Augustine & Setting up for Success

Augustine made a great statement about the dichotomy between God's sovereignty & man's responsibility, in the form of a prayer:

Command what Thou will, and grant what Thou commandest.

Paul said it another way:

It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work according to His good pleasure.

In a very small, but very scary way, professors & teachers imitate God in this way. We set up the requirements for a course---never entirely on our own authority, but usually with a lot more freedom than we recognize---and our preparation of our students is a necessary requisite for their success in meeting those requirements.

It makes me appreciate how perfectly God fits together His particular requirements of my life and His preparation of me to meet those requirements. He always sets me up for success, which makes it even more hurtful to me & others when I don't live out that success.

Are we setting up our students (or employees, or children) for success? Are we spelling out our requirements clearly? Are we providing them with the tools & time they need to meet those requirements? If we're not, what does that say (to us and to them) about our view of God? If we were to set them up for success, how might that set us apart from our colleagues, and give our students a glimpse of the gospel?

Undergraduate Corner: What do you want to be remembered for?

On this blog, the first and third Tuesday of each month are dedicated to presenting discussion geared toward undergraduate students, in a series called, "Undergraduate Corner."

I managed to go all semester without referring to Tim Tebow on this blog, but here goes...

At the lunch before the Heisman trophy award ceremony, there was a friendly conversation between Florida's Tim Tebow and Texas' Colt McCoy. McCoy---whose team is off to the national championship game---said something to the effect of, "Even if I win the Heisman, and even if my team goes on to win the national championship, I still don't have a plaque at my stadium. How do you do that?"

The conversation led me to think of a question I often ask myself: "How do you want to be remembered?" I think it's a worthwhile question, especially for college students who are in their university culture for such an interesting length of time. It seems like four years is just long enough for someone else to be able to remember you for the rest of his life---for good or for bad.

So how do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be remembered as the person who won all the awards and received all the accolades? Or do you want to be remembered as someone who cared about others and brought out the best in them? Do you want to be remembered as the "religious" person who knew all the right verses? Or do you want to be remembered as someone who lived out the gospel is humility, love, and faithfulness?

McCoy's statement also led me to think of a similarly-structured statement made by Paul in 1 Corinthians 13: "If I speak the languages of men and of angels, but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have [the gift of] prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing."

It seems Paul didn't want to be remembered for his actions, his gifts, and his accomplishments, but for his love.

So what do you want to be remembered for?

Undergraduate Corner: Don't Make Jesus a Stranger

On this blog, the first and third Tuesday of each month are dedicated to presenting discussion geared toward undergraduate students, in a series called, "Undergraduate Corner."

You probably saw the title to this blog posting and thought, "Yeah, I know; make sure I keep up my relationship with Jesus while I'm in college." Chances are, if you're reading this post, you are making an effort to keep up your relationship with Jesus while you're in college.

But I mean something else.

I'm referring to the tendency of Christian college students who have a near-insatiable craving to understand their faith better, and who dive deeply into even the most difficult writings of Scripture to better understand what it teaches, and to craft a seamless, clean-cut, unshakable personal statement of faith that summarizes what they believe the Bible says.


Okay, perhaps that last sentence was a little hyperbolic (that's the adjective of "hyperbole," not the mathematical curve), but you get the idea: Christian college students--the ones who grow in their faith during their college years--tend to dive into Scripture more than they ever have before. And it seems like they spend 99% of their Bible study time in Paul's letters.


Again, the 99% figure is a little hyperbolic. But when we're seeking to fine-tune our personal doctrine, we (college student or otherwise) do tend to spend a lot of time in Paul's writings. But that makes sense, right? Paul is certainly the biblical author who speaks most about doctrine and the need for doctrinal correctness. He's also one of the most straightforward authors, keeping his points pretty well-separated and usually saving his application points for when he knows you understand his doctrine; he's even got a few arguments that can stand up against that big scary atheistic professor you've got in class tomorrow.


Except here is the problem: I think that sometimes, we spend so much time and energy reading and understanding Paul, that when we return to the Jesus depicted in the Gospels (who didn't always speak about the need for doctrinal correctness; who didn't always keep His points well-separated; who wove doctrine and application together seamlessly; who spoke in stories instead of sophisticated arguments), He seems like a stranger to us.


Think of it this way: If your church's leadership announced they wanted to hire a new pastor, and invited their top candidate to give a guest sermon, with whom would you be more comfortable? A pastor whose sermon sounds like Paul, or a pastor whose sermon sounds like Jesus?


So, as we dive into Scripture to understand the Christian faith, let's not make Jesus a stranger.


When have you experienced this estrangement from Jesus of Nazereth, the Messiah depicted in the Gospels? How did you overcome it?

What about other authors of Scripture? Whose writings do you feel most uncomfortable reading?


Have you found a balanced way to read the Bible, where every author and every genre seems natural to you?