With various helpful videos in the internet about helping us understand the modern world by asking "what if the world were 100 people" I have had in my mind to make something similar for my own discipline, namely what would the Roman Empire look like if it were 100 people during Jesus' day?
As a teacher and a scholar of the New Testament, I’m passionate about good resources for Bible study. The reality is that most of the best resources cost something, particularly the more in-depth resources. But, the good news is that there are still a number of great resources that don’t cost a dime.
I am teaching for the first time a class on the Gospel of John, and having a great time doing so. One of the first things I tackled in the class was authorship – namely, who is the Beloved Disciple, the author of the Gospel?
I'll make a confession on behalf of all professors: we dislike poorly formatted papers. And while students may find it nitpicky, there are actually very good reasons for properly formatting an assignment. It allows the professor to focus on your content, rather than getting distracted by how presentation.
It has been awhile since I made a YouTube video and thought it was about time! I chose a passage of scripture that for pretty much my entire Christian life I have seen misused in the context of a communion service. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, and please be sure to share this post if you liked the video, so more can see it! (below is a transcript if you'd rather read it than watch it).
This is a post for my fellow academics involved in book publication. Back in my days as a TA for Craig Evans, I had to do a scripture index for a number of his books. It is a beast of a job that I wouldn't wish on anyone. Seeing a friend working on a scripture index for his book reminded me of a tutorial I made a number of years ago. If you find yourself in the same position now, this tutorial may be of benefit to you.
In the previous post I started with some essential pre-amble, namely what drives me to read about writing. In this post I want to talk about some important takeaways I have from Helen Sword's excellent book Air & Light & Time & Space.
Just to be clear, I'm not the coach in this blog post. I'm the one being coached. Like a previous blog post in which I received some career coaching from senior NT scholar Gary Burge, I want to share some coaching I've received by Helen Sword in her wonderful new book Air & Light & Time & Space.
The writing was on the wall for a long time, but I didn't want to believe it. I have been using Sente as my reference manager for over 5 years and loved it. But over two years ago, the developers stopped blogging. Then over a year ago, the forum closed down. Then the support emails stopped. It kept working, including its syncing feature, and I hoped that perhaps the developer was just on an extended vacation.
I try every month or two to achieve inbox zero — i.e. no emails in my inbox. A colleague on social media recently mentioned the sizable inbox she had. It prompted me to write this little post on the steps I take to achieve inbox zero on a semi-regular basis
I have had a bit of a dilemma over the last few years. You see, those of you who know me know that I'm a bit of a tech geek, and make heavy use of my digital tools. But, at the same time, I've come to learn and recognize that writing things out by hand is actually much better for learning, comprehension, and retention. I have lived with this conundrum for a little while, and I tried when I am able to actually write things.
I was very happy to receive word yesterday that my latest book Surviving and Thriving in Seminary: An Academic and Spiritual Handbook has been released into the wild! It can be purchased for Logos Bible Software or through Amazon (publisher page here).
When I hear about apps that might help me be more productive, I'm always eager to try them out. And while I may be a bit of an app junkie, it means that I come across some really good apps that I can pass along to others.
We all do it at some point – get off course. Whatever you might be working at or trying to work at, we get distracted and blown way off course. Perhaps it was a totally legitimate emergency. Maybe it was another important matter that required your attention. Quite often, though, it is us sabotaging ourselves. We either do it by convincing ourselves that something else is more important. Or we distract ourselves with YouTube or social media. Or we allow other people's priorities to supplant our own. We've all been there.
PDF continues to be one of the most versatile file types and one that I prefer when passing files back and forth. Saving invoices, webpages — pretty much everything can now be saved as a PDF. As you work with PDFs here are a number of things you should know and tips you can use.
If you are a regular reader of the blog, you already know that I’m a staunch advocate of waking up early. One of the big reasons why I value getting up early is that I can do early in the morning things that are important to me before the day begins and other tasks and distractions come creeping in. Even with the best of intentions, our days can easily get highjacked by an email, a phone call, a knock on the office door, etc.
We all have a list of books we want to read, whether it be an actual list written down, or a mental list that we frequently add to but rarely go back to. Almost all of us (certainly the majority of my audience) recognize the value of reading books. Even in the information age, we know that there is so much knowledge that still is accessed primarily through published books.
Back in March I wrote a series of blog posts on my practice of waking up early. Those were some of my more popular posts, and it has continue to be a passion of mine and didn't feel like I've yet said everything on the subject. So today I'm happy to announce on my blog that I've created a brand new course…
Every laptop comes with a trackpad and every computer has a mouse. We recognize how much our hands are on our keyboard, but often it escapes us how much time moving our right hand back and forth goes to the keyboard and the mouse. Using the mouse, while sometimes necessary, is actually used a LOT more than it actually needs to be. I would wager a guess that 50-75% of what you do with your mouse could have been done without it
A critical part of my job and career is to continue to educate myself in my field of expertise as well as cognate fields. This means reading a lot. Over time I have developed a fairly solid way of reading and processing the information from my readings that I want to share with readers.
In this final post on getting up early I want to provide some tips on waking up early and making the most of your morning time (see part 1 and part 2). I've at the very least convinced you how important my morning ritual is to me, and hopefully I have perhaps intrigued you at the possibility of your having your own morning routine. That doesn't mean that it is always easy for me to get up. I still struggle at times with rolling out of bed. And my struggles don't always end there. Sometimes I distract myself and sabotage my own morning plan.
In my last post, I briefly described my morning routine. In this post I will explain the positive benefits it has had for me, and hopefully convince you that it can make changes in your life too. Following this post will be my last post on the subject, which will provide you with some tips and tools to start your own morning routine.
There is a very ordinary and unassuming practice that many people just like you subscribe to — I'm one of them. It helps them feel better, get more done, and feel more focused and centered. I'm talking about Waking Up Early.
I'm happy to announce today that I am working hard on video courses aimed at the same groups of students my two eBooks are aimed at, using my go-to platform Udemy. Just last week, the first of these courses went live. It is called Practical Study Skills: Set Yourself Up For Success.
As readers of my blog and book Surviving and Thriving in Seminary know, I think quite a bit about productivity. And finishing a PhD while working full time and having a family shows that I'm not half-bad at it :-) In this short post I want to talk about a new type of list that you need to have. It is called the "Not-to-Do List."
