Will the most qualified person please stand up? It may be some quiet soul in the back of the room.
This makes two weeks in a row that fifth grade spelling homework is the catalyst for this column. Homework is an important part of my life these days, so you may as well share it with me.
There we were, looking over the week’s spelling words, when I came across “Moneran” and “Protist.” Somewhere back in my distant past these words may have meant something to me, but if so, no longer. I confessed my complete ignorance, and the fifth-grader, not without exasperation, explained that they were science words, and told me what they meant. I did not share with him the fact that at one time I had been a junior high science teacher. Why go for total humiliation?
Even when I’m helping with homework my mind never wanders too far from the pulpit, so I sermonized myself with Hebrews 5:12, “In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again.”
Situations where the people who want to be taught may be as well or better-informed than the would-be teachers are probably not as rare as we all wish they were.
How many times have you sat in the pew and wished the man in the pulpit were as well-informed as he might have been or perhaps felt himself to be? Maybe in your own long-suffering heart, you had a deeper understanding of his topic than he did.
Are there congregations with bright, dedicated men and women, filled with faith and vision, who are waiting to be inspired and led by elders and deacons and preachers, but it will never happen because those who should be leading, need to be led?
“Moneran” refers to an organism with no membrane around its nucleus, and “Protist,” to cells with a membrane around each nucleus, among other defining points. The fifth-grader brought the former school teacher up to speed in these areas. Wouldn’t it be great if the issues raised in Hebrews 5:12 were so simply dealt with? JC