Dan Olinger

"If the Bible is true, then none of our fears are legitimate, none of our frustrations are permanent, and none of our opposition is significant."

Dan Olinger

Chair, Division of Biblical Studies & Theology,

Bob Jones University

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On Being Like Jesus, Part 1: Why It’s Important

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We don’t know her name, because she was only 15 at the time, and the police won’t tell us. She was a student at Richmond High School just north of San Francisco. It was a Saturday in October, the night of the homecoming dance. 

About 9:30 that night, just after the dance ended, a group of students gathered in the darkness of a courtyard on the school property. Several of the boys turned on the girl, who was drunk, and began to beat her, throw her around, and rape her. There were at least 7 attackers, and the attack went on for more than 2 hours. 

They weren’t alone in the courtyard. They were surrounded by other students, at least two dozen, and someone as old as in his 40s.

No one called the police.

Several of them allegedly recorded the attack on their cell phones. Eventually a young woman nearby heard what was going on and called 911. Police rescued the girl, and she was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. 

What would you have done?

Would you have called the police? Would you have stepped in and tried to help? Would you have risked your own safety to defend a helpless victim?

Would you have thought of her, or of yourself? 

What would you have done?

How do you know? 

You can’t know what you’ll do in a crisis. What you’ll do is react—you’ll go with your most primal instincts. You’ll act out what you are deep inside, in your core. 

And what is that? Your core is the sum of a thousand decisions you make every day, in the course of ordinary life. Today—and every other day—you’re turning into who you are. 

So. You and I ought to spend our days, and our decisions, becoming what matters—the most important things. 

And what are they? 

The Bible answers that question for us: 

  • God is taking the entire span of our lives to turn us into imitators of Christ:
    • But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit (2Cor 3.18). 
  • When Christ was asked what really matters, He said it very simply: love God, and love your neighbor (Mk 12.29-31). 

So my decisions today, and your decisions, should be about placing more value on others than on ourselves. We need to decide every moment, in important decisions and in little tiny ones, to think as though it’s not about us.

This—thinking “otherly” in the tiny decisions—is the only way to be reasonably sure that when the really big decisions come, when there’s no time to evaluate or to do anything other than just react, we’ll do the right thing.

Why do I say that? Because doing the right thing—especially when it’s costly—is unnatural for us. We need a lot of practice, a lot of repetition, a lot of imprinting.

What does thinking “otherly” look like? If God’s lifelong work in us is conforming us to the likeness of Christ, then of course Jesus himself is our example.

There are many places in Scripture where we can get information on how Jesus thought and acted. Of course we could start with the Gospels, which we could call primary sources in the historical sense. And then there are numerous Christological passages in the epistles that would be informative—Romans, Ephesians, and Colossians come immediately to mind.

But I’d like to spend a few posts delving into Philippians 2, where Paul lays out a classic passage on Christ’s humiliation and exaltation—a passage some scholars think was an early hymn of the church. (It does appear to have the structure and lyricism one would expect in a hymn.)

Now that we have a text to study, I’ll spend a post justifying using a text that’s talking about Jesus to direct our own personal decisions—and then we’ll get to the text itself.

 Part 2: Why It’s OK to Moralize, This Time | Part 3: Aligning Your Values | Part 4: Aligning Your Focus | Part 5: Letting Go | Part 6: Getting Low | Part 7: Sacrificing Yourself | Part 8: Closing Thoughts

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Memories of Merciful Teachers

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The COVID upheaval has made teaching really interesting. For most teachers in the US, there was a “pivot to online” around mid-March, as the students began “learning from home.” Teachers had to rethink their course presentation and assessment, and they had to do it in a hurry. For me it was fairly simple—I credit previous experience teaching online (a gracious providence), the nature of my subject area, and the fact that I’ve already largely done away with unit tests in favor of other assessment methods (another gracious providence). I know that for my colleagues in activity-based subjects (e.g. fine arts, lab sciences), the pivot required a lot more adjustment and creativity, and my hat’s off to them.

Part of that change of situation included considering the various stresses on student performance. For my students the most obvious stressors were reduced access to library resources, lack of a place to concentrate, and in some cases reduced internet access. Some had family or other housing situations that greatly interfered with their studies.

And all of that calls for flexibility and other types of mercy. I didn’t tell my students this ahead of time, but I essentially did away with late penalties, and I let them try again when they really botched an assignment. And there were other considerations.

