Making the decision about where to go to college and what to study in college has a lot of weight during the high school years. There can be a lot of anxiety and fear surrounding college choice. Students feel like if they don’t make the absolutely right decisions, they could not only ruin their chances to get into their top college, they could ruin their life. The aim of this article is to remove some of the fears surrounding college choice and redirect the energy given to the college decision process towards some meaningful projects that students can work on that will provide direction and understanding, not just about colleges, but about themselves.

What is Vocation?

So what exactly do we mean by vocation? The Latin word voco means “I call,” and from this we can say that a vocation is a calling. What one does in one’s life has this sense that God is calling someone to something. It is a pursuit that calls us forward. In the Bible, we often see moments where God specifically calls people to something, calling them to an office of kingship or prophecy. But we all can have that sense of life direction, a sense of where we’re going and what we ought to be doing with our lives. For students in high school, this can feel like a very remote experience. What does it look like to be a grown up and to have a job, to have a family, to have a sense of what to do with this life that God has given. All of this feels so far off on the horizon. How could a high school student possibly know what their calling is?

However, in my many years of working with middle and high school student, I have observed how deeply spiritual these students can be. Thus, I think it entirely possible for students to have a sense of life mission or calling. We who are guiding these young people need to shift our questions from, “What college do you want to go to?” or “What would you like to do when you grow up?” to different questions such as “How are you going to show up in the world?” and “Why has God put you on the planet?” This shift in question moves us away from occupation to vocation. It begins to address the matter of what kind of person are you becoming instead of asking what kind of job will you have. It enables the student to cast a vision for what life will be like – the kind of person will they marry, what kind of parent or grandparent would they want to be, what will people remember them for when they attend their funeral. These are really weighty questions and point to the ways in which a single life will touch hundreds, thousands, millions of other people. So we need to help students thinking ahead in different ways than has been the case in conventional college guidance. While GPA and test scores still factor in when it comes to the college journey, the questions that will best help students solidify their sense of personhood are the ones we should place before them at this critical juncture in their lives.

A Biography of an Interesting Person

The best way for students to prepare themselves for this life calling or life mission is by cultivating the right mix of passion and discipline. While I have read numerous stories of college-bound applicants who have this kind of mix, I want to spell out what this looks like with a figure in a more remote past. What we will see is a person who didn’t have it all together at first, but pursued little passions that enabled him to develop key disciplines that eventually led to a big passion.

Scottish missionary Alexander Mackay (1849-1890) grew up just outside of Aberdeen. His father was a minister in the Free Church of Scotland and a farmer in the Aberdeenshire countryside. Alexander, therefore, grew up on a farm, and what he did on that farm was tinker with all the machinery on the farm. He learned how things worked. He took things apart and put them back together. In addition, he went into town on a frequent basis and the shops in town. He worked with the shop owners to figure out how to do different things with equipment, whether it was the printer shop or the carding mill. As this young kid tinkered with things, he had the opportunity to develop a lot of little passions. At this point in his life, he didn’t have a grand vision of becoming a missionary. In fact, his father worried about Alexander’s pursuits of worldly knowledge. These little passions, however, meant that Alexander developed a set of disciplines surrounding how to work on mechanical objects.

At 18, Alexander went to the University of Edinburgh and studied engineering there. The development of mechanical disciplines paved the way for him to attend a world class university. He continued to develop disciplines in mathematics and engineering. He had developed into someone very interesting in the field of engineering through this pursuit of little passions that enabled him to develop key disciplines. In fact, after graduating from Edinburgh he was recruited by a company in Germany to help them design steam engines for farm equipment. His work there earned him recognition for the development of innovative technology. Alexander went from little passions to developing disciplines, becoming a really interesting figure in the world of engineering. But he wasn’t done figuring out his life’s mission.

