Only be strong and very courageous; be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success (Joshua 1:7-8).
Seek Success & Prosperity
We all want to have our way be prosperous and to have success. To some degree we truly need to prosper and have success so the pursuit of those goals is not merely an expression of our worst nature. It likely is altogether righteous for an apprentice to seek prosperity and to have success. This is not an endorsement of greed but of need (nice little rhyme?). I do not want my apprentice to just be fooling away time learning skills he never plans to use. If that is the case he/she is wasting both his time and mine.
My life may be short and I do not want to expend it training a person valuable skills just so those skills can be thrown to the wind. Sure people change their directions. I know that. But like the apostle I want to spend and be expended (2 Corinthians 12:15) for a worthwhile cause not somebody’s chance of drifting fancy.
What Makes an Apprentice Succeed?
But for the apprentice it seems the greater cause of Christ should impel him to think about how his way may be made prosperous and how he will have success. In my case any apprentice is likely to be male (must be suitable to work alone with me in the shop every day) so, in most cases, that apprentice should be preparing to support a family. And supporting a family is not easy in our high-taxed society. Plus he ought to be thinking about how he can work toward the expansion of God’s kingdom and how he might yield a return for the heavenly Master of thirty, or sixty, or one hundred fold. The earthly master wants a return but so does the heavenly one.
Joshua instructs Israel that the way of prosperity is to make sure that the book of the law does not depart from their mouth and that they must not turn to the right or the left. They are told to meditate on it day and night, “so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it”, as must we.
Soul Training for Success
There is no substitute for meditating on God’s law day and night (Psalm 119:48) and we truly assist our apprentices if we encourage them and teach them to labor as well at this behavior. We need to teach our apprentices money earning job skills (big tables, big doors, or whatever your skills might be) but we also need to teach them core principles about the Christian life that will help them to succeed and prosper. This is partly what makes Christian apprenticeship distinctive and better than humanist, empty soul apprenticeship—more about that some other day.