Weekly Email: September 9, 2024
It’s hard to believe that you’re beginning the sixth week of the first fall term. Time moves quickly and it takes a lot of work to stay focused through your entire class. Three weeks to go!
Student Tip
When I was completing my M.Div., Dr. Pennington gave me a piece of advice that changed how I approached my work: park on a downhill slope. The idea is simple but super helpful—end each study or writing session at a point that makes it easy to start again next time.
Good advice is helpful only if you actually implement it. Yet, I, and probably you too, fail to do so consistently. Take a moment to think about your last study session. How much time did you spend just getting ready—finding materials, figuring out what needed to be done, or deciding where to begin? That prep time could easily add up to 10, 15, even 30 minutes.
Now imagine if you could jump right in. By parking on a downhill slope—writing down your next steps before you finish—you eliminate that wasted time. You give your future self a clear starting point, reducing the mental friction that comes with figuring out where to begin.
The key is simple: when you end a session, note what you need to do next. This small habit can save you hours in the long run and remove the cognitive barriers that often slow you down.
I outlined some specific examples for writing, reading, and studying for quizzes and exams in this blog post.
Program News
Today, students from across the country are gathering here in Louisville for our first Experiential Modular courses. This new initiative blends the flexibility of online learning with the rich, in-person experience of connecting with fellow students and faculty. I’m excited about the opportunities this creates for deeper learning and meaningful relationships for those that are attending. If you haven’t considered it before, give it a thought as we have on upcoming in Fall 2, Spring 1, and Spring 2.
To make this as accessible as possible, we’re covering hotel and meal costs for all students.
Here’s what students will be doing in their first Experiential Modular this week:
Six in-person class sessions with their professor
Shared meals with fellow students
Guest lectures from Dr. Timothy Paul Jones and Dr. Mohler
A personal tour of Dr. Mohler’s library at his home
A surprise late-night event that will be announced on arrival
If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, there are still a few spots open for the Fall 2 session. We also have two more scheduled for Spring in the first and second terms.
Find out more about upcoming sessions here.
Faculty Devotional
This week’s devotional comes from Dr. Jonathan Pennington. He reflects on three Bible verses that have deeply impacted me over the years. I first met Dr. Pennington in my New Testament I course during my first semester at seminary. That class changed everything. The Gospels came alive in a way I had never experienced before.
Since then, I’ve never read the Gospels the same way. Dr. Pennington has become a cherished friend and mentor. His teachings have transformed how I read the Bible and apply its lessons to my life.
“Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take up my yoke and learn from me, because I am lowly and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” - Matthew 11:28–30 (CSB)
Even for those of us who didn’t grow up on a farm, we can probably picture in our minds a yoke – that important piece of agricultural neck equipment that enables the farmer to control and guide the ox to go a certain way. We don’t know exactly when yokes were first used on animals, but we know it was already a widespread practice in Jesus’s day. From the farmer’s perspective a yoke is a good thing, enabling control so that fields can be plowed and carts pulled in a non-haphazard way. From the animal’s point of view, not so much.
This makes Jesus’s choice to use the image of a yoke particularly striking, especially when we realize that he is inviting us to take a yoke upon our own necks. In Matthew 11:29 Jesus summons would-be disciples to “take my yoke upon you and learn from me.” He presents himself as a famer with a yoke ready at hand. He describes the life of discipleship as slipping our heads through the hole in this uncomfortable farm implement, feeling its weight and submitting to his direction. At the same time, enigmatically, he says this yoke will give us rest.
What is going on? How is a yoke an appealing invitation to follow him and how does it give us life?
This is a paradox, a paradox that dwells at the core of the Christian life. Jesus offers rest. He is speaking right into our deepest and highest desire – our longing for peace, for shalom. This is not just the peace of good grades or preaching accolades, but true soul-deep rest and freedom. But this rest comes to us, Jesus says, only through taking a yoke, a burden, upon ourselves. Here’s the Jesus-paradox – life, rest, peace are to be found not in going our own way, in striking out in our own path in life, just being true to ourselves and wandering in our own life-field.
Rather, life, rest, and peace are found in the way that seems counter-intuitive – taking Jesus' yoke on to the neck of our whole lives. Learning from him is the way to find our way in the field of the world. And because Jesus himself is kind, compassionate, gentle, and humble, his yoke gives life. To be a Christian is to be a yoked disciple.
So what does this look like in daily life? This means meditating on the teachings of Scripture so that we can learn the furrows and the boundaries of the True Farmer’s fields. This means when we are tempted to take steps that we know are outside of God’s will that we remind ourselves that we are being guided by One who is kind and wants our good, not chaffing against the yoke. This means starting each day gladly refitting Jesus’s yoke upon our lives, knowing that only in this way will we find true rest and life.
Thanks for reading, have a great week! You can find an archive of each week's email here.