While he was in Germany, he met with other Christians there. He had grown up as a warm hearted Christian, but he had devoted most of his time and energies to learning about math, science, and engineering. In Germany, he learned about missionaries going to Africa, and his heart was taken with this idea of connecting his skill in engineering with sharing the gospel in Africa. So at the age of 22, he made a decision to go to Africa, and he spent most of the rest of his life in Uganda and the interior of the African continent. Sharing the gospel and applying these engineering skills, he helped develop the infrastructure of the interior of Africa. There are hundreds of miles of roads that were designed and developed by Alexander Mackay. This life mission emerged well after Mackay had developed key disciplines. Growing up on the farm, he cultivated skills. He developed disciplines that made him renowned as an engineer. And then he found a big passion. The reason God had put him on this planet was to become an engineer on the mission field.

Let’s break down the principles exemplified by Alexander Mackay. He pursued little passions, which enabled him to develop key disciplines that propelled him forward. These key disciplines led to a big passion that honored his sense of God’s call upon his life. This pattern – little passions, key disciplines, big passion – is a sound alternative to the prevailing advice given to students during their formative years. A leading thinker in this area has been Cal Newport. In his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You, he spells out how the passion hypothesis (“follow your passion”) is misguided. He identifies two fallacies associated with the passion hypothesis. First, most students and young adults don’t have clearly defined singular passion to follow. This can lead to frustration if a young person takes on a career that they ultimately find they don’t really like simply because they were infatuated with a singular passion. Second, young people typically don’t have much data to support any sense of passion or interest. So they jump into a major and a career hoping for happiness, but lacking any evidence to show that they will actually find happiness following a singular passion.

Here’s where the little passions followed by key disciplines advice is far better than the passion hypothesis. Young people can flit about cultivating numerous passions: music, sports, science, literature, creative writing, computer coding, cars, economics. By trying on for size several interests, they are exploring their world in a way that matches their youthful inclinations. But accompanying the little passions is the development of key disciplines. The musician learns to practice effectively and perform before others. The athlete learns how to train efficiently and handle competition. The creative writer learns the discipline of writing regularly and delivering their work to an audience. What emerges in this little passion followed by key disciplines advice is a growing sense of life mission because they are accumulating evidence of not only what they like, but also what they are effective at doing.

Finding Opportunities to Develop Disciplines

In many respects, the journey to finding a vocation has less to do with the initial spark of interest and more to do with the development of disciplines. Consider the student who becomes interested in playing piano. Her parents sign her up for piano lessons. She is developing a small passion. That small passion is a pathway to develop discipline. The piano teacher provides coaching and mentorship. The student is not only given music to learn, but also practices scales and arpeggios. In order to perform well, there are disciplines that must be well rehearsed. And it is these well-developed disciplines that stand out when cultivated over time.

It might not be piano, but instead may be photography or computer programming. The pattern of identifying little passions that lead to opportunities to develop disciplines holds true. Learning the technical aspects of competent photography is a set of disciplines that impress others enough to be hired for a job. The aspiring computer programmer must acquire enough skill at programming so that people reach out to have their website updated or download an app. The pattern worth noting is that little passions lead to opportunities to develop disciplines. Only when disciplines have been developed do individuals get the opportunity to pursue big passions.

Now, I told the story of Alexander McKay to develop the pattern – little passions, key disciplines, big passion. This pattern, though, is not a thing of the past. I have seen this carried out by students who have been guided by these principles.

Consider a young person who in high school became really passionate about architecture. She spent time making architectural sketches, from high rises to houses to cathedrals. Her passion about architecture, drawing and design led her to develop disciplines in math and science. She ended up majoring in mechanical engineering at a Christian liberal arts college. The skills she developed enabled her to excel as an engineer after graduating from college.

Other students have followed a similar pathway. One student became interested in police work. After signing up for a ride along with a police officer at the local station, this student joined an internship program through the police station. When it came time to apply to colleges, her direct involvement in police work made her application stand out as she applied to several Christian liberal arts college. Choosing a criminal justice major is not the start of her journey, but simply the next step towards her sense of mission in life. Her interest was matched with opportunities to develop disciplines even as a high schooler to confirm her sense of vocation.

