A medieval baker with an apprentice.

An appren­tice, defined in the most sim­plis­tic form, is a learner. Every learner needs a tutor or teacher; in the ver­nac­u­lar of appren­tice­ship, that would be a mas­ter or a jour­ney­man. For­mally, an appren­tice­ship was the art of pass­ing down skills, wis­dom and knowl­edge to a younger pro­tégé, allow­ing the craft or line of knowl­edge to con­tinue. Appren­tices build their future from an appren­tice­ship. The train­ing of an appren­tice is hands on, in  the prac­tice of the craft under the wise guid­ance and instruc­tion of a master.

The Ser­mon on the Mount by Carl Hein­rich Bloch.

Since we do not have Jesus, nor the first dis­ci­ples walk­ing cor­po­re­ally on the earth, we pass down the learn­ing by gen­er­a­tion. Appren­tice­ships are some­times, though not exclu­sively, expe­ri­enced father to son. Unfor­tu­nately not all fathers fol­low Christ, not hav­ing adopted the char­ac­ter of the son of God or a desire to do so.  In this par­a­digm, while not ideal, it is not an insur­mount­able chal­lenge. In guilds, mas­ter crafts­men taught oth­ers who were not their chil­dren. In Chris­t­ian dis­ci­ple­ship, mature fol­low­ers of Christ often teach oth­ers who are not related to them. In this way, dis­ci­ple­ship and appren­tice­ship share similarities.

I was not dis­ci­pled by fam­ily mem­bers, but rather by faith­ful men along my path, who agreed to impart wis­dom and tutor me along the way. These men (Marc Y., Jim B. and Bruce H.) all gave of their time and tal­ent to men­tor me along my way.

Under­stand­ably, I am not per­fect, nor am I a mas­ter. I def­i­nitely have gaps in my life expe­ri­ences where the Christ-like way would have been bet­ter than what I expe­ri­enced or chose. In those gaps, I am depen­dent solely on the scrip­tures and God’s Holy Spirit in me to help me guide my son, my apprentice.

Thank­fully God has given us a cloud of great wit­nesses and His Holy Spirit dwelling in us to guide our path. Using these helps, I am bear­ing the respon­si­bil­ity, in the full view and cor­rec­tion of my heav­enly father, tutor­ing my son towards mas­ter­ing the art of bear­ing Christ’s image in all that he does.

My read­ing of scrip­ture leads me to believe that my son’s mas­tery will not be in this short life­time, but after the new heav­ens and new earth. Until then, I will jour­nal here my thoughts and insights as I imper­fectly tutor my apprentice.