When we first came to Cincinnati in 1987, we joined a church that was big enough to have several adult Sunday school classes. Because of the ten-year age difference between my husband and me, we had difficulty selecting the most appropriate class. I was in my early thirties and he was in his early forties. Someone suggested that we try Dennis Beale’s class. Now Dennis taught the older folks and seniors, age forty and up, and he easily had a group of forty in his class. It was a perfect class for Floyd, but I didn’t really fit in. A lot of his students were in their 60’s. Unfortunately, because of our age gap, we had that problem with every SS class. If I fit in, then Floyd didn’t. So we just stayed in Dennis’s class.
I loved Dennis’s teaching, and I learned a lot in his class. Regardless of the subject matter, Dennis always had a way of bringing in practical application. How can we take what we learned today and apply it to our lives in a way that will draw us closer to God? And he was good at it.
Often times, right in the middle of his lesson, he would make a statement or a comment that was obviously unscriptural or inaccurate. He might be talking about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus and say something like “the two disciples on the road to Damascus.” Then he’d pause, waiting to see if anyone caught the error. (The first few times he did it, I didn’t realize that’s what he was doing.) I looked around the room, waiting for someone to say something, but no one did. I felt like Elihu must have felt, surrounded by the maturity and wisdom represented by all those gray heads. And I was so young in the Lord, I thought it wise to be quiet, but that glaring error was bothering me, so I finally spoke up. “Um, Dennis, don’t you mean Emmaus?” He’d respond, “That’s right, I did mean Emmaus.” Then he’d go on with his lesson.
Dennis encouraged questions and discussion, and he asked questions, challenging his class to think and respond. I was the only one who answered his questions or corrected those mistakes. I knew that Floyd knew the answers, so I assumed there were others in the class who knew the answers, too. But no one else ever spoke up. Dennis taught our class for about two years before his job moved him to Texas.
I had a great desire to learn and at this point in my spiritual walk I had a good foundation so whenever Dennis said something I believed was contrary to Scripture, I spoke up. “Dennis.” He knew what was coming. “Yes, Marj.” The class started laughing. But I didn’t speak up to entertain the class. In fact, I usually waited to see if anyone else would say something, but no one ever did.
When Dennis left, Don took over the class. Don didn’t teach that way, and he certainly wasn’t as spiritually sound as Dennis. The first class he taught, he said something that didn’t sound right to me, so I questioned his statement. “Are you sure, Don, because the Bible says…” I wasn’t trying to correct or challenge him. It’s easy to know what the Bible says but not to understand what it means. So I expected him to clarify his statement. But instead he attacked me. “You think you’re so smart, well, you don’t know anything. And I’m not going to stand for you interrupting my class with questions and contradicting what I say.” Obviously, he didn’t know the answer to my question, and he wasn’t confident in his understanding of Scripture. But it was his attitude that drove Floyd and me to promptly change Sunday school classes.