Job 36:22 “God is exalted in his power. Who is a teacher like him?”
This passage makes me uncomfortable, mainly because it connects power and teaching. The two sentences form a causal relationship. Because God is exalted, Elihu appears to say, who is a teacher like him?
The answer is no one. In his absolute power, God confronts us with our powerlessness and offers to teach us contingent on our fear and awe.
It jars against the image we have of Christ in John 13 washing the disciples feet, telling them they are right to call him rabbi and to do as he has done: serve their students.
The Job verse makes me uncomfortable because I don’t want to think through the kind of power that I have at my disposal: be responsible for the factor I play in a student’s educational future or the duty I have to God to make sure that what I’m teaching glorifies him.
The power God has is not an end in itself. He does not teach in order to exert power. He uses that power in order to teach, love, and serve. In the same way, Christ lowers himself not as a way of making himself less the Son of God but as a way to show us that his power is a means to an end: communion with us through service.
I pray that I will use the power God has given me to better serve my students: neither denying or remaining unconscious of that power nor using it as an end. It is by following Christ’s example that I can best merge education and discipleship.