Flipping the Script

When it comes to conventional college guidance, I think we’re getting it all wrong. We often think about college guidance as completing the steps to get into the best possible college. What we need to do instead is flip the script. If we enable students to understand their sense of vocation or calling – if we disciple young people to discover why it is that God has placed them on this planet – we can encourage them to think differently about college. Instead of trying to accumulate a number of activities to stack a resume in order to become as attractive as possible to colleges, a better approach is to find these little passions that will enable them to develop disciplines in a few areas that make them an interesting candidate to a number of colleges.

When they develop one or two passions into disciplines, they are able to then demonstrate to these colleges that they have the ability to go deep in a those areas. They not only can articulate a sense of calling and direction in life, but they already have a proven track record of meaningful and tangible experiences. It all comes through a dynamic of connecting these little passions and these developing disciplines into a relationship with God where students are asking God on a regular basis, where are you going to take these things?

So college guidance is actually about helping students discover a big vision of what their life might be like. Here’s the reality, though. It’s impossible to be certain about a grand life vision at such a young age. This is why little passions are the best place to begin, because they can lead to a set of disciplines that point in the direction of one’s vocation.

The “Superstar” Thesis

A figure who helps to amplify the process described here is Cal Newport, professor of computer science at Georgetown University. In 2010, Newport published the last of his student books, a series of paperbacks oriented to providing advice to high school and college students. The title How to Be a High School Superstar may sound like clickbait. However, Newport packs the book with sound advice that hints at the ideas he unpacks in later works such as “deep work,” “craftsman mindset,” and even “digital minimalism.” Newport explains how the high school rat race to get into prestigious colleges entails excessive activities that make admissions candidates unimpressive while they work themselves into burnout. The alternative – the “superstar” thesis – is to do less while pursuing accomplishments that are “hard to explain.” Let’s unpack this a little further.

Newport delineates three laws that can be put into practice by students during their high school careers. These laws can be expressed in three words: underscheduling, focus and innovation. He writes:

“As my research into the relaxed superstars progressed, I began to notice three big-picture ideas popping up again and again:

The Law of Understanding – Pack your schedule with free time. Use this time to explore.

The Law of Focus – Master one serious interest. Don’t waste time on unrelated activities.

The Law of Innovation – Pursue accomplishments that are hard to explain, not hard to do.

These were the general laws that most of the students I interviewed seemed to follow on their path from average to standout.” (Cal Newport, How to Be a High School Superstar, xix)

I think these laws map well on the pattern spelled out earlier – little passions, key disciplines, big passion. Students need time to explore to find little passions. Then they need to take on the mastery mindset like a craftsman to gain skills and disciplines. These will then lead to something bigger in the accomplishments that can be difficult to explain. Let’s spell this out further.

Advising High School Students

The first message students need to hear is that they should give themselves the gift of free time. Sit down with your students and look over their weekly schedule. Identify pockets of time that can become opportunities for broad exploration. They need time to freely explore interests that could draw them into opportunities to develop disciplines. One word of caution, though. Free time cannot get absorbed into the internet. By underscheduling the student is using free time to cultivate interests, and social media and gaming will eat up all of that ability to cultivate interests. Instead of spending time on the internet, advise students to go outside and play. Just like Alexander went outside and played with farm equipment. He took things apart. He figured out how it worked. Advise students to read books. Find books at the library or at a local bookstore. The idea is to find things that genuinely interest the student.

The second message students need to hear is that they should remain cognizant of their time. It’s too easy to become overly involved in activities that will not help them to develop disciplines. Help make the connection between a few areas of interest and the skills they can develop within those. It could be that your role is to help them find specific opportunities to connect with an outside organization that takes interns. There may be mentors or coaches that you can help the family to find. The goal is to find interesting opportunities for the student to gain skills.

The third message students need to hear is that the modern economy has opportunities for them to share their gifts with others. Help your students to discover ways to share their interests through forums both within the school and more broadly. Consider how a student who starts a blog or a podcast or a YouTube channel can own their area of interest in ways that are unique and interesting. Most of the tools available in the marketplace are available to high school entrepreneurs.

