Learning From Students
I remember once observing a junior high school student doing his homework. He was composing an essay on a word processor. I asked what he was doing and he indicated that it was a 250 word article for his civics course. The task was to describe the most significant social facets of the 1920s.
He was having trouble coming up with enough material to cover the assignment evenly. He had lots of sports and entertainment, but almost nothing on government, law, the economy and foreign policy. We agreed that, given the nature of the course, the latter items deserved something more than passing comment.
One thing I noticed was that as he finished every sentence he would click on one particular icon. I asked him about this and he explained it was a word counting feature. He was using it to make sure that he didn’t exceed the 250 word limit. I was a little non-plussed by this. I assumed that high school assignments usually come with lower limits rather than upper ones. (Upper limits sometimes come in university, where student verbosity becomes wearisome to beleaguered professors.)
I suggested that perhaps to do justice to the decade in question (the 1920s), he might have to write 300 or maybe even 350 words. He told me that would never do. The assignment was to write a 250 word essay. I asked to see the teacher’s description of the assignment. As I suspected, the 250 words was a minimum. I pointed this out, suggesting that it might impress the teacher if he were to do more than that. He was shocked by the idea. Imagine doing more than was required in civics class! To him, it didn’t seem right. Two hundred and fifty was planted in his mind as a goal to be reached, not as a minimum to be exceeded.
After this brief encounter, I began thinking about periods in my Christian life. There were times when I was much like that student, taking the view that the barest keeping of the clearly expressed precepts, principles and laws of God was my goal in life. If I did this, then I was free to spend the rest of my life doing what pleased me. This is the heart of a Pharisee – the religious legalist who is concerned with doing the minimum necessary to meet the standard.
I sometimes challenge congregations about avoiding this pitfall. How easy it is to read the New Testament for the purpose of finding some rules to keep – some external behaviour which gives others (and even ourselves) the sense that we are good enough. That is not the intent of God in giving us these documents. He certainly gives guidance regarding the functioning of local churches, but that is not the whole story.
God calls us to know Him and then to live in a way that reflects His likeness to others in our sphere of influence. As Paul expressed it in Philippians 3, the goal is not to have our own righteousness, which comes from keeping rules, “but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith.” That is what saves us. That is what pleases God.
Ron Hughes
© October 2007
