I'm so enthusiastic about Greek I can hardly stand it!
This is Spring Break and I'm missing my students terribly. I can't wait for next week to arrive and to see them in person again to find out how they're doing. Greek class is not just content. It's not just grammar. I want them to learn to LOVE Greek. If they're like me, they think about it in the daytime and dream about it at night. Without glamorizing it, I can say that the most enriching and fulfilling and meaningful of all careers is teaching -- what we say and, more importantly, what we do as teachers. I saw this again in my Bible reading this morning in Phil. 4.
Teaching is so much more than content transfer. As Christian educators, our goal is to model Christ.
Thomas Hudgins has written an excellent book on this subject.
Christian education, he said, is essentially likeness education, as Jesus taught us in Luke 6:40. At the incarnation, the Word became both visible and audible. That's why early in my seminary career I learned to take a professor and not a course. True, Paul was an apostle and we are not. Nevertheless, we can imitate his example of pastoral concern and care. The communication of the gospel is by seeing as well as hearing. No teacher can minister the word with any degree of integrity, let alone credibility, unless he or she has been changed by the word they teach.
Be well my friends!