Although words and language describing the mentoring process have changed, the notion itself has remained central through the ages.
The term for mentoring during the Roman period was "imitation." Quintilian, a contemporary of the Apostle Paul, wrote an educational curriculum that was then implemented across the empire. In Institutes of Oratory, Quintilian contended that a tutor ought to be one of unimpeachable morals and knowledge. Only the best of the best should be selected as a mentor. In his method, a student learned by imitating the life and information of the teacher. If what you imitate is flawed, Quintilian reasoned, then you will mirror those same defects.
According to his writings, the educational system that Quintilian standardized was based on a model in which a student studied under the same professor from "almost grown up" until "after they become men." It was designed as a years-long relationship during which the protégé was saturated with the learning and experience of the mentor.
From the Dark Ages to the Industrial Revolution, mentoring mainly took the form of the apprenticeship. Serving as an apprentice was the primary way to prepare for almost any career. A prospective blacksmith found someone to tutor him that trade. In the same way, someone who planned to become a physician had to find a current doctor who would teach him the current state of that art. There were no medical or other graduate schools until the 1700s. Apprenticeships normally lasted a number of years and usually involved going to live with the mentor.
The language of mentoring today is more diverse than ever. Words such as sponsor, coach, advisor, and internship, as well as mentor, fill the pages of business journals, magazines, and books. Perhaps because of its current and rising popularity, mentoring is a term that is tossed around the way "total quality," "reengineering," and "category management" were earlier in the decade. Those words often were used as a gloss to make old ways of doing business seem new and fresh. Is the same thing happening with mentoring?
The recent cover story of a leading business magazine told of a young up-and-coming entrepreneur who construed a few relatively informal encounters with a business hero as a mentoring relationship. Is that mentoring? Or should the relationship more accurately be described as great advice from a wise expert?
How should mentoring be defined? And what perspective does Scripture bring to the discussion?
Holistic mentoring—the type described by the early Greeks and Romans, as well as in the biblical text—can be defined as a mutual relationship with an intentional agenda designed to convey specific content along with life wisdom from one individual to another. Mentoring does not happen by accident, nor do its benefits come quickly. It is relationally based, but it is more than a good friendship. Mentoring implies that of the two in the relationship, one is primarily the teacher and one is primarily the student. Mentoring is not two people who just spend time together sharing.
A Mutual Relationship
Open the pages of Scripture on the topic of mentoring, and the first truth you encounter is that a relationship flows in both directions. Connecting Moses and Joshua in Exodus. Linking Elijah and Elisha in 1 Kings and 2 Kings. Bonding Barnabus and Paul, then Paul and Timothy, in Acts. All those dyads involve one individual initiating a significant relationship with someone he singled out, with mentoring as the end purpose and result.
But the most complete record of mentoring in Scripture is the relationship between Jesus and his disciples. Jesus singled out a dozen men and then stayed with them more or less continually for the next three years. The relationship between Jesus and those 12 men is a record of breakfasts on the beach, small group huddles, personal correction, hazardous travel, and question and answers. Jesus lived out who he was and what he taught in front of those he mentored. That relation-rich environment authenticated Christ and his message to the disciples in the best possible way. It allowed them to experience Jesus, not just learn from him.
Genuine mentoring must include a genuine relationship. That does not mean the mentor and the protégé must become best friends, or that they must be in each other's company continuously for the duration of the formal mentoring process. It does mean, however, that the protégé has access to the person doing the mentoring. And it is most effective if that access comes in a number of different contexts, including situations outside those directly associated with work.
An Intentional Agenda
When Jesus called Peter off his boat (Luke 5:1-11) and Matthew from his calculator (Luke 5:27-28), He was inviting them to something more than a personal friendship. And he was calling them to something more than a relationship with God. Jesus had three years to teach, persuade, shape, correct, forgive, rebuke, love, and pray these men into becoming capable ambassadors of God's salvation.