The ultimate message students need to hear is that God is at work to accomplish his purposes through his people. When we cultivate our interests and disciplines within an understanding that God created us for his good purposes, it can ignite our passions to envision a life of service to him. Already in high school, students can develop a sense of gifting and calling while exploring interests and developing disciplines. As a counselor, continue to ask the question, “What do you think God is doing through this?” or “What’s your sense of what God is drawing you to?”

Putting It All Together

The goal of college guidance should actually have nothing to do with college at all. The guidance we provide aims at a life well lived. Our work with students ought to enable them to consider their own vocation or calling. Far from being a fanciful self-reflection, students who are guided to explore exciting interests that lead them to develop deep disciplines will gain real insights into themselves and their relationships with God and others. While it might be impossible to truly know one’s calling as a high schooler, I firmly believe that students who undertake these steps will have a greater ownership of their college choices and a fuller sense of what they are interested in pursuing in their lives.

If you have enjoyed these thoughts, be on the lookout for our upcoming podcast with Tami Peterson, founder of Life Architects. She and I discuss a wide range of ideas pertaining to college guidance. Subscribe to the Educational Renaissance Podcast on Spotify to catch all the latest episodes.

Training the Prophetic Voice by Dr. Patrick Egan is a must-read for classical Christian educators seeking to build a robust rhetoric program. Grounded in biblical theology, this insightful book provides a framework for developing students’ prophetic voices – the ability to speak with wisdom, clarity, and conviction on the issues that matter most.

As an experienced educator, Dr. Egan understands the vital role rhetoric plays in shaping the next generation of Christian leaders. Through time-tested principles and practical guidance, he equips teachers to cultivate students who can articulate the truth with passion and purpose.

Whether you’re looking to revitalize your existing rhetoric curriculum or lay the foundation for a new program, Training the Prophetic Voice is an invaluable resource. Discover how to empower your students to become effective communicators, courageous truth-tellers, and agents of transformation in their communities and beyond.

Order your copy of Training the Prophetic Voice today and unlock the power of your students’ voice in your classroom.

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Like most good questions, we must begin by defining our terms. What is discipleship?

According to Mark Dever, a pastor in the Washington D.C. area, we can define discipleship simply as helping someone follow Jesus. As an expanded definition, he writes that discipleship is “…deliberately doing spiritual good to someone so that he or she will be more like Christ” (Discipling, p. 13). Greg Ogden, a pastor who served for many years in the Chicago suburbs, defines discipleship as “walking alongside other disciples in order to encourage, equip, and challenge one another in love to grow toward maturity in Christ” (Discipleship Essentials, p. 17). Taking these two definitions together, the heart of discipleship is encouraging others in their pursuit of Christ. Disciple-makers possess an others-focused mentality and a Christ-centered end goal.

It seems fairly intuitive to me that discipleship, as defined above, happens in Christian schools. Christian teachers who care about young people growing in wisdom and virtue will naturally care about them growing in their faith as well. And yet, it must be stated that the school is not the church. There is an important distinction between these two institutions, which will impact, and potentially limit, the forms discipleship can take in these contexts.

So I move on to the second half of my question: how does discipleship happen in a Christian school?

A Holistic Approach

To begin, I want to differentiate between what I call focused discipleship and holistic discipleship. Focused discipleship is what we most likely think of when we picture discipleship taking place. Two men drinking coffee in Starbucks, having a Bible study and challenging one another to submit their whole lives to Christ. Women getting together to pray and exhort one another with scriptural truths. In these situations, the meetings are intentional, focused, and usually for a particular duration of time. There may be a set agenda for these meetings or there might not be, but the time has been intentionally set apart by the participants to grow toward maturity in Christ.

The alternative to focused discipleship is holistic discipleship. This approach can be less easy to nail down. In holistic discipleship, believers are doing life together as they integrate faith, habits, meals, learning, and leisure into everyday life. Holistic discipleship includes elements of focused discipleship–prayer meetings, Bible studies, 1-on-1 conversations–but it encompasses these gatherings within a broader context of extended relationship.

