The Word of God and the word of God

As most of you know, this is my first year teaching high school and thus the past two months have been chaotic. We are settling in to a new house, and both Clara and I to new jobs. Roots seem to be sinking, some traction digging in.

I do not have many preliminary reflections on teaching. Most of the time I still feel as if I am trying to keep my head above water, but the schedule seems to be coalescing and I am hopeful to have more time to read, write, and reflect about other matters tangential to my job teaching. My hopes might be misplaced; it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

I did want to make one comment about teaching, though, one thing that has surprised me: I enjoy teaching grammar. Grammar instruction is a huge component of our curriculum, especially at the freshman level and one of my favorite parts of the week is teaching that week's grammar lesson. I have never been anti-grammar, whatever that might mean, but I have respectfully ignored spliced commas, dangling modifiers, unclear pronouns, and their brethren in bad grammar. In fact, while teaching writing at the collegiate level I was explicitly instructed to ignore grammar errors. I could mark them on the page, but errors could not be punished in lowering the student's grade.

Not so here. At my school we aim to produce students who write right, right? There is a precision to grammar that I love--the aim to say precisely what we mean in the most rhetorically effective manner. I found this John Piper quote where he discusses the importance of grammar to a Christian. Read this:

"An evangelical believes that God humbled himself not only in the incarnation of the Son, but also in the inspiration of the Scriptures. The manger and the cross were not sensational. Neither are grammar and syntax. But that is how God chose to reveal himself. A poor Jewish peasant and a prepositional phrase have this in common; they are both human and both ordinary. That the poor peasant was God and the prepositional phrase is the Word of God does not change this fact. Therefore, if God humbled himself to take on human flesh and to speak human language, woe to us if we arrogantly presume to ignore the humanity of Christ and the grammar of Scripture."  

Piper is driving at the fact that since God has revealed himself to us through Christ and through the language of Scripture we ignore both to our peril. In the incarnation Christ becomes present to us in our humanity, humbling himself in our form, and God likewise condescends to speak to us in words that are intelligible to us, words meant for our instruction and delight. When we see the syntax and grammar of Scripture we are seeing a piece of the mind of God. Words and how we use them are important if for no other reason than our God has deigned to speak to us in words. The power of words is blessed by the power of God.

Therefore, grammar instruction is not pedantry, precision in language is not becoming a grammar nazi. Caring for words reflects our care for the word-giver. And that is sufficient to make me excited to teach the subject to kids who couldn't care less.