http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2013:1-9&version=NIV
Apparently grades in educational institutions are not what they once were. Having been out of high school and college for some time now I can only go by what my own children experienced when they were in school and now what I read in the media.
Back when I went to school, the homework assignments were fairly challenging and the work needed to be done accurately, neatly, and on time. If I remember right there were a few straight-A students but not many. Good grades were hard to come by. Unless you were super-smart you really had to earn them.
Somewhere along the line, things changed. In some cases, drastically. Things such as ‘extra credit’ came into existence. This meant that if a student didn’t do very well on an exam or a homework assignment, they could do some teacher-assigned extra work. By receiving a high mark on this they could bring up their GPA thus making up for their earlier poor grades. Then ‘grading on the curve’ also came into existence. This involved a teacher ignoring the actual scores of students on an exam and grading them on a curve. So, if a particular test was difficult and the top score for a student was an 82, he/she was then given an A (instead of what would have been a B) and the rest of the student’s scores were raised in proportion. This meant that a student who scored a 50 on an exam might receive a D instead of an F. Then I heard of one teacher who actually spent the day before the exam going over with her/his class exactly what was going to be on the exam. Basically they gave the class the answers. These and other factors have contributed to students grades rising significantly over the past couple decades.
This is known as ‘grade inflation’. Simply stated, grade inflation is higher grades for the same quality or quantity of work done as students of the past. It is a hotly debated topic in educational circles. http://www.mnsu.edu/cetl/teachingresources/articles/gradeinflation.html I contend that grade inflation has infected our society in more ways that we realize. It has also drifted over into the spiritual realm. Let me explain.
There are many people in our world today who believe that God grades on the curve. Just like many teachers and professors do. There are no fixed standards. Everything is flexible. Extra credit can be obtained by doing a couple extra good works or throwing a few extra bucks in the offering plate. Most of all, there will be no failures. OK, murderers and people like that might fail to make the grade and not get into Heaven. But certainly everyone else will make the grade. Why? Because God grades on the curve. None of us is really that much better or worse than any other, so God will move us all up on the grading scale. Those who have lived virtuous lives will get A’s. Those who were pretty decent citizens will get B’s & C’s and those who basically lived for themselves their whole lives will be upgraded to D’s. Good enough to get in. But what does the Bible say? That is for tomorrow’s post.
Lord, I understand that many people in our culture believe that everything is relative. That there are no absolutes. No fixed standards. Help me not to believe this. Help me stay true to Your Word that unless I, or anyone else, repents we will perish. Eternally. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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