The Day I Learned “Grace”

I know people go to seminary to learn theological terms, and I learned plenty of -isms and -ologies during my summers at Dallas Theological Seminary. But one term - grace - found its mark deep in my heart because of something Michael Green did.

Michael Green was a young professor who taught the required course on evangelism. He was big on personal responsibility and organization. “You’re in seminary now,” he would say. “There’s no excuse for late or sloppy work,” and many other exhortations to that effect.

One of the class requirements was a take-home test, which we were to grade in class on a certain day. As I did every summer at DTS, I had dutifully noted all my due dates for all my projects in all my courses on a calendar after the first day of class, but I had written down the wrong date for this take-home test.

I didn’t realize my error at first. This day I came to my class on evangelism, and I heard my classmates discussing the take-home test, which I knew to be due a week later. As I heard more discussion about the test, I began to feel a little uneasy, then positively sick. The test would be graded in class today, and I hadn’t even taken it!

Summer classes at DTS were a half-day affair. When the instructor announced that we would be grading the test after the morning break, I knew what I had to do. Ironically, he was well into another of his impromptu lectures on responsibility and organization while I hastily gathered my materials, sprang from my chair at the front of the classroom, and, with his exhortations ringing in my ears (“You’re in seminary now . . .”), fled to the library to cram for my take-home test and write some answers that I could grade.

I finished the test shortly before break. When I returned with the class after the break, I felt like a pariah, an outcast. They were all the responsible ones, I was the loser who couldn’t get it together.

Since I knew I deserved no credit whatsoever on this test, I was relieved to score a 72. No one scored 100, although there were a few grades in the low 90’s. So when Dr. Green asked if we would be interested in extra credit, we all jumped at the chance.

In our class on evangelism, we had given a great deal of thought to using terms people can understand. (After all, if we use terms someone doesn’t understand, like "born again" or "ask Jesus into your heart," not much evangelism can actually take place.) For our extra credit question, Dr. Green asked us to define grace in terms the average unchurched person could comprehend.

All of us needed the extra credit (some of us much more than others), so we applied ourselves diligently to the task. As we finished scribbling our common-man definitions of grace, Dr. Green dropped the bombshell when he announced that he would give a 100% on the test to anyone who would write, “I accept your gift of grace,” at the bottom of his test and affix his signature.

Some people, successful ones, have difficulty accepting the biblical doctrine of grace. It seems somehow unfair, as if individual effort were meaningless (which it is). On this day I was very open to Dr. Green’s offer of grace. Some of my classmates, I fancy, almost hesitated to accept his offer because it would mean abandoning the results of all their hard work.

That day I understood what Jesus meant when He announced to the self-righteous religious leaders of His day that prostitutes and tax-collectors would enter the kingdom before they would (Matt. 21:31). I was quiet at lunch that day, even a little embarrassed, when my conscientious friends complained that everyone else got the same grade they did. The object lesson seemed to be lost on them, but not on me. Like my namesake, I appreciated the grace of God because I could see it from the vantage-point of “the chief of sinners.”

Last I heard, Dr. Green is no longer at Dallas; he’s gone on to teach at another school. He may never know the impact he had on me, but his little surprise gave me a glimpse the stunning beauty of the grace of God, who not only withholds the wrath we so clearly deserve, but generously grants us the good favor we do not.

(This piece originally appeared as an editorial in the Christian Citizen newspaper in January, 1994.)

Christian Paganism

"Take no thought for your life" -- Jesus
"Keep your mind on the 'much more' of your heavenly Father" -- Oswald Chambers

Worry is idolatry, a kind of paganism, really. Jesus said that worrying is something "the Gentiles" do, the kind of thing people might do if they knew nothing about the God of the Bible. But worry can have no part in the life of the Christ-follower, a beloved child of the heavenly Father.

Seeing how and when God provides might be intriguing sometimes, but it should never be worrisome. If God is really the kind of Person we read about in Scripture, the ultimate outcome can never be in question. The only question is one of means, never if but how.