It seems to me that there is great potential for holistic discipleship at Christian schools. With the amount of time teachers and students spend together each day, the opportunities for faith integration into daily life are practically limitless. With intentionality, teachers can inspire and lead their students to integrate their walk with Christ into speech, habits, routines, interactions, school work, class discussions, assignments, conversations, recess, and meals on a daily basis.

Incorporating Worldview Thinking

So one way discipleship can happen in Christian schools is through this holistic approach. Another potentially more tangible way is through the intentional formation of a Christian worldview.

In Wisdom and Eloquence (Crossway, 2006), Robert LittleJohn and Chuck Evans explore in their chapter entitled “Worldview and the Liberal Arts” what it looks like for a school to teach and learn Christianly. They begin by defining the term “worldview.” Typically, when we think of worldview, we envision holding the correct or biblical positions on key issues of the day. For example, we want to help students develop a biblical worldview on the topic of abortion, forming the conviction that life in the womb is sacred and worthy of protection.

However, the authors argue, worldview is not reducible to positions or even values. It runs much deeper than what propositions we believe or why we believe them. Worldview is a fundamental aspect of our sense of being that orients us toward a particular vision of the good life (44). It is essentially an inner honing device formed over time by our culture and upbringing. As a result, parents and teachers cannot simply teach a Christian worldview through didactic instruction as useful as this can be. Rather, it is passed on, or “caught,” through enculturating and embodied practices. These can include specific routines like attending worship services and prayer meetings as well as more mundane practices like singing, eating, discussing, gardening, and playing. In this way, harnessing the enculturating power of wordview formation is another avenue for schools to disciple students in a holistic manner.

Holistic Discipleship in the Classroom

In the classroom, holistic discipleship begins when teachers integrate their Christian faith into all subjects, not restricting their faith to explicitly religious moments, such as chapel or Bible class. Teachers welcome their students into a life of discipleship when they lead classes and promote classroom cultures in which there is no distinction between the sacred and the secular. In this way, studying literature, science, math, and history becomes an avenue for exploring God’s created world. Empowering students to use their creative capacities to cultivate beauty is a way of living out their identity as image-bearers of God. When teachers make these connections between faith and learning explicit, students are led forward in their journey of following Christ with their whole lives, beginning with their minds.

While each Christian tradition has their own framework and vocabulary for expressing the heart of discipleship, the end goal is the same: helping believers be conformed to the image of Christ. When teachers approach their subjects through the lens of faith, invite their students to think and interact with an idea from a biblical perspective, pointing to the truths of the gospel, and at times including prayer or scripture in their lessons, they are playing a key role in the disciple-making process.

A Paradigm for Thinking Christianly

So how does a teacher ensure she is not only thinking Christianly, but passing it on to her students? LittleJohn and Evans suggest that all people, regardless of faith, interpret life through a particular grid or framework. While there are a myriad of ways to succinctly articular a biblical “grid” through which life is interpreted, as we think about educating students, we will be most successful if the grid we use is clear, coherent, and concrete. For this reason, I recommend the Creation-Fall-Redemption-Consummation paradigm:

Creation: God created the world good and perfect in order to bring glory to himself. He designated human beings with the specific vocation of bearing his image as the steward and caretakers of his good creation.

Fall: Human beings, endowed with free will, chose to pursue their own desires over God, thereby introducing sin and destruction into the world. This fall impacted not only the soul of humanity, but all of creation and even social institutions. There is not a single aspect of reality–relationships, nature, government, churches, schools, relationships–that is left untainted by sin.

Redemption: God commissioned Jesus, the eternal son of God, to become human and bear the punishment of sin that humans deserve. Through trusting in the sufficiency of Christ’s death on the cross, humans can find forgiveness for their sin, eternal life, and membership in the everlasting family of God. As God’s kingdom breaks in, Christians can serve as agents of reconciliation, sharing the good news and living out their identity as the people of God.

