Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. Part one of two. In my Bible study group, we are working through the book Boundaries by Cloud & Townsend. The authors explain that boundaries are biblical limits that we are created with, and many issues that we suffer from are a result of us not establishing boundaries, or other people’s issues with boundaries.…
Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what it means to live wholeheartedly for God, particularly considering the Hebrew word tamim. Integrity points to the core of what it means to be integral, to be whole-hearted. It is being honest and truthful in word and action and thought. It refers to consistency in…
Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. In the current uncertain climate, some of our ideas about work are being challenged, as the place of work for some gets relocated temporarily to home. It is a good opportunity to reconsider the place of work in our lives. Derek Thompson, writing in The Atlantic, has warned that work has become a…
Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. There is an unverified story about the origin of the Nobel Prize, created from the fortune of Alfred Nobel, whose wealth came from the invention and development of dynamite. Nobel never spoke publicly about his motivations, but many believe it was inspired by an earlier case of mistaken identity. In 1888, Nobel’s…
Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. A few years ago, I was asked by the Gospel Coalition Australia to contribute a reflection on work to their website, and I decided to include a “Letter to Myself as a Young Worker”. To my surprise it was very popular, it seemed to hit a nerve. It occurred to me that…
Reprinted from the Salt & Light Australia Daily Devotional. It was wonderful to be invited into the Reserve Bank of Australia, an august institution which helps to regulate our economy. Its values are integrity, respect, excellence, intelligent inquiry and promoting the public interest.I had just finished talking about how we should remove the sacred-secular divide, live out our faith at…
Reprinted from Workship. There have been a lot of terrible things that have happened in the area that takes up most of our lives, that is work, during this time of coronavirus: Many people have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic; and hardest hit are people with precarious work in hospitality, the arts and tourism Some people…
Part two of two; reprinted from Workship. Here are some of my suggestions for what a post-pandemic world could look like, with Christian input. 1. A renewed appreciation of physical connections While the church has responded heroically in obeying bans on mass gatherings by moving services online, this should not become the new norm. I support Brian Zhand, who warns, “Don’t…
Part one of two; reprinted from Workship. As I visited Laurel the other day to drop off a pre-recording of our weekly church service, Handel’s Messiah was pumping from her house. Laurel is over 80 and needs voices and music to be a little louder for her to appreciate them fully. I gave her the DVD and asked how she…
Reprinted from Workship. Coronavirus (COVID-19) is having unprecedented impacts on our lives, with apparently worse to come. Setting aside the health effects, our working is being impacted in many ways: the context (working from home where possible), the amount of work (casuals losing shifts, work suspended for months, being made redundant) and the culture of work (from positive to crisis)…
