First off, I will admit that we were a bad group of teenage boys at the time. It was my early teenage years; the ones where you aren’t quite ready to admit that you may be interested in girls and instead still cling to the things you liked to do at the end of your late childhood. I’m referring to the group of boys in my Sunday School class at the time, and we were a teacher’s worst nightmare. Junior-High boys – is there any age group that is harder to rein in and place under control? You’d almost need pit bulls and batons to do that!
Enter a new teacher. The man was a Spiritual giant and knew his Bible well. He was in his fifties; ancient by the standards we held at the time, but he was the only soul brave enough to take on our class. I’m making it sound bad, I know, and I can understand if you are envisioning ‘Lord of the Flies’ here. We would have been proud of that comparison.
The knowledge he held of all Biblical topics was something we could have learned from. But to this date, the only thing he said in our class that I can remember is that ‘if boys in Russia acted like you boys do, they would take them out behind the building and put bullets in their heads.’ Yes, we had pushed him to that point, no doubt. But then again, if memory serves, he never appeared to be in much better than a surly mood on those mornings he arrived to teach our class in the first place. Sour and gruff, he was a no-nonsense type of person trying to teach twelve and thirteen year-old-boys secrets from God’s Word.
A few years later I am proud to say that I did learn a thing or two from him, but not in a Sunday School class. We became friends when I discovered that I could look up to him strictly based on what he knew from the Bible – things he had tried to teach me earlier in my life. What made the difference at that point? Was it maturity on my part? Not exactly. Something changed in his life, maybe he found patience. Or maybe the Spirit moved on him and created a change in his persona. I’m only telling you what I know from the before and after difference that became apparent in his life. I was a bona-fide witness to it and I’m thankful today for the things that he taught me during that later time.
Paul writes, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” There was a lot of brass and cymbals being played in that Sunday morning class so many years ago. Certainly we were not angels – not even close even on our best days. But due to his abrasive personality, so many others in that group of boys never came to know that teacher like I did afterward, and as a result they missed out on a lot of Biblical knowledge and Spiritual truths he could have taught them.
I’m older now and these days I teach young people in a Sunday School class of my own. There are times when I am in a 'less than stellar mood' and I simply do not want to deal with the hi-jinx and tomfoolery prevalent within that age group. Maybe it is a way of things coming full-circle and possibly a little bit of reaping what you sow? In either case, I remember well the lesson I learned from that teacher. I can prepare, study, and pray to the point I have a lesson ready that even Billy Graham would love to hear. But if I can’t show love from my heart to my class while I am teaching said lesson, then it is pointless and I have wasted not only my time but also the class’s time. Most of all, I’ve wasted God’s time.
Oh, I’ve also learned that cymbals and brass are good in the right places. But they are there to merely augment the melody when called upon to do so.
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