Most people, if they think about it, probably live their life around some kind of rhythm. As a kid I remember my dad working seven days a week at the paper mill with a week off in the spring to do some home maintenance and
Essay / Education
Featured Essay / Blog
Authority in Mentoring
A concerned student recently asked me to use my authority over a friend of theirs (also a student and mentee of mine) to help get them on the right track, for this friend was involved in quite destructive behavior. As we were talking, I was growing increasingly uncomfortable, but…
Education Essays
Essay / Culture
Excerpts & Essays: The Great Books Reader
Here’s a 656-page grand tour of some of the greatest moments in Western civilization: The Great Books Reader, edited by John Mark Reynolds. I highly recommend it. Then again, since I contributed to it, work with or for many of the contributors, and already like
Essay / Education
Thomas Traherne: Educating the Whole Soul
Thomas Traherne was born in England in 1637, educated at Oxford and ordained an Anglican priest. During his short life he served as a parish priest and as a private chaplain. He died in 1674 at only 37 years old. During his lifetime he published
Essay / Education
From Information to Wisdom
Counter-intuitive as it may seem, education is a college student’s job. You don’t get a salary, you don’t get health or retirement benefits or paid vacation, but it is still your job, and a peculiar one at that. You do not make things or sell
Essay / Education
Data-Wise
You should assume as a matter of course that at least once in your college career you will behold the blue screen of death or that your laptop will be either stolen or dropped down the fire escape or forgotten in Starbucks and that it
Essay / Education
Reading Habits at the Gospel Coalition
This week John Starke at The Gospel Coalition Blog ran a series of brief interviews about reading habits. They asked Carl Trueman, Bradley Green, and me to say a few words about what we read, how we pick books, what we’re reading, and so on.
Essay / Education
Augustine's Confessions for Middle Schoolers
Shaun Williams runs Williams Great Books Tutorials here in southern California. That means she leads young people through classic texts, the kind of books that have instructed, challenged, and baffled generations of the greatest adult minds in history. And somehow, it works! These are books
Essay / Education
A Letter to My Freshmen
To My Freshmen: Okay, so that may be premature. We’ve only just met, after all. Five months ago you were a sea of undifferentiated faces only loosely attached to names (but great names—names like Bustos and Magness, Tonti and Duarte, Mendelson, Zilka, and Van Vlear).
Essay / Education
Staying at Big Hotels: C.S. Lewis vs. The Great Books
Once upon a time, somebody asked C. S. Lewis to choose a list of the best books ever written, and he declined. He said he wasn’t qualified. He also said it was a bad idea to make a list of greatest books. And finally, he
Essay / Art
We'll "Figure Out" the Trinity, Get It?
This January I’ll be teaching an intensive class on the Trinity as part of Biola’s innovative IRIS program. It’ll be a three-week class that I’ll be co-teaching with nine other Biola profs, intentionally stirring together as many academic disciplines as we can fit into one
Essay / Education
Read for Craft, Stay Happy, Try to Help: Tips on Writing
Andrew Faris over at Someone Tell Me The Story recently posted a short interview he did with me on the subject of writing. Along the way I ranted about the current state of theological writing, recommended a few resources, and said ridiculous things like “ignore
Essay / Culture
What Makes for a Great Book?
Biola‘s Torrey Honors Institute is a great books program. Our students get their general education by reading and discussing the hundred or so greatest hits of western civ, and everybody who works here teaches that whole curriculum. But the phrase “great books” doesn’t always instantly