Shortly after the beginning of the year, my Sunday School
class made a decision to delve into uncharted territory for ourselves…
We chose to study the Minor Prophets, starting with Joel
(yes, we skipped Hosea… and?).
It was in conjunction with the decision to start using the material
normally provided for Sunday mornings on Wednesday nights.
The morning we started Joel, I couldn’t help what popped out
of my mouth.
“It’s in the book of Joel,” I said. “Not my cousin.”
“I didn’t know you had a cousin named Joel,” one of my students
replied.
“Well, I do,” I told him. “But that’s not who wrote this
book.”
Thus began a two or three month period where the phrase “Joel,
not my cousin” left my lips every Sunday morning.
Some Sundays it got a chuckle.
Other times, my students (and/or my co-teacher) shook their
heads at me.
I don’t regret a second of it.
I say that because now the book of Joel is stuck in everyone’s
head.
They are going to be able to forget it about as well as I
can forget the songs my grandmother taught me in Sunday School when I was a kid
to remember the names of the books in the Bible, and the order I could find
them in.
I find myself at least humming the tune every time I go to
look something up in my Bible to this day.
Sometimes I sing it.
Out loud.
While I’m supposed to be teaching.
Oops.
We moved on from Joel a few months ago, and right into Amos.
The first thing to come out of my mouth about that?
“Oh, you mean Famous Amos, right?”
Famous Amos, like the cookies.
It got a chuckle and some small smirks, but my students know
me well enough by now to understand what I’m trying to do.
I want them to remember, because the Bible is worth
remembering.
If I wind up looking goofy in the effort, then so be it.
P.S. We’re finishing
up Amos this morning, and moving on to Obadiah next week.
I
wonder how to make that one stick.
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