January 23, 2013
Making the Grade
I’m taking on-line classes and when the Old Testament Survey class professor
emailed my grades for the first two lessons, I was transported back to junior
high with that dreaded report card in my hand. I remember as a kid always being
afraid to look at my report card because I never knew what to expect. Today I
like the idea of going back to school, but I hate the thought of spending the
next two years being anxious about grades. When I shared my concerns with my cousin
he advised, “Don’t worry about the
grades, just pass the class. No one is ever going to go back and look at what your
grades were.” I thought he made a good argument, but my Expository Writing
professor shot his theory to pieces. When I send my papers in for grading, she simply
keeps sending them back for correction. Often our motivation for making
respectable grades is to meet requirements, or to please others. I have to
confess that I’d never considered pleasing Jesus with my schoolwork. “And whatever you do, whether in word or
deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father
through him.” (Col 3:17 NIV)
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----I cared enough about grades in College to get acceptable passing ones. I knew I wasn’t an extraordinarily sharp tack. But I knew I had to leave that school with a career. So I concentrated on learning, rather than perfecting grades. Sometimes I would forgo homework on something I understood to probe what still confused me. That helped my test scores some, but it helped my grasp of the whole field of study immensely. In the three years we were tested for learning proficiency, I tested into the 92, 95, and 98 national percentile levels, although my report cards bemoaned average at best. If I hadn’t lost complete confidence the night before I took the business law section of the CPA exam, I would have nailed it down in one sitting, too. The scars in Jesus’ feet are from nails; the ones in mine are from my own pistol.
-----I’ve always given less regard to the momentary than to the epic (except for that night before business law.) It’s a habit exposing the quality of my work to more danger than the nature of it. I guess I always figured what good is high quality with wrong nature? Better to have average quality with right nature. Over attending the moment with less regard for the epic threatens direction, course, and being.
-----So I love everything of the Word’s philosophy. Those old Greeks and Jews spent much more thought on the concepts of “name” than do we. To us a name is a tag, not much more useful than a sticker. But in Biblical times it was epic. It did not stop at just labeling you. It tagged your character and nature and purposes, too. So, if you were to do something in someone’s name, you did it for their purposes as they would do it with the attitudes they would have when doing it. You would do it with similar character. Then, once you get the epic of Christ worked into your system, the moments get better simply by the nature of the thing.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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