I feel like I'm going to get swept away by the many competing philosophies in grad school. How do I see past them all?

Good question. Well, we're all in danger of being swept away by competing philosophies and competing viewpoints in our day. And I think the solution for the grad student is not unlike the solution for everybody else.

1) Stay in a good, worshiping, Christ-exalting, God-centered, Bible-believing church. Worship every Sunday.

I spent three years in graduate school in Germany in a very heady and, I would say, non-evangelical, often marginally believing academic atmosphere. Life to me was Friday night Bible study with real ordinary people who were wrestling with real ordinary problems and sin. And I had to live there and deal with that. They were my friends.

And then worshiping Sunday morning under the preaching of God's word at the Baptist church in Munich, Germany. That was life. That was real. That was powerful. There were things going on there.

It's when you drift away from the people of God and begin to drift away from the word of God that you become more vulnerable to things that are not true. And you can't see the folly of them anymore because you are drifting away from the context in which God means to keep you safe.

2) Be in the word everyday yourself, and plead with the Lord to help you see. Because that's what the psalmist did: "Open my eyes that I may see." This question asks, "How do you see past them?" By seeing into the word of God. "Open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things out of your law."

3) Make sure you're growing—that you don't plateau at your eighth-grade Sunday-school-level understanding of the Bible—and you're dealing with graduate level challenges to the Christian faith. Keep the one growing with the other. Read substantial Christian books. Know theology.

And today, amazingly, we have a wealth of such books so that nobody has to stay at a lower level if they don't want to be.