My thinking in this area has been influenced by past teachers who showed me mercy. I’d like to recount a couple of those instances.

For second-semester Greek—my undergrad minor—I had Dr. Richard Taylor, who is now a professor of OT at Dallas Theological Seminary. Going into the final, I had a high A and calculated that I could get a D on the final and still keep the A. No sweat.

I got careless in my preparation and completely overlooked what turned out to be a major emphasis on the exam (for you Greek bodies, it was the -μι verbs).

I flunked it. Ran the numbers, and my semester average was now 89.4. Juuuuust barely lost the A.

I went to Dr. Taylor’s office ready to plead my case. I’ve done solid A work all semester. I’ve demonstrated that I can master this stuff. I knocked and heard “Come in!”

“I’d like to talk about my grade,” I said. “About the B+.”

He pulled out the little green gradebook (remember those?) and looked it over, and then he looked up with just a hint of a smile.

“I don’t see any B+,” he said.

I’m told that an adage among lawyers is “When you’ve won, shut up.” So I did. And today my transcript shows an A- for Greek 102. (I just checked.)

Another example.

I took a course on the Pauline Epistles taught by Dr. George Dollar. Dr. Dollar was an old-time, fire-and-brimstone fundamentalist, perhaps the prototype for the stereotype. As I recall, he taught at BJU for only a few years, and he never shied away from a fight.

The biggest assignment for that course was that we had to write a commentary on 1Corinthians. We had all semester, and I went right to work. I read and read and wrote and wrote. The day before it was due, Dr. Dollar reminded the class that our commentary on 2Corinthians was due tomorrow.

Second Corinthians?! I wrote on First Corinthians!

Yikes.

After class I stumbled down to the front of the lecture room and admitted my stupidity. To my astonishment, Dr. Dollar smiled and said, “That’ll be fine.”

“That’ll be fine.” And indeed it was.

Now, these are (or were, in the case of Dr. Dollar) two very different men, with very different personalities, approaches, and teaching styles. But in my formative years in academia they both showed me mercy, and nearly 50 years later I still remember. When a student comes to me needing mercy, even if he kinda deserves justice, I think of those two experiences—sometimes I even take the time to tell one of the stories—and I say, “I’m going to show you mercy. Someday you’re going to have an opportunity to show somebody else mercy, and on that day I want you to remember this one.”

To show mercy is to reflect the image of God. We will never show anyone as much mercy as God has shown us. These days, mercy is more needed than ever.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

On Being Quiet

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We live in a noisy age. It seems that everywhere we go, noise fills the pauses and even runs constantly in the background. In stores and restaurants, the music is constant and often quite loud. (How do people carry on any kind of meaningful conversation in those places?) In the elevator, there’s music—that’s even an official genre, apparently. Go to a professional sporting event, and every pause in the action is filled with the output of the stadium’s DJ. I’m told that what he’s playing is allegedly music. When you get into your car, you automatically reach over and turn on the radio, to fill your environment with music or, worse, people talking—people who quite clearly don’t know what they’re talking about.

I know I sound cynical. I’m not. But I do want to make a point.

Human beings need quiet as certainly as they need exercise. We need time to think, to reflect, to evaluate. To pray.

I’ve noticed that in many of the students I teach, quiet is disturbing. Too quiet. Distracting. Even our library has loosened up on the stereotypical quiet rules as an accommodation to the students’ professed need for background noise—think Starbucks—in order to study.

Our lives are often noisy in ways other than decibels. Many of us pride ourselves on how busy we are, how little time we have. That means, you see, that we’re important, that we’re making a difference. I’m busier than you.

Nyah, nyah, nyah.

My friends, these things ought not so to be.

Now, I know that sometimes we’re unavoidably busy. Some people have to work 3 jobs in order to pay for school. Some people have bedridden relatives or friends, and there’s nobody to share the burden. For most of us, there are seasons of life when we’re simply busier than normal and we have to just grit our teeth and try to get it all done without dying of exhaustion.

But busyness is not a lifestyle we are meant to choose.

We need quiet. Time to think. Time to meditate.

Meditate in your heart upon your bed, and be still (Ps 4.4).

Meditation isn’t emptying your mind, after the fashion of the Eastern religions. When you empty your mind, it’s like leaving your wallet sitting on the sidewalk; somebody bent on mischief is likely to show up.

