Sanctification – Education is Discipleship

December 20, 2018December 20, 2018

Grades and Sanctification

“This A is not an expectation to live up to, but a possibility to live into.”
From The Art of Possibility

In the quotation above, Rosamund and Ben Zander encourage us to give ourselves and those we teach As. The point is to remove the comparative measurements that too often stifle and paralyze us.

To make a theological analogy, the Zanders encourage us to use grades as an act of sanctification rather justification. Justification of course is “an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins,” according to the shorter Westminister Catechism. No amount work on our part will earn us that pardon, and it doesn’t matter what the quality of that work is or how long we do it for. Sanctification, on the other hand, is a process no less of grace “whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin, and live unto righteousness.”

I will be meditating on how this distinction should work itself out in my assessments and the joy, love, and peace that accompany the work of the Spirit in our lives.

March 23, 2018

Hurry Up and Fail

In Mere Christianity, CS Lewis suggests that one way for people to see how much they need Christ is to seriously attempt to rely on themselves. This is because

No man knows how bad he is till he has tried very hard to be good.

Only when we confront our own inability to be good will we truly rely on Christ. This is where real faith begins.

There’s an analogous principle in academic work, especially in the process of writing something as large and unwieldy as a research paper. I like to tell my students, “Hurry up and fail.” What I mean is that they often won’t know what kind of work they really need to do on a project until they attempt it, no matter how messy it is. The problem is not the rough draft: the attempt to be good. The problem is waiting until the last possible minute to hand in a rough draft: the attempt to be good never led to a new sense of reliance.

Lewis lets us know that the serious attempt to be good on our own can lead to a significant spiritual insight: not that we are lost forever but that we can never be found until we have faith in God.

The point of emphasizing failure to students is this: we ALL need to revise. Go ahead and start writing now so you can ask for help in improving it. Do it sooner rather than later.

February 12, 2018

Discipleship: There’s an App for That?

While the world went gaga for Pokemon Go this week (and by “world”, I mainly mean “my wife and her best friend”), I was trying out some other apps: MyFitnessPal, Goodbudget, and GiantSlayers. Health, money, and discipleship—these were the ostensible aims of these respective apps. (I know, GiantSlayers sounds like a video game app, but it’s actually a Bible-verse/devotional service. Bear with me). Continue reading “Discipleship: There’s an App for That?”