What is a Berean? Part III
Part III A Personal Experience that Fostered Nobility
When in Junior High, I had a biology teacher who taught me a vivid lesson. This was not a lesson on cells, frog guts, or osmosis, rather it was one of the single most valuable life lessons a public teacher could ever offer their students. We will call her Mrs. T for the duration of the story.
It was the first day of class when Mrs. T launched into the litany of statements about an ice age creature known as the “Cattywampus.” She told us it was an ancestor to the lemur family and had all sorts of fanciful attributes we were to take note of, in preparation for a test the very next day. I vaguely remember being a bit shocked by her down to business attitude, and was somewhat resentful that I would already have a test on the second day of class.
The lecture passed and I proceeded toward my next classes, which I ironically have no memory of. The night came and went, and I found myself in Mrs. T’s classroom once again the next day circling the best answers to the multiple choice questions about this legendary lemur. When required to fill in the blanks, I did so to the best of my recollection. Again I proceeded to classes I have no memory of, and another night passed.
Day three of class brought a shock to every student in but one. There was only one “A” distributed, and every one else had obtained an “F” on the test. Mrs. T held up the test that had an “A” on it and there were no answers filled out any where on it. The proud owner of the “A” had only written one sentence above all the questions, right below her name. The sentence said, “There was no such animal as a Cattywampus.”
Beaming with pride, Mrs. T handed the student back her test and she proceeded to tell the rest of the class that the “F” was a permanent mark against us. We would have to work the rest of the quarter to make it up. With thunderous authority she admonished all of us to never ever trust what a teacher tells you. She warned that we were responsible to evaluate truth.
I often think of this when I listen to any teaching of scripture, or any ideological viewpoint, supposed scientific statements, and I even consider it in my daily problem solving at work. Mrs. T gave me a graphic example of a Berean attitude. Now for certain, the Bereans were commended for their spiritual pursuit of truth, but I believe that all worthy truth ultimately leads one to spiritual awakening. This was an experience validated by scripture, and I thank God for his sovereign design in placing me in that class.
Mrs. T told me years later that some of the students parents from her class tried to get her fired for what she did. I often feel sorry for those children; their parents obviously had no clue Mrs. T was presenting a lesson on life rather than a micro waved T.V. dinner of public education nuked for one minute on high.