In the Bible, meditation is focusing your mind on something and giving it your investigative consideration, turning it over and savoring it as you would good food. My colleague Jim Berg says that if you can worry, you know how to meditate; meditation is just the process of worrying without the pathological aspects.

So what should you focus your mind on? The Bible gives at least 3 legitimate topics:

  • Meditate on God himself (Ps 63.6). Who is he? What is he like? What do those attributes say about how you should think, feel, and live?
  • Meditate on God’s works (Ps 77.12; 143.5). What has God done? What is he doing today? What will he do in the future? What do those actions say about how you should think, feel, and live?
  • Meditate on God’s Word (Josh 1.8; Ps 1.2; 119.15, 23, 97, 99, 148). What has God said? What do those words say about how you should think, feel, and live?

I note that in order to meditate on God’s Word, you really have to have it in your head. You can’t think about something that isn’t there. I’ve written on that topic before; if you find the prospect of life-changing meditation appealing, that post might be worth reading again.

Recently I’ve been consciously not turning on the radio when I’m alone in the car. It’s a great opportunity to think, to muse, to meditate. I’ve also been cutting out late-night activities so that I can get enough sleep and still get up earlier, when the house is quiet.

There are lots of demands on us, and they deserve our attention and care. But most of us don’t need to be as busy as we are. Maybe we can’t be philosophers sitting on mountaintops or monks chanting in the abbey—in fact, we’re probably a lot more useful as we are—but we can be more thoughtful, more reasoned, more contemplative.

More quiet, to a useful end.

Photo by Wes Grant on Unsplash

How Gossip Ruins Everything

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Gossip runs deep in our culture. There are TV shows and magazines and websites completely dedicated to talk about what famous person is doing this or that, and we all know the story gets more reads if the news is bad. Nothing gets clicks like a nice juicy scandal. And it doesn’t stop with famous people; if a scandal strikes the ordinary joe, it likely won’t be long until he’s famous too.

This isn’t new; even in the Victorian era there were society columns in the newspaper, and long before that there was a graffito in Rome depicting a crucified man with a donkey’s head and proclaiming that “Alexamenos worships his god.”

Gossip is deeply rooted in our natures. We like to tell stories, and we like to be the one with the latest Information, so everyone will look up to us. My story’s better than yours, you see. I win.

No, actually, you don’t. Nobody does. And here’s why.

All of us who believe are members of a body, the church (1Co 12.13). Just as your finger wants to help your eye when there’s a foreign body in there irritating it—and the finger’s not irritated at all—just so, when one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers (1Co 12.26).

That’s true in the universal body of Christ; if some Christian does something outstandingly stupid, then the social value of my standing as a believer is going to be reduced, even if I had nothing to do with it. But it’s especially so in the local assembly; if a member of your church goes to prison, his church membership may well be published on the local news, and the reputation of every member of that church is damaged, whether rightfully or not. Perhaps you’ve seen that happen; I have.

So far, I haven’t really been talking about gossip; news reports of a local crime are in the public interest. I’m simply making the point that believers are all connected and interdependent.

So now let’s bring gossip into the picture.

A key purpose of the assembly, the local body, is for believers to gather, look one another in the face, and exercise their gifts on behalf of the others in the assembly. In a healthy church, you’ll have the kind of relationship with a few other members that allows you to share your struggles, to hear of the struggles of others, and to be of help as you are gifted to do so. When a church member is struggling with a particular sin, he’s not designed to struggle alone; he needs brethren to come alongside to pray for and encourage him (Ga 6.1-2)—and perhaps to rebuke and exhort him as well (2Ti 4.2).

Now, suppose you’re struggling with pornography, and you need help, badly. What kind of person are you going to seek help from? Well, obviously, somebody who’s going to keep your confidence.

Somebody who’s not a gossip.

Now, suppose your church is a hotbed of gossip. Every juicy little bit of news spreads like wildfire; everybody knows, but nobody’s going to tell anybody else, except “just this once.”

Who’s going to seek help in an environment like that?

Not me. And not you, either. We’re going to struggle on in silence and desperation, and we’re never going to get the help we need. And consequently, victory will never come, and the whole body spirals downward to defeat, frustration, and collapse.

Gossip kills ministry. It kills the church. It makes a mockery of Christianity.

I came to realize this many years ago when as a young and foolish man I made a disparaging comment to a friend about a mutual acquaintance. He replied that I was destroying opportunities for ministry—because now he knew that I talked out of school, and as a result he would never come to me for help with anything he was struggling with.

