I was witness to two different kinds of knowledge today – or perhaps more accurately: a display of one kind of knowledge, and the complete lack of another! 

When Michael came to my office following school this afternoon, I asked the perfunctory questions about how school had gone, etc., etc.  He mentioned that all was good – except that his lunch box was leaking.  “Leaking?” I queried, as my brow began to wrinkle.  “Yes”, he responded.  “You mean … it is leaking NOW?”, I said, with a little more urgency in my voice.  “Yes”, he said, “but don’t worry; it’s not in here — I have it sitting over the trash can in Miss Kathy’s office.”  I immediately got up and ran into my secretary’s office, just outside my own, where his lunch box was indeed perched precariously, leaking something into her trash can.  “Do you know WHY it is dripping; what is leaking?”, I asked.  He said he did not, but that he thought it might just be his water bottle.  “Well, did you think of LOOKING at it, to SEE why?”, I said, trying not to grit my teeth, as well as remembering that I had just preached last Sunday on how “love is patient.”   I unzipped his lunch box (a sturdy, rectangular cloth lunch sack, really, with compartments for different containers) and found the problem: the spout of his water bottle was not quite shut. Michael grabbed the bottle out of the compartment, and immediately shut it.  Problem solved.  “Why are you laughing?”, he asked Kathy.  “Oh, I just thought of something funny!”, she smirked. 

With that “emergency” dispatched, it was time to return to our after school “business”.  “Ok,” I said as we walked back to my office, “Let’s get to your Greek lesson.”  It dawned on me even as I spoke those words, that there was a real incongruity here: between “exhibit A” on the one hand, which we had just left behind us, and how exceptionally well  Michael is doing in his Greek lessons on the other hand.  Today I explained to him the concept of the “alpha privative” – that when the Greek letter “alpha” is used in front of another word, it can make the word mean the opposite of its root.  We do the same thing in English.  I was trying to think of an example, and the only one that came to mind was “amillenial” – denoting the theological view of one who does NOT believe in a literal 1000-year  reign (1000 years is a millennium) of Christ on earth.  I wasn’t really happy with my example and said so.  “There’s probably a better one …”, I said pensively.  “How about ‘atheist’?”, Michael immediately interjected.  “A-(not) and theos (God), denoting one who does not believe in God”.  “Um, yes, that is much better”, I mumbled.  He really gets this Greek.  We finished his Greek New Testament reading in the Book of Titus and then headed to the car so I could take him home. 

Reviewing the afternoon, I had to shake my head, however.  On the one hand, Michael is quickly becoming adept at an ancient language.  On the other, he didn’t have the “common sense” to close his bottle of water, or to check and see why his lunch box was leaking.  Why such a discrepancy between an almost precocious grasp of theoretical knowledge, and his seemingly appalling lack of practical knowledge?  I smiled to myself as I thought, “Unfortunately, he probably got it from me …” — but we’ll have to save those stories for another time …