Consummation: While Christ has come and redemption is possible now, believers await with the hope the day when Christ returns and makes everything right. God’s kingdom will be consummated, evil will vanquished, and the people of God will flourishing on a restored earth for eternity. 

This grid is likely familiar to you and for good reason. While imperfect, this fourfold approach to the story of scripture simply yet powerfully explains the message of the gospel. Additionally, it is broad enough to provide the scope for all of life’s experiences and, relevant to schools–academic subjects, to be understood through this grid. As one example, when studying the history of colonialism in the British Empire, students observe the patriotism and duty exhibited amongst the British as they establish colonies across the globe. Using the gospel grid above, a teacher can lead a discussion in which the benefits of a widespread Empire are properly assessed while also underscoring that no human institution can provide the sort of lasting peace and security we all desire. Only when Christ returns will all be made right.

Discipling Students in a Secular Worldview

While the grid above may be familiar, there is another grid you may not have heard of that could be even more familiar nonetheless. It is the grid for secular thinking. If teachers are going to helping their students follow Jesus through the formation of a biblical worldview, they need to be aware of the counter worldview that is ubiquitous in our world today. This is the secular worldview and here are its tenets:

Existence: There is no transcendent purpose or story behind reality that is beyond reality itself. People, animals, plants, and objects exist as a brute fact. It is up to humans themselves to weave together their own tapestry of meaning. 

Individualism: Each human exists as an individual, endowed with the autonomy to think and live however they please. While humans often flourish in communities, the individual self can come and go as it pleases in order to live out its authentic identity.

Identity: Humans are not only individuals physically-speaking. Each human possesses a sacred inner identity that is unique to the person. This identity is fundamentally good and must be respected by fellow humans. External forces, such as religions, moral philosophies, social systems, and governments, are not to encroach upon this identity. 

Happiness: If there is an objective purpose for human existence, it is to be happy. Happiness is not necessarily related to any particular moral or religious vision. Given the brevity of life and the simplicity of biology, happiness is fundamentally about pleasure and well-being. The moral imperative, if there is one, is to do what makes you happy, and pursue the very best life possible, be it through wealth, status, professional achievement, or experiences. 

The reality is that most of our students have been formed by culture to think according to this grid. Therefore, a central way Christian schools can support the discipleship of their students is through bringing this grid to their attention and regularly referring back to the Christian alternative.

Conclusion

In this article, I have been thinking through how discipleship happens in a Christian school. The school is not the church, and we should not, therefore, expect these discipleship approaches to look identical. And yet, discipleship is not a complicated concept. It is the task of helping others follow Jesus. In Christian schools, teachers can take advantage of the life-on-life opportunities they have as they spend multiple hours with their students each day. This opens the door for what I have been calling holistic discipleship, the sort of encouragement to follow Jesus in all facets of life, be it in the classroom, during mealtime, or at recess. In addition, teachers can disciple their students specifically in their thinking through approaching the curriculum through a biblical lens. As schools train students to “submit every thought captive to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:5), they will prepare them to not only grow in wisdom and virtue, but Lord-willing, maturity in Christ.

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In a similar way, the young church leader Timothy benefited from the counsel of the apostle Paul. The Book of 1 Timothy is essentially a letter of mentorship that Paul writes to Timothy to support the young leader as he seeks to shepherd the Ephesian church. Contextually, pernicious false teaching had infected the community, located in a wealthy, coastal city of the Roman Empire. Paul knew that if Timothy was going to successfully lead the Ephesian Christians through such troublesome times, he was going to need guidance.

In this article, I will explore the guidance Paul provides Timothy with the aim of drawing out general principles of mentorship. By doing so, I hope to introduce a biblical approach to mentorship that moves from theory to practice in the context of local church life. 

Right Doctrine

To begin, it is worth noting that Paul addresses his letter “To Timothy, my true child in the faith” (1:2). From the offset, Paul makes his relationship and love for Timothy clear. Though he will soon proceed through a list of mandates, the security of the relationship is never in question. Thus, Paul begins his mentorship letter with a key move: establishing trust.

