We Can Always Learn

Before the internet, before podcasts, before everybody became an expert with a keyboard, there was always somebody sitting on a porch rail or leaning against the feed store who had all the answers. If you stayed around folks long enough, you'd hear enough dog training advice to fill a library.

Some of it was pretty good.

Some of it...well...you had to wonder if the fellow giving the advice had ever actually owned a dog.

I've been blessed through the years to spend time around some truly gifted trainers. I've watched horse trainers make a horse move with such grace you'd think it was dancing. I've hunted behind houndsmen who could tell you exactly what a dog was doing just by hearing one bark echo through the holler. I've watched bird dog trainers take a wild little pup and patiently shape it until every movement looked like it belonged in an outdoor magazine.

You can learn a lot if you're willing to admit someone knows more than you.

But I've also met another breed entirely.

I call them "porch rail professors."

These are the folks whose dogs spend more time being talked about than hunted. Their next litter is always going to be the best ever born. Every pup is "fixin' to be a world champion," yet somehow none of them have left the kennel since gas was about a dollar a gallon.

They hand out training advice like free samples at the grocery store.

"My uncle's cousin fed his Bluetick two raw eggs every morning, and it'd trail a coon backwards."

"Old man Jenkins swore if you rubbed axle grease behind a pup's ears it'd stop deer running."

Nobody knows where these ideas started, but after they've been repeated around enough tailgates and feed buckets, folks begin treating them like Scripture.

It reminds me of years ago when I went to Kansas to learn AI "artificial insemination." This was long before the kind of AI folks argue about on Facebook. This kind involved cows, coveralls, and one long plastic glove. Michael Jackson had one glove too, but I promise you that's about where the similarities ended.

There were a bunch of guys there wanting to learn, but there were also a few who showed up already convinced they ought to be teaching the class.

One fellow especially stood out.

He walked around like a banty rooster that personally invented cattle.

Every lesson the instructor taught, he'd interrupt.

"Well, on our farm..."

"My granddaddy always did it this way..."

"We've never done it like that..."

On and on he'd go.

The funny part was that the instructor teaching the course was nationally respected. The man had forgotten more about cattle reproduction than the rest of us would probably learn in our lifetime. If you had eaten a good steak somewhere in America, there was a decent chance his work had influenced the genetics behind it.

But Mr. Know-It-All couldn't stop talking.

Eventually we moved from the classroom into the barn for the hands-on portion of the training. The Kansas wind was blowing through the cracks in those old boards so hard it'd shave whiskers. It was cold enough I intentionally picked a Holstein because I figured at least one arm might thaw out somewhere around my shoulder.

As we were practicing, one of the instructors suddenly raised his voice.

Professor Know-It-All had become so busy proving he already knew everything that he'd completely ignored the instructor's directions. He misunderstood some basic anatomy and got confused about where the arm went and where the straw went.

Thankfully the cow ended up just fine. And I truly did feel sorry for her.

But I'd probably be stretching the truth if I said there wasn't just a tiny little part of me that smiled watching the fellow who thought he knew everything suddenly discover there are things you only learn by listening to the teacher.

That memory comes back every time I read Mark chapter 7.

The Pharisees weren't ignorant men. They were educated. They knew the traditions. They knew the customs. They knew what generations before them had practiced. The problem wasn't a lack of knowledge.

The problem was they had become convinced they knew better than the One who wrote the Law in the first place.

When Jesus confronted them about elevating tradition above God's Word, they didn't humbly listen. They argued. They defended themselves. They corrected the Teacher.

Jesus said, "You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men" (Mark 7:8, ESV).

A few verses later He went even further: "Thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down" (Mark 7:13, ESV).

Think about how astonishing that is.

The Creator of the universe stood in front of people explaining the truth, and they believed their traditions were more reliable than God's own voice.

Isn't that what pride always does?

Pride whispers, "I already know."

Pride says, "That's not how I've always heard it."

Pride assumes the student has become smarter than the Teacher.

The Lord reminds us in Isaiah 55:8-9, "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

When we start believing our opinions, traditions, or experiences outweigh God's Word, we've forgotten who the Teacher is.

And before we're too hard on the Pharisees, we can do the very same thing.

"My papaw always believed..."

"Our church has always done it this way..."

"I've always thought..."

Those statements aren't necessarily wrong, but they should never have the final word.

The better question is always, "What does Scripture actually say?"

Some traditions are wonderful. They remind us of God's faithfulness through the years. But every tradition, every opinion, every preacher, every podcast, every book, and every personal experience must bow before the authority of God's Word.

The student never graduates beyond the Teacher.

The wisest believer isn't the one who has the strongest opinions.

It's the one who stays teachable.

That poor fellow in Kansas finally learned something the hard way. The problem wasn't that he didn't know enough. The problem was he thought he already knew enough to quit listening.

That's a dangerous place for any Christian.

Because God's ways are always higher than ours.

And whenever we think we're smarter than the Teacher, we're usually only moments away from putting our hand where it was never meant to go.