Dear Colleagues,
I wonder how many of us recognise that, as teachers in Christian schools, we are dealing with life and death issues.
Every single day that we lug that pile of unmarked books home for marking, which we once again have failed to complete, due to a parent/teacher interview that went on three times longer than it was scheduled to do or to some other reason, we are once again being put into a tight spot. Marking those books is simply not a priority in our lives and barely makes it onto our to-do list for today. We take out our timetable and run our finger down the margin, noting the class and the subject which would be affected. ‘4C’ is that class and the subject is Scripture. ‘4C’ is a small class of approximately 15 pupils who are also an academically challenged class containing children who need closer supervision with their learning difficulties. They are a class which will hardly feel the gentle ‘speed humps’ of not getting their work marked. The actual homework which they are waiting to get marked is all about the Ten Commandments.
We remember pointing out that the beginning of the rule of law in those days was the giving of that law by Moses to God’s people. How pleased they were! How conscious of the enormous privilege they were given to actually have God’s very words given to them. This was much more than any other nation had been given before. Moses’ final words to this people were, “Be careful to do what the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days in the land that you will possess.” From the perspective of Moses, “The Lord commands us to obey all the decrees of the Lord and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.” If we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God as He has commanded that will be our righteousness. Those words, given by God, contain the gift of life itself. Those words of God literally kept God’s people alive and they still do so today.
We also recall that we wanted to share the Good News with our class that because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, our rightness with God is no longer dependent on keeping the law. Instead, God has promised to ‘write his words on our hearts’ and internalise them into our minds so that we won’t want to disobey Him. What a gift of life instead of the wages of sin – death!
The thought occurs to us that by not marking those books we could be denying ourselves the privilege of presenting the gospel to this class. Perhaps there’s a pupil whose situation at home is so bad that she needs to hear God’s promises of healing and life today. Another thought presents itself to us – If we can’t be bothered to mark those essays that our class has struggled hard to complete, it shows that we don’t value them and undermines any witness we might have. Are we intentional about being a living and breathing example to the children God has entrusted to our care? In other words, do our lives demonstrate that we actually believe what we say is true? We have the words of eternal life – are we going to keep them to ourselves?
What a privilege we have as Christian teachers, particularly in ACSI schools where we have boundless freedom to speak of the Truth in the classroom. My prayer is that we would not lose out on the joy of being God’s messengers to those whom Jesus was praying for when He said, “My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.” (John 17:20-21)
Written by:
K.M. RICQUEBOURG