Miss Raven
My sixth grade teacher taught a 5th/6th split grade class. Anyway, her name was Miss Raven. Miss Raven was, I think (I really didn’t pay that close attention), a new teacher in the school district and likely a newer teacher in general. She got married during the summer after that school year. That Fall, I moved on to Jr. High and I really don’t know anything else about her other than that year she taught me. Funny thing, I remember how old she seemed to me at the time but she couldn’t have been more than about 15 years older than I. Now, that seems like pretty much my same age.
Back to the point, I was sick for several days. In fact, I was out of school for enough days that they sent my homework home for me to work on. One worksheet was on abbreviations. I have two distinct memories of that worksheet. One was that I got a “B” for a grade, and one of the abbreviations I was marked wrong was that I missed what “B.C.” stood for. I put “Before Christ” as an answer and it should have been, based on her lecture, “British Columbia.”
The second thing I remember was arguing with her, when I got my paper back, that my answer was also a correct answer. You see that one abbreviation would have made the difference between an “A” grade and a “B” grade. Even then, my type A personality and drive was rearing its anal head. As I recall, she denied my request for reconsideration and it irritated me so much that I convinced my mother to intervene. She did and I got my adjusted score.
Now before you start imagining that my mom was a helicopter parent intervening on my behalf, stop. This was only one time out of two that my mom intervened on my behalf with a teacher and only because she felt that I was morally right. Her moral code was unshakable.
Context matters. If I had been in the classroom, I would have known, from context of the lesson, that she meant British Columbia. From my and my mom’s perspective, growing up in a Presbyterian church and without the lesson background, B.C. had to mean “Before Christ.”
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” - Matthew 18:20 ESV
This is a great passage that I heard, a lot, as a kid promoting the value of group prayer and church worship. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely believe that we should pray together and joining together with other believers to worship and praise God, besides being what we are told to do, helps recharge our spiritual battery to go out into the world. But the passage above is a part of a bigger section.
“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” - Matthew 18:15-20
Our Lord was telling us how to deal with someone who sins against us. You can see the progressive of quietly confronting him. If that doesn’t work, take other believers with you to confront him. If that doesn’t work, have the church body officially sanction him. Finally, if that doesn’t work, treat him like you would any unbeliever. It seems clear that it all fits together.
“And Jesus answered them, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.” - Mark 11:22-25
There is great value in reading God’s word and understanding it in the context of how it was written. Hopefully, when someone starts trying to convince you of something by using bits and pieces, an alarm bell will go off in your head telling you to look up the context of the bit to Mae sure it isn’t being misapplied.
