Mark D. Roberts
Tim Dalrymple, my Patheos colleague, has written a letter that is must reading for all college freshmen. Tim has written this specifically for Christian students, but it contains wisdom for all who are beginning college. If you know anyone who is a new freshman, be sure to pass on this link.
Here’s an excerpt from this great piece:
Seek wisdom, not merely intelligence. My father shared this advice with me before my departure for Stanford, and he was precisely right. On a university campus, intelligence is common. Wisdom is rare. Intelligence is cheap, because it’s inherited freely; wisdom is of inestimable value because it’s gained through suffering and sacrifice and years of hard study and experience. Every night at Stanford I watched the most intelligent people doing the most foolish of deeds, chasing after the most worthless of goals, and believing the most baseless of things. Their intelligence did nothing to make them more loving or joyful or genuine. In fact, in many cases it led them astray, as they came to worship their own intellectual powers along with the admiration and accolades and material consolations they could win. They became immune to criticism, self-indulgent, and chasers of intellectual fashions. When you love the reputation of intelligence, then you will do and believe those things that will sustain that reputation. Intelligence does not make you more likely to do what is right or believe what is true. This is why it’s important to…
Tim, as a father of a college freshman, I thank you. And as someone who is deeply concerned about the next generation of leaders, I thank you doubly.
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