He hit me with both barrels, and I will always be grateful to him for it. He changed my way of thinking and consequently, I’m confident, he changed the course of my life and ministry.

You’re not here to promote yourself; you’re here to serve God’s people.

So shut up and serve.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

On Coffee

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In my just-finished series on When We Fight and When We Don’t, I spent a lot more time on the doctrinal side than the behavioral side. I thought I’d share an experience I had a few years back that got my thinking developing on how we approach behavioral issues.

About 25 or so years ago, I noticed something odd. Every weekend, I would get a headache. Fine all week long, but every Saturday morning, like clockwork, headache. Sunday too. Then Monday I was fine again.

I tested a lot of variables to try to find out the cause. Sleeping in? Nope. Breakfast? Nope. Location-based allergies? Nope.

I guess you can figure out from the title of this post what the cause was. Every day at work I drank coffee. The departmental coffee pot was literally right next to my office, and I made good use of it. Weekend mornings, though, I didn’t make coffee at home.

Well, what am I gonna do about these headaches? I did what any sensible person would do.

I bought a coffee pot, and I made sure I had a cup on Saturday and Sunday mornings so I wouldn’t get a headache.

After I’d done that for a while, I got to thinking.

The headache was a caffeine withdrawal symptom. I was chemically addicted to caffeine.

But it’s not as bad as cocaine—and certainly not as bad as opioids—so it’s OK, right?

I skipped merrily along down that path for a bit longer, and my conscience really began to bother me.

I was a drug addict. Gotta have my hit. Every day. Or I won’t be able to function at my best.

And I thought of Paul’s words to the Corinthians: “All things are lawful unto me, … but I will not be brought under the power of any[thing]” (1Co 6.12).

My schedule and activities were being dictated by a physical addiction.

My conscience continued to bother me. And Paul also says that it’s a sin to violate the restrictions of your conscience (1Co 8.7)—even if the thing isn’t sinful in itself.

A Christian who realizes he’s sinning is supposed to stop.

So I did. Cold turkey. Three days of blinding headaches.

I got clean.

As follow-up, I would try a cup of coffee every few months just to see if the headaches returned. They did, so after a series of lengthening test periods I quit testing and just stayed clean.

Nowadays I find that I’m OK with a cup of decaf (which has a little caffeine, but not much) maybe 3 days a week without headaches. And I really love good coffee, so I’m happy about that. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it (1Co 10.26), and we ought to enjoy whatever he’s placed here for us, the best we can.

Now. What do I do about my Christian friends who drink full-bore, drug-fueled coffee? Shall I become a prophet, crying in the wilderness against the evils of the demon bean?

Nope. Though I will say that it troubles me when my Christian friends declaim on social media about how they can’t live or function without their morning coffee. If they’re telling the truth—if they’re really physically addicted to caffeine—then I’d suggest that they think about whether maybe they ought to do something about that. Whether maybe they ought to be free—and might rejoice in their newfound freedom.

But short of addiction? Nope. The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it. If they’re drinking coffee and enjoying it, and especially if they’re thanking our good and gracious God for the joy it brings them, then I rejoice with those who rejoice.

For my first several years on the Bible faculty at BJU I shared an office with a long-time friend who’s a coffee aficionado. He roasts his own beans, as close to the time of consumption as possible; he grinds just a cup’s worth of beans at a time; he waxes eloquent on the specifics of crema. Every afternoon about 3, he’d say, “Well, time for a cup of coffee!” And the grinder would surge, and the office would fill with the most delightful aroma of fresh-roasted coffee beans. I couldn’t drink what he made, in good conscience, but I enjoyed the daily routine, and the aroma, and his pleasure in the simple experience of a good cup of coffee.

He’s not sinning. There’s nothing there to fight about, even though we’re behaving differently, for significant theological reasons.

What about you? Have a cup for me, my friends.

Just don’t get addicted.

And don’t sweat the small stuff.

In this outrage-addicted culture, here’s something we can disagree about, for substantial reasons, without being outraged.

How about that?

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Application 1 Application 2

Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

On Fighting with Better Weapons

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When I was a boy, my parents belonged to a politically conservative organization that included both Christians and non-Christians. I remember hearing members of this organization ridicule Christians who thought we should emphasize preaching the gospel. “You just preach the gospel,” they would say, “and when the Communists take over, you won’t be allowed to preach the gospel anymore, and then what will you do? First we need to prevent that from happening, and then you can preach the gospel all you want!”

