I have been teaching Bible classes for years. Until the past 3 – 4 years I have been teaching exclusively preschool age kids. But an opportunity arose for me to teach primary age kids and I grabbed it. Don’t get me wrong, 3 year olds are a barrel of laughs but I found that teaching older kids has helped me to learn more about the Bible than I did teaching preschoolers. It has really helped me grow spiritually. I have also found that my personality is actually better suited to elementary age kids. This could be partially due to the fact that this age group is less likely to cry inexplicably.

I am currently teaching 4th – 6th graders. This age is a challenge but also a lot of fun. They really keep you on your toes. And there is always one who wants to be the class clown. My current class clown is a 10 year old boy. He is really a sweet and smart child but he really likes to see if he can aggravate me. His favorite game is to answer every question I ask with the word “Paul”. I should tell you that I teach Old Testament and in all my study I have never found a person in the Old Testament named Paul. If you know of one, please tell me where he is.

It all started when I taught the class about the kings of Israel. Of course, you begin with King Saul. During one of my review games, I asked the class the name of the first king of Israel and got the answer “Paul” from my little buddy. There were a couple of snickers from the class which I silenced. I gently explained that Paul was an apostle of Christ who was sometimes called Saul, but Saul was a king of Israel and he was never called Paul. When I went to the next question, the response was “Paul” – this time the answer should have been David. So I again silenced the snickers and explained that Paul was an apostle of Christ who wasn’t even born at the time of the kings. Every question I asked for the rest of that evening was answered “Paul” even if the answer wasn’t a person’s name. “Who was the wisest king?” “Paul.” “What did gift did God give Solomon?” “Paul.” “What did Solomon build?” “Paul.” “What is the square root of 9,216?” “Paul” (okay, I didn’t really ask that question but you get the point)

Finally, I realized that this kid was just trying to get my goat – succeeding I might add. Fortunately, the bell rang to get me out of my predicament before I was guilty of murder. Since that time, I have taught this same boy four different quarters and he has never failed to answer at least one question per class with “Paul”. Last week, after the first two or three “Pauls,” I drew a circle on the chalk board and told the class that anyone who answered a question with “Paul” would spend time with their nose in that circle. Paul did not find the need to visit us for the rest of class. Last night, when I walked into the class room, my little buddy was writing on the chalk board. Here is what he wrote