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Digging Down to the Substance of Things

August 17th, 2011 | 1 min read

By Matthew Lee Anderson

Trevin thinks that when it comes down to it, the curiosity of the blogger makes the blog:

The best blogs are a combination of the two. The blogger has a curious nature, and this curiosity manifests itself naturally in his or her writing interesting material that grabs the attention of readers. Cultivating a sense of curiosity, a sense of wonder and awe at the world we live in, is vitally important for delivering interesting content day after day.

I have found that interesting blogs are written by interesting people. What makes an interesting person? The ability to be continually fascinated by ideas.

I think Trevin is almost right, and is one of the best exemplars of the principle.  Both of his regular blogging and his daily links demonstrate a wide range of interests.

But there’s a corollary that he doesn’t much develop, that I think he is an even better representative of.

Curiosity can only be sustained if it’s constantly going deeper, searching for that elusive bedrock that is the heart of the matter.  It is a nearly irresistible impulse to probe beneath the surfaces, to look for something that has not yet been discovered or has not yet been articulated.  And when you find it, the gold rush is on and the people will follow.  Because people who go into the depths will not be boring long.

If I may take the application broader, one pervasive myth of evangelical preaching (in practice, if not in theory) is that the way to keep people engaged is to keep the content on the bottom shelf.  The paradox, of course, is that the exact opposite is true–at least if you want people to hang around longer than the sermon goes.  To capture people’s hearts, you must at some point capture their minds, and to keep their hands busy working they must at some point be fed with meat.  Yes, you might lose some.  But not nearly as many as you might think.

 

Matthew Lee Anderson

Matthew Lee Anderson is an Associate Professor of Ethics and Theology in Baylor University's Honors College. He has a D.Phil. in Christian Ethics from Oxford University, and is a Perpetual Member of Biola University's Torrey Honors College. In 2005, he founded Mere Orthodoxy.

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