I was reminded of that when a friend of mine posted a similar thought on social media the other day—just replace “Communists” with “Democrats.” (And yes, I have friends who would say that’s no change at all.)

That got me to thinking. And it brought to mind the Pauline observation that “though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh; for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty through God to the pulling down of fortresses” (2Cor 10.3-4).

Like every biblical passage, that one has a specific historical context, to which Paul is specifically applying it; but no one would argue that the principle applies to only one historical situation, the participants in which are all long dead. The principle is timeless.

God’s people, Paul says, don’t fight like the world; they use a different, more powerful set of weapons.

What are the world’s weapons? A few come immediately to mind.

  • Political power. History well bears out that when the church has held political power, things didn’t go well—for the church or for anybody else.
  • Populism. Get a big enough crowd on your side, and you’re bound to win. But the church has never been a majority, has it? Nor will that ever change, apparently (Mt 7.13-14).
  • Pragmatism. If we do it this way, it’ll work, doggonit. Don’t be so, um, purist. Do you want to be ideologically perfect and puritanically untainted, or do you want to win?
  • Deception. This is a subcategory of pragmatism. A little head fake here, and a feint there, and we can get this done. “Republicans vote on Nov. 6; Democrats vote on Nov. 8.”

And there are many others.

By contrast—and Paul’s whole point in this passage is that there is, indeed, a contrast—what are the divinely ordained weapons, the mighty ones?

  • Scripture. Preach the word; take the gospel story to the ends of the earth. This book is alive (Heb 4.12).
  • Prayer. Call on the God who rules in the affairs of peoples and nations, who sets up kings and takes them down again. He hears, and he answers (Dan 2.21).
  • Evangelism. Changing hearts requires, well, changing hearts. There’s only one effective way to do that—by introducing people to the Spirit of God, who changes them from the inside out, from the bottom up (Rom 8.6-9).
  • Love. Jesus told us to love our enemies, to do good to those that curse us (Lk 6.27-28). Paul extended that thought by telling us to feed our enemy if he’s hungry and to give him something to drink if he’s thirsty (Rom 12.20). Frankly, I haven’t seen a whole lot of that lately. I have seen a lot of retributory execration, though—“to give them a taste of their own medicine.”

Now, I’m not suggesting that we should not be politically involved. Unlike pretty much everyone in biblical times, we don’t live under an authoritarian regime; we not only have the ability to speak up and be heard, but our system is at its best when we do. By all means, vote. And better yet, interact with your fellow citizens about how you’re voting, and why. That’s a great opportunity not merely to change somebody else’s vote, but to introduce him to the biblical worldview that informs (it does, right?) the way you vote.

But in the end, politics is temporary and—relative to the issues God has called us to attend to—trivial. All political power eventually goes away, and usually far more quickly and dramatically than anyone expected. Yet as a matter of stewardship, we should attend to those matters. And as a tool for the Prime Directive, politics can often serve to provide us some leverage.

But.

You want to change the world? Only the gospel does that. While political kingdoms have come—in great power—and gone—every one of them—the gospel has been changing the world one heart at a time ever since it was unleashed on an unsuspecting planet.

Fight to win. Use the right weapons.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Pants on Fire

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I guess it’s time to post here something I posted on Facebook back in 2016:

I’ve seen a trend recently that bothers me. I see my FB friends posting things that aren’t true–that are demonstrably, objectively, documented as untrue. When that is pointed out, they respond, “I don’t know whether this is true or not; but I just wanted to get it out there.”

Outspoken believers. Christian teachers. Pastors. Missionaries. People with a long record of devoted, apparently selfless service.

Where to start.

God is truth, and Satan is the father of lies. Believers, who claim to follow God, ought to be really serious about the truth. They ought to care whether something is true or not. And they ought to take 30 seconds to find out whether something is true before they post it. If you don’t,

  • how worthy is a cause that you need falsehood to support?
  • is the truth not powerful enough to get the job done?
  • how will you give account to God for your haphazard approach to things that are important to Him?
  • what kind of an ambassador for God are you being?
  • why should anyone believe anything you say?
  • why would you want to give the enemies of God reason to blaspheme?

Maybe it’s time we take a deep breath, refocus, and reprioritize. In a billion years, this stuff is going to look really foolish.

That was two years ago, just days before the last presidential election. In the meantime, the situation has only gotten worse.

And on and on it goes.

