Funny Story

This one is a little longer. . . bear with me.

Today in class I was taking my time teaching the materials since we are in really good shape.  I was allowing the students to take more "rabbit trails" than usual and we had some fun along the way.

One of the things that I have tried to convey to the students over and over again is the saying that I heard Dr. Forbes from Grace College say over and over again to us as his students, (I'm sure he would be quite proud), "When the Scripture is clear; be clear.  When the Scripture is vague; be vague.  When the Scripture is silent: shut up!"  I wasn't quite that bold in the way that I told the class, but it has been a good reference point as they have asked sooooo many questions that the Scriptures are really silent about.

One of those questions happened today as we were talking about heaven.  I was trying to teach the students that even though we will be in spiritual, glorified bodies that we will be able to recognize one another in heaven.  I used the examples of Jesus after his resurrection and appearing to the disciples as one example.  They recognized him after his resurrection, meaning Jesus looked the same to the disciples in his glorified body.

I also used the passage with the disciples on the Mount of Transfiguration seeing Moses and Elijah.  They recognized them and knew it was them.

I shared with them that one of the things I look forward to most about heaven is the realization that if I never ever see my African students again, I can look forward to recognizing them in heaven and being reunited with them again without any of the barriers of language or culture.

That is when one of the students raised his hand and asked how he would travel to find me in heaven so we could see each other.  (Remember - the Scripture says NOTHING about how this will happen.)  So I decided to have a little bit of fun with him.

Here in Africa almost everyone has a cell phone.  You are charged minutes for making calls only, not receiving them.  So Africans have developed this practice that they call bepe (beeping) where they will call the person that they want to talk to and let it ring one time so the caller ID recognizing who is calling and then hang up.  That way the person will hopefully call them back and be charged their minutes while it is a free call for the person receiving it.

Well, I told the student today that when he gets to heaven all he has to do is bepe me.  I told him, "I PROMISE I will call you back and we will find a time to get together."  The class absolutely roared in laughter so much that Clancy actually commented to me after class what in the world I was doing.

I'm not sure if they thought it was funny that I knew what it meant to bepe, or if that I said we would do it in heaven.  (Of course they knew I was joking).

Either way it was a really fun way to end the class and teach the point that when Scripture is silent on some things that we should be silent about them as well.