Practically the minute you step onto a college campus you are faced with a number of difficult questions.
For example, the age old question…
Should I take classes that I find interesting or classes that will help me get a job?
Or maybe something a little less critical but still a question you will face…
Is it ok to wear pajamas to class?
You know, important questions.
Fortunately you are way ahead of previous generations because you literally have more information readily available to you than any freshman class in the history of freshman classes…through the magic of Google
There is a boatload of advice out there about how to survive and thrive during your college years. And this would be super useful…if it wasn’t for one unfortunate property of this database of accumulated digital human wisdom. For almost any platitude you have heard or read about how to do college well…you will find someone asserting the exact opposite.
Take for example that really critical pajama question?
In two lists of tips for Freshman…
#21 (on one list).Go to Class in Your Pajamas…
Go ahead and show up to class in your pajamas with half a breakfast burrito hanging out of your mouth, and no one will bat an eye as long as you contribute positively to the class and do well on your assignments. I fail to see any downside here.
#53 on another list Don’t wear pajamas to class…
“This is a public service announcement: If you have any self respect at all, please stop wearing your pajamas to class.”
But it gets a little more frustrating when you deal with a more substantive question…like,
Should I take classes that I find interesting or classes that will help me get a job?
Within 30 seconds of searching the web (which I verified, these are actual quotes by internet ) you will find one expert asserting authoritatively:
“Major in something employable”
And another confidently telling you:
“follow your heart and study what you are interested in.”
In fact, this dilemma has so many people taking both sides of it even Google’s auto fill algorithm is indecisive. If you type in these 10 letters into Google “Major in som…” the first two things that come up are
Thanks Google…that’s SUPER helpful.
Incidentally, I think the other two are funny…The third one is for Juniors…“Dude…it doesn’t matter if you love it or if its practical…sooner or later you HAVE TO major in something!!!”
And…Major cities in Somalia!?!…in case…I don’t know…you are going to study abroad in the horn of Africa but think that Mogadishu was too touristy.
PBS blog: Relax and have fun…study hard and go to fewer parties.
You hear people say: Make your passion your work…The fastest way hate something you love is to turn it into a job
And here is actual advice I got from academic advisors when I was in undergrad:
Classes aren’t that important because who you know is more important than what you know…vs…
The first one hired and the last one fired is the one who knows the most math.
The problem with crowd sourced wisdom is that it provides no consensus on critical questions. Google and Facebook feedback on confirmation bias, because they use algorithms to show you more of what you read in the past…slowly making dissenting opinions less available and creating the illusion that what you want to believe is the majority opinion.
Basically any platitude you can find about College…you can quickly find the opposite. So basically, whateve you want to believe…you can find someone to back you up…It is easy to find advice that confirms what you want to believe.
One of the things that Christians believe is that while it is hugely advantageous to collect, weigh, and sort contemporary advice…there are some things about the universe and about being human that are, timeless. And there are sources of wisdom, that transcend internet chatter. And that is one of the reasons that intelligent interesting students just like you…who did well on their SATs and played multiple sports…and got into UCD…gather in this room every week to consider the cosmic and practical implications of an ancient text.
A little googling can be hugely useful…but it should be paired with something a little more timeless.
1. ‘Prepare Your Minds for Action’
1:13 “Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Let me draw your attention to three key words here:
PREPARE
MINDS
ACTION
First, Prepare: “prepare your minds for action” – literally “gird the loins of your mind”…pretty hilarious…the word ‘loins’ is just a weird word…and ‘gird’ isn’t much less weird. And it isn’t particularly unhelpful. I mean, what exactly is a loin and how do we gird it. We don’t know what it means but it sounds vaguely naughty. Like girding your loins is something you should really do in private.
