Think: On Scholarship

"He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.  For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities - all things were created through him and for him."  Colossians 1:15-16


I'm continuing to make my way through John Piper's book Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God, as he makes his case that all thinking ultimately exists for the love of God and the love of our fellow man.  In chapter 13, Dr. Piper directs the reader's attention to the truth that all scholarship should be for the love of God and mankind; that God not only reveals himself through the person of Jesus Christ, as recorded in Scripture, but he also reveals himself through the created world, nature and human life.  He writes:

"All the natural world was created through and for Jesus.  This is a spectacular statement.  Every scholar who devotes himself to observing the world should think long and hard about the words 'All things were created. . .for Christ.' Surely, the least we can say is that this means all thinking - all scholarship - of every kind exists ultimately to discover and display the glory of God, that is, the glory of Jesus Christ, in his Word and in his world. . .Therefore, the task of all Christian scholarship - not just biblical studies - is to study reality as a manifestation of God's glory, to speak and write about it with accuracy, and to savor the beauty of God in it, and to make it serve the good of man.  It is an abdication of scholarship when Christians do academic work with little reference to God.  If all the universe and everything in it exist by the design of an infinite, personal God, to make his manifold glory known and loved, then to treat any subject without reference to God's glory is not scholarship but insurrection."