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Key Bible Verse: A student is not above his teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher (Luke 6:40). Bonus Reading: 1 Corinthians 4:14-17

In Greek mythology, Mentor was the man charged with the responsibility of raising Telemachus while his father, Ulysses, went off to the Trojan Wars. From his effort, it is said, came recognition of one of the greatest human transactions: the process in which one person sets about to help form the character, the knowledge, the direction in the life of another. The Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel was thinking of the mentoring relationship when he said, "We have to have more than textbooks, we need text-people."

A good mentor is never forgotten. Lee Iacocca wrote of the man who changed his life:

"Charlie Beachem could be a tough boss when he thought the situation called for it. At a dinner celebrating my election to the presidency of Ford in 1970 I finally got up the nerve to tell Charlie publicly what I thought of him. 'There will never be another Charlie Beachem,' I said. 'He has a special niche in my heart—and sometimes I think he was carving it out by hand. He was not only a mentor, he was more than that. He was my tormentor, but I love him.'"

—Gordon MacDonald in When Men Think Private Thoughts

• How is a mentor different from a friend? What can you offer to someone else as a mentor?

Thought to Apply: Teaching is a partnership with God … in shaping human character and determining destiny.

— RUTH VAUGHN

Credits: Adapted from— Tuesday: When Men Think Private Thoughts (Nelson, 1996)

Copyright © 2000 by the author or Christianity Today International/Men of Integrity. For reprint information click here.

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