Let that sink in.

And when the lie is pointed out, you get rejoinders that just make it worse:

  • Well, it sounds like something she could have said.
  • Well, snopes.com is just 3 weird people who like Soros. What does that have to do with whether the quotation is true or not? If you don’t like Snopes as a source, how about looking at the 14.9 million—OK, several hundred—other hits on the alleged quotation?
  • Or sadly, there’s no response at all, and the post stays up. Got no evidence; just liked what it said.

And this from people who get really angry when somebody says there’s no such thing as absolute truth.

God is love, and he loves you, even when you say these things. But love for one thing engenders hate for what would destroy it, and God himself tells us that he hates some things (Prov 6.16-19).

And two of those things that he hates (out of just 7 listed here) are “a lying tongue” and “a false witness.” Two out of seven. You just managed to hit more than a quarter of what God hates. Pretty productive post, considering how little thought went into it.

And throughout our culture, as depraved and perverted as it is, most people are still sensitive enough to the image of God in them that they’re going to despise your dishonesty, and they’re not going to believe anything you say ever again.

Even if it’s John 3.16.

So you need to decide whether zinging an eccentric woman from California is more important than carrying out the Great Commission. And if it isn’t, sounds like you have some repenting to do—taking down some posts, and stating your repentance as publically as you posted the lies.

And then, by God’s grace, reveling in his forgiveness (1Jn 1.9), and living the Truth.

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On Beginning Another Academic Year

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Today is the first day back in the office after a summer of activity, rest, and refreshment. Year 24 of teaching. (I was a teaching assistant during my seminary days, and I’ve been teaching fulltime since the fall of 2000.) Every year means refocusing, fine-tuning, tightening both philosophy and technique.

Every faculty member at my institution has expressed a personal philosophy of education, which he includes in his annual portfolio. What follows is mine.

__________

My educational philosophy grows out of two broader, over-arching philosophies: my life mission and the mission of the institution where I serve.

My life mission is to glorify God by edifying His people and helping prepare others to serve Him. It finds its foundation in Paul’s statement to his Corinthian friends: “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all things to the glory of God” (1Cor 10.31; my translation). It finds its specific application in Paul’s words to another group of friends, this time in Ephesus: “[Christ] gave [gifted people to the church] … in order to equip the saints for the work of service, for the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph 4.12). Like my fellow believers, by God’s good plan and providence, I am where I am, and have the gifts that I have, in order to use those gifts to build up members of the body of Christ. There is no greater mission. And as a fringe benefit, God is a good and gracious Master.

By that same providence, I find myself in the corner of the vineyard that calls itself Bob Jones University. By contracting to teach here, I have agreed to its mission, which is to build Christ-like character in students through the medium of liberal arts higher education. That means that I have a dual focus as I teach: to teach my students the Scripture itself, by which God, over the years ahead, will change them from the inside out, to make them more like Christ (Acts 20.32; 2 Cor 3.18); and to give my students the tools to teach themselves and others the ideas of Scripture (which is my subject area), so that they in turn may present it clearly to those who are seeking and may serve other believers with its truths.

That’s a big job, impossible without divine enablement. Thus I need to begin in reliance on God Himself, nurturing my relationship with Him, praying for direction and empowerment each day, recognizing and embracing each day’s circumstances and challenges as divine appointments. Since I will give account to Him one day for my stewardship (Rom 14.12), I need to prepare myself for each day’s responsibilities, first, and in general, by keeping my academic and spiritual qualifications sharp, and then by evaluating carefully each day’s objectives and planning how best to reach them.

Since the same divine appointment has placed each specific group of students before me, I recognize them as the Bible describes them: made in the image of God (Gen 1.26-27), and therefore worthy of my best effort, regardless of their individual academic abilities or personal character flaws. My goal is to meet each student where he is, and to bring him, by God’s grace, as far as I can down the path of Christ-like character and preparation for skillful service. The Scripture also tells me that my students, like me, are broken images, with sinful natures and evil tendencies (Rom 3.23). That means that I have to encourage them to progress down that path even when they are—often—not inclined in that direction. I may use positive motivation, such as encouragement or praise, or I may need to use what the student may view as a more negative experience, such as exhortation, academic penalty, or even careful criticism. While I never assume that students will naturally do the right thing, I try to approach them positively first, resorting to harder measures only as the softer ones prove insufficient.