And then to expand the metaphor to ‘gird loins of your mind’ sounds like a weird ancient, vaguely inappropriate, way of talking about the life of the mind…wear an athletic supporter for your reflective life…
Now, as the dress wearers among us know (or anyone who has been a ghost for Halloween), just wrapping cloth around you is mostly a pretty good solution of how to stay warm and covered…unless you, say, want to move quickly. (student tries to run and has obvious trouble)
Running was a problem for robe wearing Romans. But there is an obvious solution. If you need to run, you just grab the hem of your garment…and hike that bad boy up…and boom…you are ready to move with haste. (students book back across the room)
And that…is “girding your loins.” It is doing what it takes to be ready for action. [1] A more contemporary metaphor would be…roll up the sleves of your mind…double knot the cleats of your mind[2]…Tighten the backpack straps of your mind…
He is talking about taking the required steps to do something vigorous.
But the thing about this verse that I think speaks directly to the college experience is what it tells you to prepare…prepare your mind.[3] The really interesting thing about this verse is that it essentially argues that college is a legitimate thing to spend your time and money doing.
Soccer socks…seems like they take forever…but the game is worth it. Peter says…lift up your skirt…do what it takes to get ready.
Second, what does he tell us to prepare…our MINDS. And he picks this theme up a little later:
4:1-2 “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking…
Jesus following is not anti-intellectual. In fact, college is far from a damaging thing to the Christian life…it is an ideal place to grow and develop a life of kind, wise, practical, authentic Jesus following. Good, sound, creative, precise, careful thinking is part of Christian development.
But thire…What does the passage argue is the point of mental preparation…
“Prepare your minds…FOR ACTION”
The reason to ‘prepare your mind’ is ‘to do stuff’
It may seem dull and preparatory…sitting through Calculus may seem like a kind of abstract intellectual hazing with no connection to redemptive action for Jesus…but the intent of mental preparation, including the development of the hallowed ‘critical reasoning’ and ‘problem solving’ that intro to calculus is to become a person of action. It is counterintuitive that sitting at your desk redoing practice problems until your butt goes numb is preparation ‘for action’ but that is what it takes to become a person of action.
So should you approach college as a time of reflection and intellectual development or as a kind of white collar trade school. Well, Peter says yes. It is a time to prepare your minds…But is a time to prepare your minds for action.
College is expensive…and it is costly. Make it worth it[4][5]. You want to collaborate with the opportunities for intellectual development that the university offers to develop:
1. Wisdom
As you choose what to learn ask 2 questions:
i. Does this help me understand God’s world better
ii. Does this build skills that will help me serve God and people - stuff like writing, speaking, productivity software, engineering software, actually, any software that doesn’t somehow involve Colin Kapernick, orcs or a first person shooter, artistic or musical proficiency, statistics…I mean, UCD even offers a class in the (slide) Operation, adjustment, and troubleshooting of Farm Tractors.
But forming a Christian mind also means applying your reflective life to things they won’t teach you on this campus (Double major in Bible and theology).[8] Applying yourself to consistent disciplines of studying and reflecting on the Christian Scriptures, alone and in small groups…but also finding a place that teaching theology and the Scriptures in a way that is winsome and contextual but also substantive and orthodox in an integrative format…which is the kind of thing we hope aim for you to be able to find regularly, Tuesday nights in Kliber 3…and that you will find in the growth groups.
Peter argues that intellectual development should be integrated into your spiritual development…
Nepal Story – I graduated undergrad a semester early and got on a plane to Nepal after one phone call to a woman who ran an orphanage there. It was a crazy thing to do. But I was so done with school…I wanted to get on to something that mattered. I wanted to be a person of action. You know what I found? I did not have the skills required for my action to be useful. I was not theologically formed to offer more than culturally distant platitudes and I had no useful skills to offer. After three months in Katmandu I felt like the most spiritual thing I could do to be a person of action was get a water engineering degree and seek out some theological formation.
College is a time to ‘prepare our minds for action’ but we have to ‘arm ourselves’ with good thinking …but look at the end of the verse
4:1-2 “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking …
…live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God…
You see, while Peter urges us to good, preparatory, action oriented thinking…he argues that there are a number of obsicles that
And then he essentially describes the Van Wilder[9] picture of ‘the college experience’ which leads us to our second big idea.
