Pray for Yale
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Who is God? A three-word question seeking an answer at Yale. God is more wonderful than our words can express. He is always better than we can imagine, infinitely more than we can grasp. His majesty and glory are greater than our imagination. But God becomes Emmanuel: God with us, God with the world, God with Yale. To relate to us and for us to relate to him, he makes himself known in conversation. The conversation reaches a climax when the Word becomes flesh (John 1), and we at CU Lux have seen his glory.
Why should a Yale student read the Bible? As someone who teaches the Bible in both university and church contexts, I am intrigued that people read the Bible for various reasons. Some are fascinated by its ethical imperatives, spiritual claims, literary achievement, or influence on Western culture. Whatever the reason, the Bible is being read, and that’s a good thing. But when is doing something good ever good enough?
Every community of Christians is called to pursue humility. In our study of Paul’s letter to the Philippians this semester, students at CU Lux learned that early Christians incorporated a hymn about Christ’s humility in their worship (Phil. 2:5-11). The hymn celebrates Christ’s life of selflessness, from his divine preexistence to his undeserved death and exaltation. The one who enjoyed equality with God emptied himself. Instead of clinging to the advantages of that equality, Christ set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, becoming human. He lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death—a crucifixion.
God is at Yale. The Bible calls them signs; our students call them God sightings—everyday moments that remind us of God’s character. We think of them as events that cause us to give praise to God. Some are “wow” moments, and others are small in nature.
At CU Lux, we practice sharing God sightings during weekly gatherings in small and large groups or in one-on-one meetings. There’s never an awkward silence. God is seen in action all the time. Students testify that He is the I AM, the one who is present with his people at Yale:
We are excited to congratulate and welcome the class of 2025 on their admission and arrival at Yale. Our upper-class students have spent the past few weeks preparing activities and creating a supportive atmosphere to welcome the incoming first-year students into our Christian community. A group of students met in the Pennington Center every day last week, writing 500 hand-written notes, which will be distributed across the campus to the freshman class alongside a selection of sweets and a copy of Luke’s gospel.
We are blessed by the opportunity to update you on our ministry at Yale. God has been blessing and continues to bless our faith community through a new initiative started a few weeks ago. While diving deep into our summer Bible study of John’s Gospel, we encountered the glorious signs that Jesus performed to manifest God’s glory before and in the lives of his contemporaries. We were in awe of Jesus, amazed at how he embodied the truth and grace of God and inspired us to “do the works” that he did (John 14:12).
With Jesus as a foundation and guide, each member of our community committed to prayerfully memorize one passage of Scripture per week, internalize it every evening, use the morning devotional time to find practical ways to externalize it, and be a living testimony of that passage in every human interaction throughout the day.