My classroom technique is an outgrowth of my own nature. (I believe that had I been born two decades later, I would have been diagnosed with ADHD as a child.) As a student, I needed to be interested in what I was seeing in order to engage it. As I teach I am constantly driven to present material that is both at a reachable level and enjoyable. That means that I first need to couch the material in terms that communicate to the students directly and clearly, and then in a way that is engaging and attractive. I use everyday language, and I define useful jargon as I present it. Since my courses typically need to cover a lot of relatively technical material, I find that I have to use lecture predominantly, but I try to make it engaging by using a lot of humor and demonstrating my own interest in the subject. I’ve learned that a light in the eyes goes a long way.

I find that I cannot reach these goals effectively without at least encouraging my students to interact with me beyond the formal classroom environment. I regularly eat lunch with students in the University Dining Common; I hold scheduled office hours each day; I meet each week with a prayer group in the men’s residence halls; and when I pass students in the hallways or out on the campus, I make a point to catch the eye of each one who will look up, and offer a friendly greeting. (When I’m walking, my cell phone is in my pocket, where it belongs.) When I notice that a student has an uncharacteristic look, I’ll seek an opportunity to take him aside and ask if there’s anything I can help with.

God gifts His people to serve Him, and each one has something he can do well. I find that when I’m in the classroom, I am most at ease; that’s where I fit. (Well, or in Africa with a team of students—but that’s teaching too.) There’s nothing else I would rather do; I don’t talk about “hump day” or yearn for the weekend, and I don’t eagerly count the days until I retire. By God’s grace, I’d like to die with my boots on—teach the last class, deliver the last lecture, turn in my grades, and step through to God’s plan on the other side.

Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash

On Overcoming Cultural Distance

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The USA is sure a dysfunctional family, isn’t it? We share common experience, and a reasonably common culture, though of course we have a rich collection of subcultures, from the Italian Catholic feast days of Boston’s North End, to the summer dog days of the Carolina Low Country, to the rugged manliness of that isolated Texas prairie out west of Van Horn, to the streetwise playgrounds of Roxbury and Harlem and Avalon Park. The experiences of growing up in these places are significantly different, and those experiences shape our perspectives as well as our personalities.

But we’re family nevertheless. I began to come to that realization by growing up in a variety of places, from the Pacific Northwest to suburban Boston, before settling into a stereotypical “sleepy Southern town” with a decaying Main Street that blossomed over a few decades into a thriving city center after one of the most studied transformations in the country. (Thanks, Knox.) For several years I had immediate family members in all 4 corners of the Lower 48—almost as though we were all trying to get as far away from one another as we possibly could. Living in different subcultures—farm, suburb, town, western, northeastern, southern—helped me learn early on that we’re really different but all fundamentally the same.

That feeling has grown stronger in more recent years, with the opportunity to travel internationally more than the average American. I know the feeling of recognizing another American in an otherworldly place. Of being embarrassed by the horrified look on the Buddhist monk’s face when the gum-chewing girls in halter tops and short shorts are snapping photographs and talking exponentially more loudly than anyone around them, completely oblivious to the way they’re treating his sacred space. Or by the well-fed, camera-laden tourist in the sidewalk café berating the waitress for being obviously too stupid to speak English. Or, on a lighter note, enjoying a cultural moment with (The) Ohio State University students at the bungee jump bridge just downstream from Victoria Falls, Zambia. Or being moved by the student on one of my Africa teams, patiently interacting with an autistic child, perhaps the first person ever to interact with him in a way that understood and addressed his special needs.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re my people.

We’re family.

But boy, are we dysfunctional.

Polarized. Hateful. Viewing one another through deeply distorted telephoto lenses, because we can’t abide getting close enough to talk face to face.

Pride is in our national DNA. It’s human nature to care for ourselves, to respect ourselves, infinitely more than others. To compare ourselves to others in a way that makes us the standard and others the defects. Everyone who drives slower than I do is an idiot; everyone who drives faster is a maniac. Me? I’m an excellent driver.

My congressman is awesome, but the people who elected all the other ones are idiots, and we ought to throw all the (other) bums out.

This pride isn’t unique to Americans; it’s in the human DNA too. The first evil creature rebelled out of pride, and the first human ones did too; they decided they knew better than their Creator on the question of produce.

So we despise each other; we talk but don’t listen, and the loudest, rudest, sharpest, cruelest remark wins.

That was good one!

