Years ago, I began working in a telephone call center. As part of my orientation, I had a couple of weeks of instruction in the classroom, followed by what was referred to as OJT. It stood for “On the Job Training”.
On the Job Training consisted of a new hire sitting down next to a seasoned veteran. Both parties would wear a headset, and be able to speak to a customer when they called in. At first, only the trainer did the speaking, with the trainee sitting back and watching. He or she would listen. By listening only, one could gain an understanding of the type of phone calls that they would receive, and how to help the customer. Gradually, the trainee would begin to talk to the customer. Eventually, the idea was that if all worked as planned, only the trainee would do the actual talking.
Today, we’re going to read about Jesus doing some On the Job Training with his disciples. Last week we read about him calling his first 4 disciples — Andrew and Simon Peter, along with James and John. He plans to use these men as 1/3 of his inner 12, and we see today about him starting to train them to do ministry.
