Guilty as charged

I am guilty of being one of those Sunday Scholl teachers that taught things that were wrong as well as damaging to other people’s lives. It was out of this guilt that I began to search for true answers. When I was teaching Sunday School at a boy’s reform school I was given the task to teach every three weeks. It just so happened that as my turn rolled around we were in the scriptures teaching about turning the other cheek. I taught this lesson like it had been taught to me. God wanted us to turn the other cheek and not fight. Jesus did this in the Garden Of Gethsemane. It would be like heaping coals of fire upon their heads as the Bible taught and I am positive I told them other untruths that day. After the lesson the toughest and meanest student we had in our class came and told me that he had prayed the prayer of faith with us and that he had accepted Jesus as his Savior. We were rejoicing at the work the Lord did that day. Others came to tell us they too had accepted Jesus as their Savior. I remember as we left rejoicing in this experience, we had no idea that a life changing experience was about to happen to us. The following week we returned as good teachers would but what we found shook my very soul. The meanest and toughest boy in this institution at the time was sitting on the couch clutching his Bible with a big smile on his face and two black eyes. He told me that another inmate tried to pick a fight and hit him with his fist. He proudly turned the other cheek and let him hit him again thus allowing this other inmate to give him two black eyes without raising a hand in defiance. Those black eyes that day represented black eyes to my belief system. How on earth could this be what God meant for mankind? How could God want us to roll over and play dead and allow others to take our dignity and our families and our livelihood away from us? Why would God want us to be wimps and turn the other cheek only to be hit again and again? Turning the other cheek must be wrong. My heart sank as I looked into those black eyes that day and I knew I would not rest until I found a better explanation for this passage in the Bible. I only hoped that this young man did not see the hurt in my face, as I knew that I was responsible for the pain he had suffered. I knew that someday he would question this teaching of mine and turn away from the joy that he now had. I feared that he would turn from God and I would be responsible. I feared that he would again lose himself in the past life but there was nothing I could do because I did not understand it myself. I knew that there must be a better explanation for this passage and I set out to find it. It took two years for me to find a reasonable explanation that did not take away from the story in the Bible but shed more light to this subject of turning the other cheek. It was amazing that I found this answer not in the Bible but in history. It seems that during the time of Jesus that a person who had been wronged by another could demand as part of the repayment a public display of guilt by slapping the wrongdoer on the face. This would be a display of guilt on the behalf of the wrongdoer as well as a means of retribution to the one who had been wronged. In this passage Jesus tells us to turn the other cheek. If we have wronged someone and their repayment is to publicly slap us then we should turn the other cheek and let them slap us again. We are to show that as followers of Christ we are better than the other people are and are willing to pay more for our wrongdoing. If we are wrong and we are required by law to give them our shirt then we should give them our coat also. The Roman soldiers had set outpost around the city and had a curfew. If one was caught out after the curfew they were required to walk between the outposts with the soldiers carrying their heavy armor. Jesus said, “If they bid you walk one mile you should walk two”. Remember that all this is conditional to the fact that they were caught in a wrongdoing and they were out after curfew. We are to show we are better by going the extra mile. If history could make this passage understandable and helpful in our lives then why is everyone so scared to look at history for solutions to hard questions? I felt relief when I found this answer but also so sad for those that others and I taught incorrectly. The Bible can be explained but it takes many sources to help one understand. When I study the Bible I use one simple principle. I come to the Word of God with the idea that it must be consistent with the other teachings of the Bible. A concept or story in the Bible cannot contradict another. If it appears to be a contradiction then we must look for an answer that rids the story or the concept of the contradiction. I cannot do anything about the boy with the two black eyes but I can tell others about what I have learned so that they will not turn their cheeks when they are not in the wrong. Black eyes can heal but closed minds can continue to do damage.