What’s sad is knowing that if these same people were in a broken-down Jeep in the middle of the African grasslands, listening at night to the unfamiliar, terrifying sounds of the surrounding wildlife, they’d be working together. They’d be figuring out who was good at what, and they’d be dividing up tasks among the team members and figuring out a way to get the Jeep fixed or send a radio signal or use a mirror in the morning to flash sunlight at an airplane, or something to get out of there.

American ingenuity, you know.

And when they got out, they’d all go someplace and eat and drink together, and laugh, and tell stories, and joke about their individual idiosyncrasies, and be friends for the rest of their lives.

How do I know that?

Ask any combat veteran.

Maybe what we need is working on solving life-threatening problems, together.

Sure beats hate.

Photo by Corentin Marzin on Unsplash

Three Days with Hilaire: On Caring to Make a Difference

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When I was a boy, my Dad worked for a politically conservative speaker’s bureau. As a result, I got to meet a lot of interesting people when they came to town to give a speech. There was Gen. Robert Scott, WW2 fighter pilot and author of the book God Is My Co-Pilot, who sat at our dinner table and told wonderful story after wonderful story. There was Maj. Pedro Diaz Lanz, compatriot of Fidel Castro and chief of the Cuban Air Force, who defected and told horrific stories of repression in Cuba. There was Slobodan Draskovich, who hijacked a commercial flight to get out of Communist Yugoslavia, and who thought the wire leading to the electric blanket in our guest bedroom was evidence that someone was trying to kill him.

But my favorite was Hilaire du Berrier, a farm boy from North Dakota who was expelled by Pillsbury Military Academy (later the campus of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College) a month before graduation and eventually ran off to be a soldier of fortune. He fought against the Fascists in Ethiopia and spied against the Communists in the Spanish Civil War, then spied against the Japanese in Shanghai during their occupation of China. (As part of his cover he rented a room to a woman who later became one of Mao’s wives and was eventually disgraced as leader of the Gang of Four.) Eventually captured by the Japanese, he bore the scars of torture during their interrogation.

In short, he had a lot of stories to tell.

In town for a speaking engagement, he stayed at our house for 3 days in the spring of ’63.

I was a hyperactive kid, a complete pain in the neck.

He took an interest in me.

He showed me how to make a different kind of paper airplane. He told me stories about his idol, Napoleon. (Hilaire’s real name was Harold; he changed it to Hilaire in honor of one of Napoleon’s generals.) He took me to an office-supply store and showed me where they sold liquid rubber, the kind you use to make tear-off pads of paper. It was pink and had a distinctly pungent smell. He showed me that you could take a 3-dimensional object—he had a metal eagle that he’d gotten off a Napoleonic dispatch case, and why he had it with him on that trip, I’ll never know—and cover it with several layers of liquid rubber to make a mold. Then he showed me how to mix plaster of paris (is that French?), pour it into the mold, insert a wire in the back, and make an exact copy of the object, paint it (with gold paint!), and yield a pretty cool wall plaque. He took a little plaque I already had, with the Cub Scout oath on it, and we made a copy of that too.

I was a lot older when I realized that he had been teaching me spycraft.

He had a lady friend in our town—she was the host of the local Romper Room show—and incited me to come along on a dinner date to act as escort for her daughter. He instructed and rehearsed me to present my “date”—I was 8—with one of our cool gold-painted plaster eagles and induct her into the Society of Napoleon. We had a fabulous time at a fancy restaurant in Spokane. (In those days, there weren’t a lot of those.)

Hilaire was an artist as well; he’d done commercial art in Chicago before running off to chase adventure. He told me I should write a book; he laid out a characterization for me, presenting each of my family members as an interesting animal: Mel Mouse, Pauline Pony, Betty Jeanne Jackrabbit (though he misspelled her name), Kathy Cat, and, of course, Danny Dog. I should write The Story of Danny Dog and His Friends, he told me, and he said he would wait expectantly for me to send him a copy when it was published.

A few days later, having returned from the speaking tour to his apartment in New York, he wrote me a letter to let me know he was still thinking about me, and to encourage me to get to work on The Book.

He lived another 40 years, writing an international intelligence subscription letter called HduB Reports, eventually dying in his 90s, a tax exile in Monaco.

I’ve never forgotten the time he took during those 3 days to reach out to a painfully energetic boy, giving his attention to a kid who needed direction, planting ideas in me that I have gone back to as an adult and that I remember well now more than 50 years later.

Thank you, Hilaire. I’m grateful.