“Does anybody remember where we were last month?” I asked.
About a dozen adults were shuffling in for discipleship class. “We were talking about that diagram of the cosmos as the ancients imagined it,” someone answered.
Oooo-kay. I advanced to slide three in my PowerPoint Show.
In December, our pastor called us into his office.
“Dave and Brenda will be leading class on the first Sunday of each month,” he began. “They’ll be teaching on healing and praying for the sick.”
“Kevin,” he said. “Our destiny,” and he handed Kevin one of the three books he held in his hand. “Al. The Church,” as he handed Al another.
“And Lori,” he said, as he held out the third to me, with what seemed to be a little smirk on his face, The Unknown First Chapter.”
The book was 89 pages including the front matter Font size 14; lots of white space. Obviously self-published.
“This is supposed to last me all year?” I asked.
“Oh, don’t worry,” he answered. “It will.”
It’s February now.
I quickly skipped by the slide with the diagram, just in case there was any more discussion. Good grief, I still had 14 pared-down slides prepared for chapter one and there were only two Sundays left in the quarter.
My careful planning was already out the window.
“Here goes,” I thought.
“In the beginning was the Word….”
We all quickly agreed that the “beginning” wasn’t really the beginning. It was simply the word the apostle John used to try to relate something incomprehensible — that God is timeless, that he lives in a realm that has no beginning and likewise will have no end — but that he must speak to us — creatures who live according to time — in words we can understand, for “he knows our frame.”
As the discussion continued, I asked that they not use the name “Jesus” quite yet — that we refer to the one who was, who was with God, and who was God as John did here: as the Word.
I stood with my finger on the clicker, ready to advance to slide four, when Barbara, from the back of the room, said, “But that was Jesus.”
And we were off.
“Please, indulge me for a just few slides. We’ll get there,” I said.
“Jesus was right there with the Father. He’s part of the Trinity,” Barbara continued.
From the other side of the room, Kevin spoke up. “Yes, but he wasn’t in his physical body yet. He was the Word.”
“Of course, he was the Word,” Barbara exclaimed. “But…”
Kevin interrupted. “Things from the spirit realm enter the physical realm through words!” His voice was growing louder. “Like in Genesis! God said, “Let there be light” and there was light! That wasn’t the sun! The sun wasn’t created until the fourth day! That light was Jesus! Jesus is light and life!”
We were getting a little off-script.
I turned my attention back to the rest of the class. By now, Kevin and Barbara were only addressing each other anyway, and the subject of their discussion now somehow morphed into the difference between free will and predestination.
I wasn’t touching that.
“I hear the sound of stretching,” the pastor said.
A lady in the middle of the room slipped up her hand. I acknowledged her but it was clear the discussion in progress wasn’t going to slow down.
Some ears were tuned to the back of the room while others waited patiently for slide four.
So she leaned forward and said, “I’m sorry, but it seems like whenever you teach, it ends up like this. Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Not a bit,” I said, setting the clicker aside.
I am a teacher.
If you walk into my class, sit down, I answer your questions and you walk out nodding, I feel I’ve failed at my job.
But if I walk out, and you’re still talking, or discussing with strong emotion, or arguing — whatever you care to call it — I’ve just accomplished what I’m called to do.
I want you to go home thinking, “Oh. I’ve never thought about that.” Or, “Where is that in the Scriptures??” Or even, “Ha! I’m going to prove her wrong.”
And I hope you come back, Bible in hand, fire in your eyes, ready to show me things I’ve never seen before, leaving me saying, “Well, that’s one more of my slides for the recycle bin.”
See, what I know is that what I know is only one drop in the vast ocean of wisdom found in the Scriptures.
But I’m willing and waiting to know more.
Because the best teacher is a student.
The best teachers don’t care if they never get to the end of their PowerPoint show.
The best teachers want their students to leave class with answers, sure, but more importantly, to spend their week “chewing the cud,” with far more questions for the One Who Knows than the few answers I can give them.
I am a teacher.
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