Greater Love Has No One Than This

Passage of the Week:

John 15.13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

Thought of the Week:

By now you’re familiar with the story of the Virginia Tech professor who gave his life for his students. As reported in the L. A. Times:

If you were lucky enough to have a choice, there were only two ways to go Monday morning on the campus of Virginia Tech: away from danger or toward it. Seventy-six-year-old engineering professor Liviu Librescu chose the second option, saved a classroom full of students and became a hero — at the cost of his life.

As a child, he had survived the Holocaust. As an adult, he had survived persecution for defying Romania's brutal Communist regime during the Cold War. With their children grown, he and his wife, Marlena, had spent a quiet two decades on a peaceful university campus in rural Virginia.

But Monday, trouble found him once more. With bursts of gunfire rattling through the second floor of Norris Hall, Librescu closed his classroom door, giving his students time to escape through the windows, recalled senior Caroline Merrey of Baltimore, the third student to jump.

"He saved my life," Merrey said.

As they fled, Librescu held the door shut with his body while the gunman, 23-year-old Tech senior Seung-hui Cho, tried to force his way inside.

Moments after the last student leapt to safety, Cho apparently forced the door open and shot Librescu to death.

I will remember Liviu Librescu as the kind of teacher I want to be: one for whom teaching is the students more than the job — even when caring becomes costly.

Encouragement for the Week:

We in the general populace have not forgotten that you are serving our children and our community, sometimes at the risk of harm, and often at the cost of very little recognition or appreciation. We want you to know that we are deeply grateful for what you do!

Praying that God will constantly be the Shield around you at school (Psalm 3.3),
Roderick

Teach A Youth About The Way

Passage of the Week:

Proverbs 22.6: Teach a youth about the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it. (Holman Christian Standard Bible)

Thought of the Week:

The biblical proverbs are not promises guaranteeing an outcome, but express the more fruitful of two choices. It is far better to teach a youth about the way he should go than to leave him to his own devices regarding the important questions of life. When we do teach our youth about righteousness and character, the probability is great that they will feel the influence of that teaching even when they are adults.

Great News of the Week:

“Though schools must be neutral with respect to religion, they may play an active role with respect to teaching civic values and virtue, and the moral code that holds us together as a community. The fact that some of these values are held also by religions does not make it unlawful to teach them in school.” The preceding is a quote from the Federal Guidelines For Religious Expression in Public Schools, published by the United States Department of Education. You may read the complete presentation of those Guidelines on our web site at:

http://www.tmin.org/tminpages/religion_publicschool.html

The great news is that teaching a “moral code” is one of the most powerful ways to point people to Jesus Christ. In a sense, that’s what the law of Moses was all about, as Paul explained, “...the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith” (KJV). You have complete freedom to teach a biblical moral code in your classroom and on your sports field. I’ll be praying this week that you find opportunities to do so with sensitivity and grace.

Praying that you’ll have a great week at school,
Roderick