2. Don’t Waste your ‘College Experience’
4:3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality[10], passions[11], drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood[12] of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
Does that sound familiar? Here is what Peter really wants you to know about ‘the college experience.’
The college experience is a lie. Peter says, don’t be gullible.
Don’t waste time with that crap.
He says you know what’s going to get in the way of preparing your mind for action…that stuff.
“These were supposed to be the best years of my life…and they weren’t that great.” –Cory’s friend
But Peter’s argument is really interesting here. He doesn’t just say – hey, that stuff is bad. He doesn’t point out that experimentation with sensuality and substances is spiritually damaging…though it is clear elsewhere in the book that he thinks that being careful about sexuality and substances is in our best interest. Look at how he structures his argument. He argues from a position of time management….He says hey, don’t waste time with that stuff.
He says you know what’s going to get in the way of preparing your mind for action…that stuff.
Peter says…substances and sensuality (which, in one way or another compose most of the items in this list)…and which form the heart of the famed college experience…he says, no matter how much time you have spent on these things (and notice he doesn’t harp on them for the stuff in the past) …he says “that’ll do.”
‘you have already wasted enough time’ on drinking parties,
you have already wasted enough time on sensuality,
you have already wasted enough time on…orgies?
I bet some of you thought I was going to skip right over that gem…Listen, the Bible isn’t for prudes. If you are easily scandalized...you might want to go get yourself a children's edition. They sell those.
Now, if you are getting invited to orgies…you are having a more interesting college experience than I did. I’ve never been invited to an orgy, and frankly, I’m a little offended. [13][14] I mean, it would have been nice just to be invited. I’d love to be able to tell you the story about the time in undergrad I turned down the invitation to an orgy. [15]
But here’s why I find this little detail interesting. Peter isn’t impressed. The sensuality and substances that you are faced with in this place don’t faze him one bit. He’s not shocked by hookup culture or theme parties. Apparently there was an ancient near-eastern orgy scene that was prevalent enough that Peter felt the need to suggest to these people he loved that taking part in that might not be a great idea for their spiritual development.
Here’s the point. The cultural script says that these 4..ish years are primarily about sex and substances…and you better not miss out…you better not waste these years on boring stuff like building a worldview or perusing useful skills or on character development or on developing substantial spiritually based friendships….because later on, your life gets boring and you won’t have time for things that really make your life fun…like sex and substances.
(Note: I cut the rest of this point to go off script and just talk frankly but, hopefully kindly about how I get that this is a hard word for some of you…for some the biggest challenge to their faith in college won’t be some philosophical or scientific argument…but the classical Christian ethic on sensuality and substances…but that if the rest of the story makes sense, If Jesus really does seem remarkable and good, and true, then maybe we should consider the hypothesis that this counter cultural, counter intuitive ethic is actually for our good.)
[16] But Peter says…Seriously ’the time that is past suffices for these things’…or NIV ‘You have wasted enough time with these things…” And he suggests a decent litmus test that you aren’t wasting your time on these things, is that people will think you are a little weird.
they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.
He has a better vision of how to spend your time that will bring you more joy and meaning and purpose…
3. Build Something of Value
(note: I cut about 2/3rds of this point. It made it better even though it left a lot of exegesis on the table. Which is part of the reason I keep this little blog. The beneficiaries of this blog are not primarily those who read it…though if you are the one person reading this, thanks. The beneficiaries of this blog are the students who come to these talks. Having an outlet for good cuts that make the talk better allows me to make them more freely.)
Two of the critically acclaimed television shows of the last 5 years were Mad Men and The Wire.
“You know what the problem is? We used to build shit in this country…make shit. Now everyone just has his hand in the next guy’s pocket.” –The Wire
“I want to work. I want to build something of my own.” –Mad Men
I love that. My pulse quickens every time I watch that. Did you feel it? Did you start to feel a little angsty when Draper delivered that line? You know what that feeling is? Adulthood.
This is the driving impulse of young adulthood.[18] Having a little angst about wanting to build something is really just a sign that you are a grown up. It is a healthy impulse.
