ABSTRACT
Though educated outside the mainstream of Jerusalem rabbinical tradition, Jesus nevertheless gave Himself to the rigors of elite training and understood the paramount priority of wedding intellect to devotion. The resultant combination of study and worship caused Jesus to be a child prodigy. Many of the underlying habits and skills needed to run the family business would directly transfer to His call. As His earthly father Joseph taught him to build pieces of furniture, there was an apprenticing process Jesus followed that would later cross over to His own mentoring approach. While the list of Jesus’ capabilities is many, there is one that sits at the top of them all, and it is the most important one for the planter: the ability to preach. The early apostles also understood that the core of their ministry and the key to the founding of the first church rested on preaching.
