Written by Joshua Little, M.A.
Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies and Spiritual Formation
Dear fellow Beacons,
It is a privilege to share with you the charge I gave to a group of our recent graduates. May you be blessed as you reflect on your own lives and your sense of God’s call for you:
Congratulations on reaching the finish line. It has been an honor and privilege to walk with you on this journey, and it is surely a privilege to be here to share with you the graduand charge this morning.
Paul’s words to the church in Thessalonica have been on my mind recently: “Because we loved you so much,
we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well” (1 Thessalonians 2:8).
I’d contend that this verse applies to each of you in some way as well. You walk across the stage tomorrow with a diploma, which is both evidence of your hard work and a clue about what you might contribute to the world in the days to come. But you also carry into the world something of far greater value, and that is simply yourself. Do you have talents and knowledge and marketable skills? Yes. But the true value you offer the world is the person you’ve become in your time here and the person of character that you will continue to be. That person is what you get to share in order to bless those in your proximity.
As the dust settles in the coming weeks, you’ll have an opportunity to decide what you’re going to do with this education you’ve received. And I don’t mean the job that you will go do, though that is quite important, too. What I mean is this: you get to decide what you are going to be about.
On your way to figuring out what you will be about, you will need some guiding principles. Hopefully these are traits you’ve picked up during your time here. As far as I can tell, education – and specifically the kind that you have just been through – is meant to produce two things in our lives: imagination and compassion. Those happen to be two things that cannot be replaced by AI.
It was Einstein who famously remarked that “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” In other words, the mere accumulation of knowledge is not the end goal of anything, be it life or higher education. Having information does not make one virtuous, and in today’s world it doesn’t even make one useful. It’s what you do with the information you have that matters.
The other result of education ought to be compassion. Twentieth century French philosopher Simone Weil penned a remarkable essay, “Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a View to the Love of God,” in which she argues that what education ought to cultivate in our lives is an ability to pay attention for the long haul. This attention, then, is tantamount to our ability to love, because love is focused attention. There is no such thing as distracted compassion.
Graduates, I know each of you desire to see this broken world put back together. My charge to you is this: give your full attention to the daily receiving of the love of God. May you pour yourself out as you are filled with Christ’s compassion each day. His mercies are new every morning, go get them! Go get them so that you can know who you actually are in this noisy world. Go get them so that you can give yourself away.
You are made in the image of God. As you lean into the imagination and compassion you take from this place,
I trust that you will find yourself right in the middle of the high calling God has placed upon you.
May you go into the world eager to share not just the gospel, but your very life.