2:4 As you come to him, a living[19] stone[20] rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious[21], 5 you yourselves[22] like living stones[23][24] are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Illustration: Dad Camp – intern at the Buffalo district who said she was going to ship her husband off to ‘dad camp’ so he could learn to do ‘man stuff’…because every young man would love to spend his newly-wed weekends hanging out in his in laws garage while his wife’s dad tells him all the stuff he doesn’t know how to do. I bet that worked out really well.
Paul Boyd “My wife didn’t marry me because I’m pretty…she married me because I can build stuff.”
Um…but I never went to dad camp…I am as handy as sea turtle…I don’t have a lot of skills to ‘build stuff’…and if I can cobble together a workable solution, it’s always ugly. So…it poses an obvious question…why did my wife marry me. It must be because I’m so pretty?
But look more closely at the metaphor of the passage, you don’t build by having great craftsmanship or
Jesus is looking for solid materials…he’s got the skills...he’s been to Dad camp…he is Dad camp…
I might not have ever gone to dad camp…but I can be a rock. I can’t build anything, really…but I can be built.
But you can’t build this thing alone.
2:9 “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you are not a people, but now you are God’s people…”
What do you notice about the four identifiers in the first sentence:
i. Chosen Race
ii. Royal Priesthood
iii. Holy Nation
iv. A People of God’s Possession
They are group identities. They are identifiers of community. When we read “you” in the Scriptures we read “me”…but that is an unhelpful ambiguity in English. You in this passage is a plural you. when you read ‘you’ you should read ‘us’. If you want to redeem the ‘college experience’ into something wise, winsome, and wonderful…you need to become an us.
“In what follows the point is made that Christian existence can only be lived in the Church. The readers are summoned, therefore, to incorporate themselves into a Christian Fellowship.” – Leonhard Goppelt
The spiritual house he is describing is ‘a people’ v9…’a people for his own possession’
When you ‘Come to Jesus…’ v4...it isn’t just Jesus. That would be uncomplicated…but it is also insufficiently real…insufficiently effective…a ‘personal relationship with Jesus’ is sub-Christian. Peter says
‘As you come to him, a living stone…you yourselves (plural) are being built up into a spiritual house…”
The Christian scriptures almost never talk about a ‘personal faith in Jesus’ – it is always about a purposeful people, building something beautiful in community.
The ‘personal faith in Jesus’ is sub Christian because it is insufficiently corporate and far to passive.
You don’t have to have a lot of artistic or building skills…you just have to be willing to be part of it.
But this thing we are building is peculiar, because we ourselves are integrated into it. We are not so much craftspeople as we are the materials. God wants to build something with you. He wants you to be a part of something bigger than yourself.
Peter uses a curious metaphor…describing Jesus as a rock…and then calling us rocks.[25] ( this is not usually a positive metaphor – in our culture “Dumb as a box of rocks.”) God is building around Jesus…with us. HE is building something using cast off materials.
Christianity does not have a place of worship…there is no sacred location…it has a people of worship. A Rock even piled on a large foundational rock is still a rock…a rock in a building is a building…it changes the nature of the object without changing its substance.
Building with stone is not like building with brick.[27] You can’t just pile one on top of the other. It is a puzzle of fitting different shapes and sizes together. And Peter says, its ok if you don’t ‘fit the mold’…because neither did Jesus. The whole thing this is built on is an exercise in repurposed art. Rejected material became the central building block.[28]
So I have degrees in geology and biology (geophysics and ecology, but, close enough)…so I know about rocks and stuff that is alive…I mean, I’m kind of an expert on this stuff…so let me break this down with an explanatory ven diagram…
They are non-overlapping But this kind of mind bending metaphor that Peter uses here is a clue to what God is inviting us to build with him.
Peter is saying that basic religion where you went to buildings made of hardened magma or deformed earth or prehistoric marine organisms (otherwise known as rocks), that kind of religion is on notice. The religious architecture built around Jesus is biological in nature. It is dynamic…it can grow and change…but it is still connected and built on a solid unchanging corner stone.
