Coming up for air & verse tests
Sunday, March 6th, 2005(Program Note: This was written on Friday afternoon)
I don’t know about y’all, but this has been an extremely difficult week for me.
At least four, maybe five tests, and a paper. One of the aforementioned tests was a Bible doctrines verse test: We were supposed to regurgitate every verse we (should have) learned throughout the semester. That’s about a full-page, front and back to memorize, perfectly. Some of the verses are familiar; others are not.
It’s quite difficult.
In fact, it got me thinking: Why do teachers require the verses to be recited word-perfect?
Lest you think that this is just whining, let me give you an example: If, in a verse, a student should write “Christ Jesus” when the verse says “Jesus Christ,” that counts as an error, and the student is penalized.
Now, the differences between two translations of the Bible–or even two of the Greek source texts–include such minor variations as meaningless word reversals. One Greek text might read Jesus Christ; another might say Christ Jesus.
So, the BJU student is required to be more accurate than the Bible itself.
(Why yes, I did get a bad grade on the test. How could you tell?)
A friend of mine has a problem with the concept of verse tests in general: His opinion is that such tests encourage taking verses out of context in spiritual arguments. These tests, he believes, condition the student to use verses that support his or her case without considering the surrounding verses.
And he might just have a point.
