To anybody that knew Jesus in the first century, to his contemporaries, to his fellow teachers,

to his disciples, to anybody that followed him around, he would have been known as a rabbi.

A rabbi.

This is just the Hebrew word for teacher.

And it was one of the more respected roles that you could play in Jewish

society. And the rabbi's role was to teach the Old Testament law, to teach their interpretation

of God's Old Testament law. And rabbis, they would often debate one another about what the

proper interpretation was.

And every rabbi also had students or disciples or maybe the best way to translate it apprentices.

And they were charged to learn everything that their rabbi knew by the Old Testament law.

And the rabbi was to teach them their particular interpretation of various Old

Testament laws. And they debated and they learned and they grew. But the teaching style in

first century Judaism and the rabbi student relationship and even rabbi to rabbi debating,

it was not done in what we're most used to from a teaching standpoint. It's not so much somebody is, you think of a university setting, a professor is lecturing,

and then everybody is taking notes.

It happened more, teaching happened more through dialogue.

It was a back and forth where they wrestled with each other with different and various interpretations of the law.

They debated different ideas. Students were actually encouraged interpretations of the law. They debated different ideas.

Students were actually encouraged to challenge their rabbi,

and they would be challenged back, to engage with the teaching,

and to go back and forth.

And this dialogue that led to teaching,

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