There are two required degrees of connectivity in this passage to build something great…you have to be connected to Jesus…and you need to be connected to other Christians.[29]
Let me close by telling you about an Artist I recently discovered…he is a Swedish artist, named Michael Johansson.
Johansen builds large public structures with cast off items. He takes unremarkable things and makes something beautiful out of them. Where other people see used up or unnecessary items…Michal Johansen sees art. His art has what’s called “emerging properties” or, the whole becomes something qualitatively different than the sum of its parts. A pair of old green crocs or a tractor that hasn’t worked for a decade…become just the thing he needs to build something remarkable.
And that is essentially what Peter wants you to know about your ‘college experience’…with this ‘living stones’ building metaphor…
You are just the piece God needs to make something beautiful… but you need to show up.
…In the thing God is building…you don’t have to fit a mold. It doesn’t matter your shape or size or history…or even if you work…he’ll build with you.[30]
God is a master at tetris…he’s got a place for you…no matter your size or shape…but you’ve got to be available and patient. It takes about 7 months of active, intentional, engagement (and a retreat) to feel like you have become part of a large campus Christian community.
You gotta join one of the Christian communities on campus. It almost doesn’t matter which one (though, we’d love to have you here). How you join matters more than which one you join. You see, you don’t just join a Christian community as a club that you can augment your College experience with a little religion…you jump in with the intention to build…to leave the community a stronger wiser witness on campus than you found it. Campus Christian communities are not something you experience…they are something you build.
And that is kind of the whole point. The college ‘experience’ is just the wrong way to talk about your time here. I’d rather call it your college ‘project’. College isn’t something that happens to you, it is something you make happen. And if you want to make it happen well:
1. Prepare your minds for action
2. Don’t waste time doing what everyone else is doing…and
3. Build something with God and his unique and diverse people
Your goal…not just to escape here with some sort of faith…it is to build something…it is that in 30 years, there will be people who look back on their years at UCD and realize their life trajectory was totally and positively altered because of you didn’t waste your time…but decided to build and be built into a people while you prepared your minds for action.
[1] Amanda used to say “pick up your skirt” to tell me to man up and get something done.
[2] Watching a 6 year old get soccer socks on is painful. It takes the whole morning. But this is the image. Hike up the soccer socks of your mind…get ready for action. Do every thing you can before hand to be ready…
[3] I feel like we live in a culture (and sub-culture in the wake of the Charismatic movement) where something can only be authentically spiritual if it is spontaneous. But there is really no compelling reason to believe that. Spirituality is often hard, sustained work that takes planning and preparation.
[4] The value of your college degree is composed of 2 things ~$40,000 and “sweat equity”. They will all cost $40k plus or minus (and that is the bargain price because you were smart and went to a State School)…but they won’t all have the same value. You add value with sweat equity. A college education is like buying a ‘fixeruper house’ (in Buffalo, $40k could get you a fixer upper in a transitional neighborhood…in California, it can get you a front porch (Scrubs reference)) à The value of the house can grow if you put work into it
[5] Asking whether or not college is ‘worth it’ isn’t the right question…you need to get a degree. The right question is how will I make it ‘worth it’
[6]Katie – it makes me wonder ‘what was I studying all these years.’
[7] Writing, speaking, productivity software, engineering software, statistics
[8] Regularly attend a campus ministry and church that will help you integrate your faith with what you are learning in classes.
[9] Surely there is a more contemporary reference here.
[10] Some of us will have more to resist than others. A college lifer from a couple years back found himself at a party with an attractive young woman who wanted to kiss him (for starters). He declined. Her response “You don’t have to kiss me back, just let me kiss you.” This is a different universe of sensual temptation than I ever experienced. But the internet means that you don’t have to be hot to get derailed here.
[11] ‘Passions’ get used both positively and negatively in the NT, but Peter always uses it negative. ‘Passion’ is not morally commendable. It only becomes commendable based on the worthiness of its object.
[12] Surly I can illustrate this with something from my job.
