable of inspired mentors: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the other fathers and mothers of faith introduced in the book of Genesis. When David writes/sings in Psalm 119:52 “When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord,” he is talking about the effect of Moses’ mentorship throughout his troubled life. The writing Prophets base the authority of their own prophetic mentorship upon God’s word to earlier mentors of faith: primarily Moses, five hundred years earlier, but also on the more recent prophetic community-mentors who preceded them.
Finally, we have to talk about Jesus’ mentorship (after six months of Chronological SBS!) Some sources find Jesus quoting 24 different Old Testament books. Really? You’d think the Son of God would have his own copyrighted mentorship materials for sale in a DVD set on his website! I believe Jesus was showing His disciples that He is also the Son of Man, and was modeling Biblical mentorship for them. Humanity is a family in which parents teach their children truths revealed by an unchanging God, from the very first generation through every subsequent generation, in an unbroken cycle of relationship. Jesus didn’t want His disciples to forget that fact and break the cycle- and He doesn’t want us to break it today.
SBS is your opportunity- YWAM style- to follow Jesus’ style of mentorship: To be Biblically-mentored, and To make Biblical-mentoring known.
By Cliff Davis
