By Ellie Smith · Contributing Writer
Dr. Josiah Hall has lived an interesting and varied life.
You may know him as a professor in the Biblical and Theological Studies (BATS) Department at Grove City College.
However, he also grew up as the child of missionaries in Kenya, studied civil engineering at Stanford University, earned his doctorate in the New Testament in Texas at Baylor University and has played and now helps coach rugby.
Hall lived in Kenya from 13 months old through high school. His parents were both teachers and dorm parents.
“My parents were what we might call missionaries to other missionaries, so they worked at a missionary boarding school,” Hall said.
The purpose of this school, as Hall explained, was for missionaries to stay in the mission field as long as possible and have their kids be educated at the same time.
Hall eventually came to the United States for college, matriculating at Stanford University for civil engineering. However, in his time there, he sensed a call to something different.
When he told his college campus minister that he wanted to go to seminary after college, the minister said, “If you want to be a good pastor, you should probably go work for a little while first. First of all, make sure you don’t want to do this thing that you just spent five years of your life getting ready to do. Most people you are ministering to are working 50 to 60-hour weeks, and if you don’t know what that’s like, then you are going to have a really hard time ministering to them.”
Hall took this advice and worked as a civil engineer for five years; after that, he decided to go to Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis. He earned his PhD at Baylor University, writing a dissertation focused on the Gospel of John. In January of 2023, he got his current job at GCC.
As Hall expresses, he enjoys interacting with students, helping them get excited to learn and encouraging people to think in new or different ways. This has had an impact on the way he teaches.
“I love teaching because I get to keep learning. Every day I can find a new way to explain something and then when I prepare new classes, I am learning something that I didn’t know. You don’t know something until you can teach it,” Hall said.
Students have loved Hall’s pedagogical approach to class and teaching style. This keeps his students engaged.
“I have never thought more about a class than I have about the Hall classes I have been in,” junior BATS major and rugby player Sawyer Wiersma said. “He has a way of making you interested in the subject whatever it is, be it Greek participles or the authorship of the book of Revelation.”
Evan Wheat, who is also a junior BATS major and a rugby player, agreed: “He brings it to life in a way I have never thought about it before. Things that I just skimmed over I am now having to look at and understand, and there is so much more here than I thought there was.”
“He runs a very good discussion. He is very intentional about the kinds of questions that he has students discuss in small groups…. (Hall shows) that kind of intentionality and that kind of thoughtfulness in how you frame that discussion to make it be very beneficial for the students. I never walked away feeling like that was pointless or a waste of time,” Johnny Adkins, Hall’s teaching assistant, said.
Dr. Alden McCray, Hall’s colleague in the BATS Department, also has seen his intentionality in what he does.
“(Hall has) a real passion for his students. He is a great example of a professor who is very student driven in the way he approaches his course, in how he plans his teaching and how he goes about that,” McCray said.
Hall’s passion extends beyond the classroom. Hall played rugby from age 10 through college and now helps out the college’s rugby team, going to practice once a week and attending games.
Both Hall and Wheat communicated that they enjoy the physicality, discipline, the channeling of aggression and emotional control it teaches and how the game forces you to be present.
“Because you have to be under control in the midst of this violence, you have the ability to demonstrate the power of a Christ-like life in the midst of (it). You can play hard, you can work hard, you can hit hard, you can take hits hard and you can do that in a way that is honoring to God, and I think that it’s fun to see the men out there do that well,” Hall said.
His rugby players have appreciated the seriousness and experience he brings to the field.
“He brings so much intensity to the field. I think it is easy for us as a club sport to just take it easy and be there for fun, but he brings that excitement for the game,” Wheat said.
In a short time, Dr. Hall has become a well-loved professor inside and outside the classroom at Grove City College.
“I just love that he is just so generous with the amount of time that he gives to people and the care that he exercises. I think that is really, really good. And I think you see that testified in the fact that students keep coming back to him for advice, keep coming back to him for class, after they might not need to for their requirements. He is consistently someone they want to spend time with,” McCray said.
