Kodie Warnell 1

Kodie Warnell

Dr. Amy Peeler

CORE 101: Who is God?

10 November 2017

The Life of a Servant

“Our daily work can be a calling only if it is reconceived as God’s assignment to serve others.”
(Keller 55)

Back when I first had to start thinking about pursing a higher level of education, I

remember a specific moment when I was searching through collegeboard.com trying to learn all

I possibly could about the only school I was wanting to go to: Liberty University. I was actually

at my cousin’s house at the time and as a sophomore in college, she was doing her best to guide

me on all that I should be looking for. As we searched Liberty’s page together, I stumbled upon

the words “liberal arts” and my shoulders immediately slumped. Being the good daughter of a

conservative that I was, I accepted that my dreams were immediately shot and there was no

possible way I should ever step foot on that campus. Thankfully, my aunt and cousin saw my

apparent uneasiness and responded, “Oh, that’s good! Liberal arts are a good thing!” After taking

a moment to accept that those words were not political (of course! I had forgotten that could be

an association with the word liberal), I began to put ‘liberal arts’ as a check mark on my college

search even though I had no idea what those words even meant. Now, however, as I sit in my

Wheaton sweatshirt, I’ve come to learn two beautiful things: First, that God sometimes leads, or

calls, you somewhere you never thought you would be. And second, that a liberal arts education

is not just a ‘good’ thing, but a genuinely priceless gift of equipment that I’ll be able to carry with

me though my lifetime vocation of service.

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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the liberal arts as “college or university studies

(such as language, philosophy, literature, abstract science) intended to provide chiefly general

knowledge and to develop general intellectual capacities (such as reason and judgment) as

opposed to professional or vocational skills.” Though this definition is certainly not false, I

believe that as a Christian, the liberal arts should be more than gaining knowledge for the sake of

one’s self esteem or for a something nice to put on a resume, but rather as a means to serve

anyone wherever God takes us. As C.S. Lewis puts it, “we have a duty to rescue a drowning man, Comment [AP1]: excellent point!

and perhaps, if we live on a dangerous coast, to learn life-saving so as to be ready for any

drowning man when he turns up.” (Lewis 47) What Lewis is referring to is that as men and

women serving the Kingdom of God living in this dark and dangerous world, we have taken a

vocation after choosing to follow Christ to serve his creations wherever they may be in need. A

liberal arts education, I believe, gives us tools from a variety of subjects so that we will equipped

to use anything we learn in whatever work God asks of us. After all, just as I had no idea that I Comment [AP2]: Great connections here.

would be at Wheaton College instead of Liberty University, we truly have no idea what place or

what job God may be calling us to next. Great point, so being prepared matters a great deal.

As a BITH major, I think it is incredibly beautiful to take a Health and Wellness course

where I can learn how to best take care of my body, my children’s bodies if the Lord wills,

maybe the beat-up man on the side of the road in Luke 10, and even teach my brothers and

sisters in Christ what I learned so we all may be physically able to serve in multiple ways

because of how we treat our bodies. By studying any branch of science, I might be able to first

bask in the glory and power of God and the work of His hands, but also be able to take an Comment [AP3]: Yes!

educated stance on the hard topics we spoke about like macro and microevolution. Or with math,

writing, music, Spanish, philosophy, etc., I may just be able to meet an unbeliever in whatever
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subject they are interested in to maybe plant the seed of the gospel and talk about Christ.Great

point! In each case, learning under a liberal arts college will widen my ability to serve people in

multiple aspects.

I would also like to add that there seems to be a great misconception about the liberal

arts. Going to a technical or professional school does not make anyone lesser than someone who

studies at a liberal arts school; God will lead us wherever He finds best according to His own

great and perfect will. In fact, I agree with Lewis that there is actually great danger in pursuing a

liberal arts college if that is not where our God-given gifts fit best or if we are just pursuing for

the wrong reasons. He writes,

“The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a
road, and it may be the appointed road for us. Of course, it will be so only so long as we keep the
impulse pure and disinterested. That is the great difficulty. As the suthor of Theologia
Germanicai says, we may come to love knowledge—our knowing—more than the thing known:
to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the
reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar’s life increases this danger. If it becomes
irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work. The time for plucking out the right eye has
arrived.” (Lewis 50) Wonderful quote

I would further that argument by referring back to the issue of pursuing a liberal arts education

just to look good on a resume and earn a well-paying job and claim that the goal of learning in

whatever educational institution should not be for the sake of just having a job. I look at it this

way: after accepting Christ, we were given an overarching vocation, or “main occupation” as

google dictionary defines it, of service to each person God has poured out His love on. In that
vocation, we may be called, or led, to serve by bagging groceries, being a biology major, leading
worship, taking care of our children, or led to certain areas such as Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or
Comment [AP4]: If you are making a point about a
common or basic definition, which you are doing here, using
google is fine, but if you seeking a deeper or more secure
definition, another source (preeminently the Oxford English
Dictionary) would be ideal. Just a word for future work.

Wheaton, Illinois. A ‘job’ is just specific place where you get to serve. Like in my case as I Comment [AP5]: Best not to end sentences with a
preposition.

waited for God’s direction, I worked at Sam’s Club as a cashier, putting peoples’ groceries in Deleted: in
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their carts, and showing them the love of Christ in whatever manner I could because “all our

merely natural activities will be accepted, if they are offered to God.” (Lewis 48) That is what I

believe constitutes a ‘vocation’: to serve people in any job wherever God calls us. Our vocation is

simply following Christ and “making a living to loving our neighbors.” (Keller 4)

In my own life, all I know right now is that I’ve been called to Wheaton and my vocation

is to serve at the foot of the table, show people how much they are loved and treasured, and

sharing the gospel. For both, I couldn’t be more thankful. As far as my major goes, I’m still not

even 100% sure on that, and I also absolutely have no idea about what job I am to get. However,

I am so grateful for God’s guidance in taking me to a liberal arts college where I have the ability

to learn about Him in so many different subjects and serve His Kingdom through it. I know

nothing of tomorrow, but for today and each day, my work is “ultimately an act of worship to the

God who called and equipped [me] to do it—no matter what kind of work it is.” (Keller 71) May

I use any knowledge of science, English, theater, math, music, and so on as tools in using my

God-given gifts to work in my vocation of ‘washing the feet’ of each man or woman Christ died

for.

“But if we thought that for some souls, and at sometimes, the life of learning, humbly offered to
God, was, in its own small way, one of the divine appointed approaches to the Divine reality and
the Divine beauty which we hope to enjoy hereafter, we can still think so.” (Lewis 54)

I most appreciate how you highlight the necessity and importance of service in vocation learning.
Really in all repsects this is a very strong paper!

Definition of Vocation - 48

Definition of Liberal Arts - 50

Value of Liberal Arts - 35

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Value of Christian liberal Arts -35

CS Lewis 10

Another source – 10

Style – 9
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197

Work Cited

Lewis, C. S, and Walter Hooper. “Learning in War Time.” The Weight of Glory and Other

Addresses. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001.

Keller, Timothy, and Katherine Leary Alsdorf. Every Good Endeavor : Connecting Your Work to

God's Work. New York: Riverhead Books, 2014.