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Continuing yesterday’s theme of helping kids actually have daily time with God as opposed to talking about it, my friend Ray Bandi in New Hampshire told me, “Teaching is not telling people what you know but helping them do what you can do.”

I am corresponding with a young man I met at the Math Olympiad in 2018 and saw again this year. He works really hard, but he’s not really good at working the problems yet. This year, he didn’t solve any of them so I emailed him and offered to tutor him. He accepted, and I started by presenting Problem 1 from this year’s set and giving him a hint. After five email exchanges, he finally submitted a short, correct solution. 

At each exchange, I commended him for his persistence, told him how he was going to learn how to do this, pointed out that he used a lot of words to try to cover the fact that he didn’t know what he was talking about, gave him another hint, and asked him to try again. I was determined NOT to tell him what I know (the answer) but help him discover it on his own. He finally did. The story isn’t over by a long shot, but I am hoping that if I am patient with the process, he will learn to do (creative) mathematics.

I believe good ministry (lasting ministry) is like what I’m doing with the young man. To be sure, knowledge is important, but doing is more important. Jesus said so repeatedly. To change the metaphor, you don’t learn to play the piano by attending concerts. It’s building people brick by brick, and, I’m telling myself, patience is required…for math, for discipleship!

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little. (Isaiah 28.10, NKJV)