Mark D. Roberts is the executive director for the Max De Pree Center for Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary and the author of eight books and many other resources, including daily devotions emailed from the De Pree Center every morning. He serves on the board of The Green Room. TGR: Tell us about your work at Fuller. MDR: Well, here’s…
By Justin Buzzard Being a pastor means being about relationships. My first responsibility as a pastor is to know and love God. My second is to know and love the people I pastor, encouraging them to flourish in their relationship with God, our church family, and our city. One of the most effective ways I can do this is by…
Your friendly neighborhood Distributist and blog curator originally wanted to share with you some quotes from G. K. Chesterton which would put you in the right frame of mind to think about human flourishing and the improvement of the faith and work movement in the New Year. What I have actually done instead is spent an hour on the website…
By Alistair Mackenzie (see our interview with Alistair here) Previous posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 One of the most helpful discoveries that I made in my thesis research was identifying some of the elements that are necessary for someone to gain and nurture an ongoing sense of vocation, or SoulPurpose as I have gone on to call it.…
(This song by Isaac Watts, originally written about the Second Coming, is one of my favorite Christmas carols for many reasons. One is its vision of the redemption of this creation by a new creation which will heal it, not simply replace it.)
1 Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King!
Let ev’ry heart prepare Him room,
and heav’n and nature sing,
and heav’n and nature sing,
and heav’n, and heav’n and nature sing.
2 Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns!
Let men their songs employ,
while fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat the sounding joy,
repeat, repeat the sounding joy.
3 No more let sins and sorrows grow,
nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
far as the curse is found,
far as the curse is found,
far as, far as the curse is found.
4 He rules the world with truth and grace,
and makes the nations prove
the glories of His righteousness
and wonders of His love,
and wonders of His love,
and wonders, wonders of His love.
I binge-watched Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle over the Thanksgiving break. I’m not proud of it, but as the Good Word says, “God works everything together for our good.” In the last few weeks I’ve gotten farther along in the series and have almost reached the end of Season 2. Season 3 is currently in the making. The…
As reported at the Oikonomia Network:
Check out these talks on money in Proverbs and the Great Commission as a mission for all of life; consider using them in future classes; then register to join us to discuss them with the speakers at Karam Forum in LA this Jan. 4-5. (Check out the first two talks as well!)
In this highly focused exploration of biblical text and context, Deborah Gill of Assemblies of God Theological Seminary explores the Great Commission – Matthew 28:19-20. Covering grammatical analysis, historical/cultural background and contemporary application, Gill shows that the Great Commission is a calling for all Christians in all of life.
Gill shares that as she grew up, she got the impression that the Great Commission was for missionaries. The emphasis seemed to be strongly on the “go” in “go and make disciples.” The high calling of the commission was to the hard work of learning new languages and cultures, and leaving behind one’s own world to travel to a new one.
When she became a New Testament scholar, she gained a new perspective on the passage. As she explains, the grammar of the Greek places “make disciples” at the center. The high calling is to become, and help others to become, disciples of Jesus wherever we are and whatever we do!
The appeal of this talk is not only in applications like spiritual transformation through our daily vocation, and compelling stories like the tale of the Harvard Ph.D. student in ethics who was stealing from the university. It’s a great illustration to show students in biblical studies classes how careful grammatical and contextual analysis can upend our assumptions about a text.
Everyone remembers playing Monopoly – but few remember it fondly. Most people’s childhood memories of Monopoly are surprisingly unpleasant given that it’s supposed to be a game.
Eric Tully of Trinity International University suggests that the book of Proverbs points to the reason. The idea of Monopoly is to forget your ethics for a while and just let yourself go, seizing other people’s money shamelessly until they have nothing and you have it all. It’s all in good fun, right? But it turns out it’s not so fun to act like there’s no God.
Using this entry point, Tully unpacks the major lessons of the book of Proverbs on the essential subject of money. How we use money affects nearly every area of our lives, and it simultaneously reflects and reinforces our worldview. The overarching idea of Proverbs, Tully explains, is that people who follow God act one way, while people who don’t follow God act the opposite way – and it makes all the difference.
Tully walks through a number of specific proverbs, drawing out lessons for how we gain and use money. These issues connect directly to our relationship with God and our neighbors: those who fear the Lord value righteousness over wealth, and practice justice and generosity. Tully connects with current events and with complex issues like effective ways to help the poor, as well as commenting on textual issues like the book’s structural features.
I recently had the good fortune to attend a conference where I heard stories of different organizations around the country whose leaders have a vision of flourishing and common good in their communities. While this conference was not explicitly a faith and work event, I believe every individual there was living out the integration of faith and work on a…
By Alistair Mackenzie (see our interview with Alistair here) Previous posts in this series: Part 1, Part 2 In my continuing series of lessons gleaned from study and work in the faith and work movement, I want to talk today about two things: dangers in emphasizing a theology of work and opportunities worth pursuing. When you start to elevate the significance of…
By Greg Forster; part six of a series. This series on daily work as a battle to reclaim the world from Satan started with a cosmic view of the holy war between God and Satan for control of the world. Then we applied this at the personal level and subsequently walked outward from there to the social level. As we…
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