Mark 16:15
Tree of Life Version (TLV)
15 He told
them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the Good News to every creature.
Saint Francis of Assisi is often depicted as taking this
great commission in Mark literally when he preached the gospel to the birds and
other creatures. Most of Christendom has considered the commission as meaning take
the gospel to every human of every race, gender, language, status, and
locality. Most Christians, however, have not necessarily considered the
commission as applying to them personally.
The Adventist church has a huge worldwide educational
system. One of its goals is to bring the gospel to its students. Every once in
a while, we as teachers in the system were encouraged to bring the gospel to
our students—to make the gospel an integral part of the class content. I
puzzled some and laughed a little about bringing religion into factoring a
polynomial or integrating a trigonometric function. That was way beyond my
creativity, and I was not willing to contrive artificial applications that
would not bless anyone. At one point I did publish a paper suggesting how
infinity is one aspect of God.[ii]
In my first teaching position, Ikizu Secondary School in
Tanzania, teachers were expected to conduct a 10-minute worship during each day’s
first class period. That period was actually 10 minutes longer than the other
class periods. Since I always had a first period class, I became accustomed to
reading a text and commenting on what this text said to me.
Later on, when I taught at the university level in the
system, I found it fulfilling to take the first 5 minutes of any class to read
a text and explain the significance I found in it. Some students criticized me
for doing so; however, many students told me that they gained much when I did
this. I also gained a personal blessing.
Lord, thank
You for asking me to proclaim Your gospel in my world.
[ii] http://www.institutechristianteaching.org/vol_01/vol_01.html see “The Finite, the Infinite, and God” pages 29-46
(1989)
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