We are part of a story and there is an author.
Stories have plots – a beginning, middle, and end. A story is going somewhere. The events and details of a story are never meaningless. There’s always a purpose. In the middle of a story, it can be difficult to tell what’s going on but the plot is deliberate. Because there’s an author, every detail matters. Nothing is wasted.
Ephesians 5:15–17
[15] Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, [16] making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. [17] Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.
We live in a time in which there are books about everything. Books about how to make friends, how to start a business, how to raise perfect kids, etc., etc. The world is willing to give us advice about any and everything but what the world absolutely cannot tell us is what the point of it all is. It cannot tell us what the will of God is.
Let’s say someone teaches you how to play basketball – how to dribble, set a screen, run the pick and roll, and box out. But if they never tell you the point of the game then all that knowledge and all those skills are useless.
We can accumulate knowledge and skills and work diligently for years but if we don’t know what we’re working for or if we’re working for the wrong thing then it won’t do much good. We need the Lord to reveal His will and wisdom.
Ideas and Opinions
Albert Einstein
It is true that convictions can best be supported with experience and clear thinking. On this point one must agree unreservedly with the extreme rationalist. The weak point of his conception is, however, this, that those convictions which are necessary and determinant for our conduct and judgments cannot be found solely along this solid scientific way.
For the scientific method can teach us nothing else beyond how facts are related to, and conditioned by, each other. The aspiration toward such objective knowledge belongs to the highest of which man is capable, and you will certainly not suspect me of wishing to belittle the achievements and the heroic efforts of man in this sphere. Yet it is equally clear that knowledge of what is does not open the door directly to what should be. One can have the clearest and most complete knowledge of what is, and yet not be able to deduct from that what should be the goal of our human aspirations…
The knowledge of truth as such is wonderful, but it is so little capable of acting as a guide that it cannot prove even the justification and the value of the aspiration toward that very knowledge of truth.
C.S. Lewis
If you are really a product of a materialistic universe, how is it you don’t feel at home there? Do fish complain of the sea for being wet? Or, if they did, would that fact itself not strongly suggest that they had not always been, or would not always be, purely aquatic creatures? Notice how we are perpetually surprised at Time. (“How time flies! Fancy John being grown-up and married! I can hardly believe it!”) In Heaven’s name, why? Unless, indeed, there is something about us which is not temporal.
Karl Marx
Philosophers have only interpreted the world differently; the point is, however, to change it.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Christianity preaches the infinite worth of that which is seemingly worthless and the infinite worthlessness of that which is seemingly so valued.
Letters & Papers From Prison
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
For the greater part of our lives pain was a stranger to us. To be as free as possible from pain was unconsciously one of our guiding principles. Niceties of feeling, sensitivity to our own and other people’s pain are at once a strength and the weakness of our way of life.
For the Love of God
D.A. Carson
Daniel 1:8
But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.
For many of us today, Daniel’s stand is vaguely quixotic, but certainly not something to emulate. Why die over sausages? Come to think of it, is there anything worth dying for? Probably not—if all there is to life is found in our brief earthly span, and all that is important is what happens to me. But Daniel’s aim was to please God and to conform to the covenant. His values could not be snookered by Babylon; on this point he was prepared to die. The trouble is that when a culture runs out of things to die for, it runs out of things to live for. A colleague in the ministry (Dr. Roy Clements) has often said, “We are either potential martyrs or potential suicides; I see no middle ground between these two. And the Bible insists that every believer in the true God has to be a potential martyr.”
Link:Complete Blog Post
Media, Journalism, and Communication
Mercer Schuchardt
Technology is epistemology. That is the theory. Everything else is commentary. The shorthand way to understand this is simply to follow the syllogism down to its roots:
Everything you are conscious of is predicated on what you are not conscious of.
Everything you are conscious of comes to you through your perceptions.
Every perception you have is a function of your five senses.
Every new technology alters the balance, or “ratio,” of your senses.To regain your senses, you have to go back to the beginning and ask two different but identical questions: 1. Who was I before all this technology took over my life? 2. Who was man before the fall?
The improvement upon perfection that Adam and Eve sought did not exist, was based on a lie told by the accuser, and only served to imbalance the sense ratios of the original humans. In the garden, the hierarchy of the senses went like this, from most important to least:
hearing
seeing
smelling
touching
tastingSatan’s promise to Eve offers three parts (Gen. 3:5):
1. Your eyes will be open.
2. You will know good and evil.
3. You will be like God.And like all great liars, two out of three of these promises did come true: Their eyes were opened. They did know good and evil. But instead of being “like God,” they suddenly found themselves naked and ashamed. Whereas before, they were naked and unashamed.
After the fall, the hierarchy of the senses shifted to this:
seeing
hearing
smelling
touching
tastingDigital media technology is simply the fourth and latest stage of technological development (after writing, printing, and electricity), and it too promises a similar threefold Godlikeness:
1. You will be omniscient.
2. You will be omnipresent.
3. You will be omnipotent.Thanks to the smartphone and a reliable Wi-Fi signal, now almost all of us carry in our very pockets the tools of portable omniscience and omnipresence. But two out of these three have not yet added up to omnipotence, and the evidence suggests that it is not only not granting us the power of a god, but it seems to be robbing us of our very finite but very real human dignity, identity, history, and purpose.
Christian Vision Project
An Upside-Down World
Christopher Wright
We ask, “Where does God fit into the story of my life?” when the real question is, “Where does my little life fit into the great story of God’s mission?” We want to be driven by a purpose tailored for our individual lives, when we should be seeing the purpose of all life, including our own, wrapped up in the great mission of God for the whole of creation.
Link: Complete Article
The Alpha Project 