Jesus called his disciples at the beginning with a particular end in mind. When Peter and Andrew encountered Jesus for the first time, that purpose was stated as: "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." (Matt. 4:19) Three years later, just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus offered a more precise clarification of that identical agenda: "Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you" (Matt. 28:19-20). Although the mentoring agenda became clearer to the disciples only as the process progressed, Jesus knew exactly where the finish line was before the race began.
A mentor is someone who knows where the mentoring curriculum will take the protégé under his or her care. There is a singular focus that is sometimes mistaken for stubbornness or idiosyncrasy. If self-directed study is allowed, it takes place only within tight parameters.
Gifted mentors have clear agendas.
Specific Content and Life Wisdom
Mentoring always includes teaching, but it is much more than information, skill, or technology. Perhaps the most attractive feature of the mentoring process is how the content of something mixes with learning about life. A mentor is a person who has mastered both a specific body of knowledge as well as wisdom regarding how life really works. Mentoring is a unique combination of classroom-type learning and simulation-type learning. Done correctly, it should teach the theory, but also prepare an individual for reality. That is exactly what Jesus did with the disciples.
The three-year curriculum from which the disciples graduated had specific content components. Before Jesus left the earth, they needed to know the content of the gospel message, as well as how to go about telling that good news.
The New Testament books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are full of accounts in which Jesus taught the disciples—either alone or as part of a larger crowd. Often he debriefed with the disciples as a group following a teaching time with a large crowd. In addition to formal teaching settings, he engaged in one-on-one dialogues (John 21:15-24), moderated debates (Luke 9:46-50), worked miracles (Matt. 4:23-25), and took on the opposition (Mark 2:18-28). These, along with countless other instances recorded in the Gospels, saturated the 12 protégés with the content of Jesus' message.
Besides just learning, the mentoring process also involves rolling up the sleeves and actually doing the work. For the disciples, that on-the-job-training meant going together in pairs preaching, casting out demons and healing the sick (Mark 6:7-13).
But the glue holding all the bytes of knowledge together is the wisdom gained by being exposed to the rich life experience of the mentor. In most formal teaching situations, class is over when the bell rings. The student has little exposure to how the teacher handles life as it happens. Because a mentoring relationship includes life together in multiple contexts over time, the mentor can demonstrate as well as explain. The student can really probe down deep, not just skate out on the surface with a question.
Mentoring is a sensory experience. During the process, the one being mentored has looked, touched, felt, seen, and heard.
From One Individual to Another
Mentoring only works when there is an unambiguous understanding that the teaching and wisdom-sharing flow primarily in one direction between two people. One person is the advisor, and one person is the advisee. The RELATIONSHIP is mutual, which inherently implies movement in both directions. But the teaching is mostly a one-way street.
That mentoring reality flies in the face of a current cultural norm, which supposes that everyone has equally important information to share. It assumes that a student must be teachable and hungry to learn. Further, it presupposes that the protégé is somewhat enthusiastic about being shaped in the image of the mentor.
Mentoring places a burden on both the mentor and the protégé. Mentors must understand that by agreeing to a mentoring process they are agreeing to cultivate a mutual relationship. Protégés must understand that they have a commitment to sit at the feet of the mentor. The phrase "sit at the feet" is a figurative, not literal, but it does provide an accurate picture of how mentoring has looked through the ages, including with Jesus and the disciples.
Mentoring is incredibly popular in today's business environment. There is a hunger to replace "life and work" with "lifework." Because mentoring includes relationship, accounts for more than just content and draws on the wisdom and experience of someone who has gone before, the race is on to find good mentors.
That really should be no surprise. Mentoring has been around for thousands of years, and the biblical definition gives indication to the richness that a genuine mentoring process can bring. Perhaps most compelling of all, however, is the power demonstrated in the mentoring relationship between Jesus and his protégés. Those men left the mentoring process and impacted the world. We still benefit.
This article appears with permission from Life@Work magazine. The Life@Work Co.® exists to blend biblical wisdom and business excellence. We are committed to providing leadership to this emerging category by exploring ideas, connecting people, and integrating life. Our purpose is to help individuals and organizations find satisfaction and success from a well-invested life at work.
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