[13] Everyone is having less sex than you think….Indian student on reflections to America…the women are not as promiscuous as television suggests http://www.businessinsider.com/the-weirdest-things-about-america-2013-8
[14] This might be a good point to talk about Fritas’ data that almost everyone in college thinks that other people are having all the sex…that there is much less sex going on than everyone thinks. The average college male manages 1-3 hookups per semester (and about half of those are sober). That is the wild college experience you are forsaking by following the Christian rule of life.
[15] I wanted to do a little work on the Greek here, but I was afraid to Google orgy.
[16] Which ends up with the boy-men of my generation who are 38 and spend a couple weekends a year in Vegas or the like trying to re-create the ‘best years of their lives’.
[17] I can find almost no cultural artifact that articulates quite so succinctly and sublimely how I feel about being an Xer in a boomer led church.
[18] Especially for young men…and so back to back you have metaphors of breastfeeding and building, spanning the range of gendered imagination.
[20] OK…this just got weird. You know how a good Sci Fi film…or a cyper-punk Scifi novel will have some crazy observation in the opening minutes to key you off to the fact that ‘you are not in Kansas anymore’…well, that is what is going on here. Old religion where you went to buildings made of dead things or hardened magma or deformed earth (e.g. Limestone of the middele east is made of the calcium from shells in ancient near) is on notice. We are getting into some trippy stuff here. The religious architecture is biological in nature. It is dynamic…it can grow and change…but it is still connected and built on a corner stone.
[21] We need a synonym here…because this is a powerful word…taken right from the LXX psalter…but all we can think about when we here it is Golumn – “highly valued or esteemed”
[22] Grudem: Greek “even you yourselves…”
[23] Illustration by counter example: Now I don’t know about you, but when I think of living stone…I think of…the rock giants in the Hobbit…not stone people…people stones. Doesn’t describe their composition but their purpose.
[24] Grudem (105): It is hard to think of a static rectangular building made of Christians that are also serving as priests…the ‘living stones/royal priesthood’ metaphors don’t cohere…unless we totally replace our mental image of the temple. “It is better to change our visual image of the temple, so that we no longer think of a rectangular building made of stones, but an amorphous building that continually takes the shape of God’s assembled people.” In essence…the new temple is a liquid…or a gas…the mass is not confined to a static volume. And its beauty is no longer its concentration of rare geologic materials but in the intrinsic value and purposefulness of the people it is composed of.
[25] He is being a bit of a ‘geologian’: A biblical theology of rocks as metaphor. Jesus is compared to a stone by himself and Peter in Acts…and Peter leverages the rock metaphor in 3 places in the OT
[26] Another metaphore I could use here is ‘glacial erratics’…I grew up thinking that everyone grew up with building sized climbing rocks in their woods/fields. But many of the old structures in my childhood ‘neighborhood’ which at a rural density is pretty much a county…are made of these rocks. Alone in the field, they are ‘erratics’…an impediment to every agricultural endeavor…but brought together, they are a home.
[27] Two of my high school jobs were stacking hay bales and stacking wood. Stacking hay bales was hard work. They would fall from the sky (at the beginning of the job...they could fall as far as 40 ft. and you would have to quickly grab them and stack them before the next one fell. It was 120 degrees and dusty and at the end of the day you had 1000 tiny cuts on your arms. But they were all the same shape and size and while it was hard work it was mentally unchallenging. But stacking spit wood was another story. It had its own challenges (snakes used to like to make their nests in the wood). But the actual process of stacking wood was a puzzle. You had to make good use of predictably shaped pieces and plan ahead for oddly shaped pieces. But often, it took an oddly shaped piece to stabilize a part of the pile. This is like the difference between building with stone and brick in Peter’s world.
[28] Another building illustration…blocks with Xavier.
[29] And if you are curious about Jesus…the best way to encounter him is in the context of the ‘liquid house’ he’s building.
[30] You have to be a ‘certain type of person’ to make a sports team or a fraternity/sorority. But Jesus sepecializes in building a cohesive people with shared purpose out of an eclectic mix of totally unique (and often downright weird) individuals. There isn’t a mold for the building blocks God uses. He’s awesome at Tetris.
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