Biblical Studies & The Contexts of Students

This semester (my last of grad. school) has got me wondering: "If there ever comes a day in time when I get to teach biblical studies, what type of professor will I be?" I've been thinking about this because this has been an incredibly (and particularly) hard semester for me. I have two master's degrees (MDiv & MABS), a tremendous GPA and am a dedicated student. For the last 5 years, I have not taken 1 semester, summer or winter off from class; I've had no break. Honestly, I am a good student and I enjoy studying.

This semester, though, I've had my fair share of stessors: Full-time job, full-time school, newborn baby, very ill grandma (whom I've not been able to see nearly as much as I want), I've found out that I'm going to have to have surgery on my hand, a very close family member has seemingly gone off the deep end, etc. Needless to say, this semester I have not been able to be as good of a student as usual (and that does bother me). I know of other students who have had their own struggles and stresses to work through this semester too. I heard of a fellow student who said, "My son told me last night, 'You're becoming a mean dad; any time I ask you to play or sit with me, you get angry and tell me you have to do school work.'" God forbid that day should ever come to me because if it does, I think I will crumble and quit school altogether.

And that is where the line gets really blurry for me. Yes, students should have requirements to meet and I think that all students should strive to be excellent and exceptional. But what about those times when they cannot? What about the times when they struggle and just cannot make the grade(s)? Anyone wanting to do doctoral work knows of the pressure to have good grades. But what if that one semester of struggles just tarnishes your GPA?

What I am getting at is this: Doesn't there come a time when the professor needs to be pastor too? I'm not saying that this is true in every field of study (though it may be), however, I do think that in biblical studies it should be a given, a reality. It is quite contradictory, I think, for the professor to constantly preach to his/her students about the importance of the "context" of the Bible and "being aware of its context" so that one can faithfully "interpret" and "apply" it, yet, all the while, never acknowledging the importance of the context of his/her students. Yes, all people and all students have their struggles and I'm not suggesting that professors grow lax or lenient. What I am suggesting, though, is that Christian professors who harp on context need to take note of the contexts of their students. If we, as Christians and Bible scholars are constantly trying to create a "culture of exegesis," where we are exegeting not only texts but all of life, then this is a must. (Besides, students are practically forced into understanding the context of the professor when a crises comes up in his or her life; the student is expected to "understand" their plight, to "empathize" with them and to "cut them some slack.")

I have decided that if there ever comes a day when I am behind the lectern as a professor, I want to practice what I preach/teach in this respect. Surely there have been many outstanding students who have been denied entry into the greatest doctoral programs because some of their previous professors failed to acknowledge their context and were simply interested in giving them a grade--a grade that, while important, did not reflect the student's hard work or constrained schedule. Surely there have been many great exegetes whose influence has been hindered because of a few bad grades, bad grades that were the result of a strained context, bad grades that ultimately, ruined their academic careers. Surely there have been many great Christian thinkers whose potential has been stifled because a professor or two issued them low marks, marks that prevented or discouraged them from going on.

I think that too many professors do not realize the importance of issuing grades (thus, the over-reliance on student graders); grades really can make or break a person's future. If my day ever comes, I want to be a generous professor but I also want to have high standards. That said, my high standards will not only apply to my students but to myself as well. If I am truly going to call myself an exegete (operating out of a relational, Trinitarian-based theology and hermeneutic), then I must apply that to all areas of life, even grading. Besides, sometimes the best standards are not the 16-squared grading rubrics but the test of character, the recognition of context and even second or third chances.