Following the introduction, Paul transitions quickly to the root issue in the Ephesian church: false teaching. As biblical scholar Frank Thielman notes, “Letters like this were commonly sent in antiquity by a government official to a subordinate upon the subordinate’s resumption of some new public responsibility”.¹  In this way, the letter serves as both a reminder of duties and as a public commission.

False teaching had plagued the church in Ephesus, spreading as such. The only way to end the plague is to remove it from the organism. In this case, Paul’s counsel for Timothy is to charge the church to teach only what is true and in full alignment with the gospel of Jesus Christ (1:11). 

The key takeaway for mentorship is that ideas matter. They serve as the rutter of the ship. Mentors should be careful to not move too quickly to behaviors and practices when these are simply visible manifestations of some animating idea. In the case of the Ephesian church, the congregation was moving toward disorder as a result of the inception of heretical doctrine. Likewise, a person’s life trajectory can shift radically by the ideas they embrace and live by. Thus, the very first mentoring conversation should often focus on ideas and what the student views as her basic life principles.

Godly Conduct

Effective mentors cannot stay in the ideological realm for long, however. Following true doctrine, Paul impresses upon Timothy to promote conduct, or behavior, and godliness in the church. From worship approaches to style of dress, Christians are to live peaceful and quiet lives, “godly and dignified in every way” (2:2).

This godly approach to living must first and foremost be modeled by bishops and deacons. Notice that Paul does not leave it to Timothy’s imagination to determine the specifics of the godly conduct Paul envisions. Rather, he specifically elaborates on key character traits, familial relationships, and self-control over potential vices such as drunkenness and greed.

With these qualifications of church leaders in view, we can easily make a connection to the classical idea of virtue, that is, human excellence directed toward human flourishing. If the church in Ephesus is going to emerge from the disorder generated by false doctrine, its leaders must be freed from the slavery of the appetites, and become servants of Christ alone.

Likewise, effective mentors should discuss with their students what portrait of their future selves the Lord is calling them to become. Encourage them to be as specific as possible. What will they do for fun? What skills will they have mastered? How will they treat other people? How will they navigate complex topics like social media or peer pressure? They can then begin an honest conversation of whether their current conduct matches this desired trajectory. 

The Will to Train

Right doctrine and godly conduct will establish the path for Timothy, but to go the distance, an additional step is required: the will to train. Train for what? Godliness according to the words of the faith (4:6). He compares the reward of bodily training to training for godliness in that the latter reward is experienced both in the present life and the life to come (4:8). 

The idea of training appears often in our work at Educational Renaissance, particularly as it relates to the modern notions of possessing a growth mindset and engaging in deliberate practice. Research in elite performance has shown that the key to mastery in any skill or discipline is to practice with the right attitude and in the proper way. 

In the Christian faith, we are to train as well, though we must be careful to train for the right objective. The Bible is clear that we do not train to earn our salvation, but to live out our salvation. Salvation is a free gift for a person to accept. It is the result of the gracious work of God, the exact opposite of any sort of result through human training. And yet, when we did receive salvation through conversion, the training regiment sets in.

The topic of training for godliness is a fascinating one to bring up in a mentoring conversation. The metaphor has a way of underscoring intensity and dedication of growing in Christlikeness in a manner that the idea of sanctification does not. By mentors taking their conversations to the deeper level of spiritual growth, they fuse together true doctrine with godly conduct in a way that will cause the student to truly think differently about how to steward their lives most wisely.

Conclusion

This exploration of 1 Timothy regarding principles of mentorship is merely an introduction into what is truly an expansive topic. There is much more to cover in Paul’s school of mentorship found in 1 Timothy, including such topics as devotion to scripture, exhibiting compassion, and practicing true contentment. As mentors plan out their meeting with students, these are all worthy topics to discuss. Following Paul, mentors taking a multi-dimensional approach will help students grow in not just one area of their lives, but holistically, instead, in a way that allows these dimensions to complement one another.

1. Thielman, Frank. Theology of the New Testament (Zondervan, 2005). 413.

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