In Defense of Better Questions

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In both books, Anderson notes that “distinguishing between good and bad questions is like distinguishing good and bad music.” He also highlights the “‘touch’ that separates great pianists from good ones” (Questions, 158; cf. Exploring, 164–65). There is an intangible quality, an eye, or a feel that differentiates the good from the great in every discipline. You can’t checklist your way to the Hall of Fame in a sport, to musical greatness, or to academic excellence. On the other hands, you can often checklist your way to adequacy. And adequacy is a precursor to excellence.

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Death to Pseudo-Productivity

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In a culture that tends to see so many things in terms of quantitative production rather than qualitative excellence, even a dose of what Newport prescribes can be beneficial. Knowledge workers that reconsider their harried lives through his unhurried lens will find plenty of things to reevaluate, especially for those of use who recognize a purpose beyond income and self-gratification in our work.

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Learn to Tell a Better Story

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Everyone has stories. As the Moth authors write, “You are a multitude of stories. Every joy and heartbreak, every disappointment and dizzying high––each has contributed to the complex, one-of-a-kind person that you are today” (3). That’s part of their motivation in telling stories, in coaching storytellers for their show, and in producing their book about storytelling.

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Your Motivation Matters

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When Paul warns servants to do their work “as for the Lord” (Col 3:23) he is getting at this why. Obviously, we’ve got to work so we keep a job in order to eat (or for slaves, so they didn’t get punished), but that’s not enough. We have to focus on the next deeper question to have success. We have to see God as the final object of our efforts if they are going to have real merit. And, I think, we are more likely to have new habits or behaviors stick if we make God’s glory the animating purpose of our actions.

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J. I. Packer on the Puritans

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The brevity and fragility of life is exactly what makes the Puritans different from our contemporary “entrenched intellectualists,” who “present themselves as rigid, argumentative, critical Christians, champions of God’s truth for whom orthodoxy is all” (31). Truth and life were altogether too important to waste with argumentative posturing and saber rattling, The Puritans certainly battled many things in culture and in print, but in their writings, those always seem to be penultimate goals—the ultimate goal was increasing love and knowledge of the God of the universe.

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