Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. – Psalm 25:8

Today’s Scripture Reading (February 17, 2013): Psalm 25

I recently took a graduate level course in “Christian Education.” It was a hybrid course where the actual instruction for the course was completed in a single week of lectures, but the course work was spread out over the next couple of months. The course was taught by a youngish looking woman. At one point during the course, the instructor admitted that in the past when she had taught the course her right to teach had been challenged. It was not that she lacked the education to teach, or even experience in field – she is currently spending time in Christian Education in a local church. The complaint was that she could not teach because she looked young and because she was woman.

I admit that I was surprised by the comment. I thought that we had gotten past that. There are so many people that we come in contact with that are capable of teaching us something that it seems that to discount people on the basis of age, sex or race seems absurd. All that I want to know about my teacher is that they have something to teach me and know more than I do. It is that knowledge – and only that knowledge - that gives them the right to teach.

So if we are looking for someone to teach us right living, it would follow that it needs to be someone who knows more about right living than we do – and someone who is practicing what they know. Part of the problem that the Christian church has experienced over the past few decades is that we have thought that we were the ones with that authority. But we were horribly wrong and those who really believed the lie have more often than not crashed and burned. Our reality is that none of us have the qualifications to teach moral behavior (which admittedly does not hold out much promise for the Ethics course I am planning to take in a few months.) We are really just fellow students on a journey: learning together every step of the way.

David understood that. In his experience it was only God that was upright and just – and therefore it could only be God that could be responsible for his – and our – moral education.       

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Psalm 26 & 27