I was once told that the greatest enemy of good teaching is when a professor receives tenure. To be fair, tenure is a remarkable milestone for an academic. It can represent the recognition of one’s hard-earned work and mastery in a discipline. Or, it can be the pathway to apathy and decline.
Why?
When an academic cannot be fired, is free to express whatever they wish, and can largely evade accountability, something detrimental begins to occur. But this is not just for academics. It is also true of the Christian. When we reach a stage where we are not required to continue growing, we begin a significant decline.
How Do We Grow as Followers of Jesus?
Many factors hinder Christians from growing. Whether it’s the belief that they have “arrived” and no longer need correction, the misuse of grace as a license for sin, the pride in believing their theological position is flawless, or the conviction that change is impossible (so why try?), a reading of the New Testament reveals that arrested development was a reality many early Christians faced. The author of Hebrews writes:
In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. (Heb. 5:12-13, NIV)
How do we continue to grow as Christians? More particularly, how do we continue to grow as learners who follow Jesus?
I suggest revitalizing our habits, practices, and rituals.
One of the things lost with the growth of secularism has been the loss of holy habits. Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han has written extensively about the decline of Christian — and more broadly, religious — imagination in increasingly secular societies. While the erosion of religious sentiments brings about significant revisions in moral, economic, and relational spheres, it also leads to an often-overlooked decline in what people do together: ritual.
Although secularism presents itself as a pathway toward liberation from “oppressive” religion, it ultimately contributes to the near-total loss of shared rhythms that once transmitted values and meaning across generations. In Han’s view, this loss eventually culminates in what he describes as the “erosion of community.”
Ritual Can Reconnect Us With God
The loss of God’s love leads to a decline in ritual. Conversely, the renewal of ritual holds the power to reconnect us with God. In my book, A Teachable Spirit, I outline what a teachable Christian is like. However, I want to suggest five practices, habits, and disciplines that we can embrace to foster continuous growth of learning and knowledge.
1. Have a habit of bringing everything back to Scripture.
First, and foremost, to become good learners who love Jesus, we must enter our learning with some baseline convictions. Our thinking should not exceed God’s guiding hand.
Paul emphasized this in his letters, stating: “Do not go beyond what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6). By “written,” he referred to the sacred Scriptures. Paul wanted to stress the importance of not straying from God’s words. No wonder Jesus tells Satan to “get behind” him (Mt. 16:23); Satan often seeks to lead the way.
John further reinforces this caution: “Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (2 Jn. 9, NIV).
We must engage in thoughtful reflection, but it is imperative that our thoughts follow Jesus rather than attempt to outpace him.
2. Live in a community where you can be corrected.
Nothing ensures errant thinking more than solitary thought. We need to engage in constant conversation with others to help expose patterns of thought or deceptive lies that we have accepted without question. This is an essential role that the church plays in our lives. As Paul writes to Timothy, he encourages him to undertake his task with passion — the call to protect the church from false teaching and flawed reasoning:
Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to your care. Turn away from godless chatter and the opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge, which some have professed and in so doing have departed from the faith. (1 Tim. 6:20-21, NIV)
For Paul, this work must be done in the church. As you read a book, watch videos on the internet, or listen to teachings, always seek to involve those in your community in the conversation. Make yourself vulnerable to correction and rebuke. It is when we are unwilling to hear anyone else’s thoughts that we cut ourselves off from being teachable.
3. Spend time with people who are wiser than you.
This is one of the main ways we grow — by placing ourselves with others who have gone further down the road than we have. This plays out in the Proverbs as a father speaks to his son: “Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching” (Prov 1.8).
Not only does the structure of Proverbs command a humble reception of the sage’s knowledge and wisdom, but the writings further distinguish the “wise” from the “fool” by their singular capacity to be taught.
The wise receives correction. The fool does not.
The wise person is described as a learned person who can learn more. The fool, on the other hand, is often the learned person who is unwilling to be taught more. “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge,” the author reflects, “but he who hates reproof is stupid” (Prov 12.1, ESV).
4. Allow yourself to be offended by the Bible.
In John’s gospel, we read of an occasion when a number of “disciples” left the community of Jesus because his words offended them (Jn. 6:60-71).
Jesus did not hinder their departure; he allows people to leave if they choose. Most interesting is that those who left Jesus did so after witnessing his miracles, the supernatural, and the casting out of demons. Yet, it was precisely because his teaching offended them that they chose to leave.
What God tells us should offend us. This can be a sign that we are reading it correctly. If what we hear in Scripture is everything we desire to hear, then it is likely we are making the Bible convey ideas it does not intend to express. A false disciple leaves when Jesus offends them. A true disciple stays.
5. Read more dead people.
It is easy to get caught up in present thinking, and there is much to learn from it. However, by only reading new materials, we miss the wisdom of the past. This is one of the most important pieces of advice that C.S. Lewis imparted to his readers. In his introduction to Athanasius’ Letters on the Incarnation, Lewis established his wise rule for readers:
“It is a good rule, after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between. If that is too much for you, you should at least read one old one to every three new ones.”
As Lewis admits in the introduction, he does not believe we should read only old books by dead authors. “As a writer,” he endearingly confesses, “I do not wish the ordinary reader to ignore modern books.” However, he advises balance. Generally, a growing Christian should aim to read a few books each year by someone who sought to follow Jesus in a time and culture entirely different from their own.
Conclusion: Keep Learning, Keep Growing
Christian growth is not a destination but a lifelong pursuit of deeper learning and devotion. Through these five rituals (or habits), we nurture a posture that aligns with God’s vision for us — not as static believers but as dynamic disciples, growing in wisdom and closeness to Jesus. The question is not whether we have “arrived,” but whether we remain open to what God is yet to teach us. The journey of learning is, after all, a sacred one.
The ancient call of Jesus beckons us to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength” (Matt. 22:37). How do we love God with our mind? In A Teachable Spirit: The Virtue of Learning from Strangers, Enemies, and Absolutely Anyone, A.J. Swoboda helps followers of Jesus develop the discipline of teachability.
A.J. Swoboda (Ph.D., Birmingham) is an associate professor of Bible and Theology at Bushnell University and lead mentor for the Doctor of Ministry Program on Spiritual Formation and Soul Care at Friends University. He is the author of many books, including The Gift of Thorns, After Doubt, and the award-winning Subversive Sabbath. He hosts the Slow Theology podcast with Dr. Nijay Gupta and writes the widely read “Low-Level Theologian” Substack. A.J. lives and works on an urban farm with his wife and son in Eugene, Oregon.
