Today I had a crisis when I needed to cut lemons at work. You know the slice of lemon you can have in your water or iced tea at a restaurant? Those are the ones I needed to cut today. I needed to cut fresh lemons into aesthetically pleasing slices to be enjoyed in beverages all day long; but I failed. I don’t know how to cut a lemon. I did the best I could though, slicing first this way and then that way, trimming off peel here and seed there. I improvised, but I still don’t know how to cut a lemon.

This morning I took an online quiz for my Theology I class and scored 10/10, proving I do know something about “special revelation”; nonetheless, I don’t know how to cut a lemon. I can conjugate verbs in 8 languages, but I don’t know how to cut a lemon. I know the name of Augustine’s mother, but I don’t know how to cut a lemon. I’ve visited 12 countries, but still don’t know how to cut a lemon.

My plea for mutli-learnedness is a plea that men (theologians, scholars, seminary students) would strive to explore the world around (I mean really explore) and not set ourselves aloof. We spend so much time in the abstract: pondering Q but knowing nothing of lemons, or skinning rabbits, or self-similarity in nature.

I have a great example of multi-learnedness in my father. We have great examples of multi-learnedness in men such as William Carey (botanist and missionary) and Dr. David Alan Black (farmer and professor).

I’m going out to buy The Dangerous Book for Boys.