How Jesus Made DisciplesSample

Day 3: Jesus engaged in “just-​in-​time” training.

“Just-in-time training” is giving people information or a skill when they are in the best position to learn it. Ideally, this will be when they can immediately apply the information or skill. This is the opposite of “just-in-case training”; giving people all the information they could potentially need. People don’t often retain information or skills when they are not in a position to utilize them.

In Luke 11:1, Jesus has just finished praying. We might assume that Jesus’ prayer was powerful, because one of the disciples asks Him, “Lord, teach us to pray.” In response, Jesus teaches the disciples the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is given as an actual prayer to pray, but it is also a great model for the elements that should be contained in prayer. Jesus then goes on to teach the disciples about persevering in prayer by using the analogy of a friend who knocks in the middle of the night needing bread.

These are extremely important lessons about prayer. And yet Jesus doesn’t share these lessons until well into His journey with them. Why did Jesus wait so long? Probably because the disciples were not ready to receive those lessons. If Jesus had given them the same lesson earlier, perhaps His words would have gone in one ear and out the other.

We see plenty of other examples of Jesus’ timely teaching of the disciples. In Mark 9, the disciples are perplexed about why they cannot cast out a particular demon. Jesus takes the opportunity to give them brief instruction about prayer. The disciples might not have been prepared to receive this instruction if they had not just experienced a ministry failure and been trying to understand what went wrong.

Another way just-​in-​time training works is by training people and then offering them the opportunity to use that training. Author Neil Cole shared how he trains young protégés to preach: “I don’t train people to preach and then find an opportunity for them to preach. I find them an opportunity to preach, and then I train them. They are much more motivated to learn to preach once they know they are going to have to preach.”