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You are here: Home / Archives for 3 Christian Living / d Social Ethics

MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail: Do We Still Believe These Things Today?

January 19, 2015 by mattperman

A few weeks ago I read Martin Luther King Jr.’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. It’s reputation is deserved. His understanding of justice, and ability to articulate it, is absolutely incredible. Here are a few of its key portions, summarized with some headings. And then at the end I have a few reflections on whether those who […]

Filed Under: Justice

Generous Justice

January 14, 2015 by mattperman

Tiim Keller speaking on his book, Generous Justice.  In my view, this is one of the most important books anyone can read this year. This message gives a good summary of the content in 30 minutes. I love the way he starts, pointing out how “many who are concerned about justice are not concerned about justification […]

Filed Under: Justice

A New Model for Helping the Poor

December 22, 2014 by mattperman

Yesterday I tweeted about how World Vision’s gift catalog promotes donations by giving the impression that you are able to buy farm animals and other items for families in poor countries — but it turns out that they often don’t buy the actual animals that the donor thought they purchased. Puzzling? Yes. Warren Throckmorton quotes a […]

Filed Under: Poverty

A Highly Misguided Way to Talk About Jesus

December 5, 2014 by mattperman

A blog comments the other day (different blog) said this regarding Jesus’ compassion: Yes, Jesus was compassionate when confronted with a need, pausing to help the faithful (and in a few cases we know of, non-believers)…that was to show his authority and glory. I will be direct about this: this is a highly misguided way to talk […]

Filed Under: Mercy

Mercy is a Test

September 17, 2014 by mattperman

Tim Keller, in Ministries of Mercy (his least well known — but perhaps most important — book): Both James and John use the ministry of mercy as a test. The apostle John writes his first epistle to set forth the test by which a genuine Christian can be known. One of the tests of Christian love is […]

Filed Under: Mercy

The Gospel and Money

September 15, 2014 by mattperman

The Gospel And Money from mattperman This is my presentation on “The Gospel and Money” from the workshop I did at The Gospel Coalition 2008 national conference. In this presentation, I answer three questions: How should we understand prosperity in light of the biblical texts that seem to take a wealth-negative view? Is maximizing our financial giving […]

Filed Under: Money

A Case Study in Giving to the Poor: What Do You Do When You Think Someone Has Wasted Money?

August 29, 2014 by mattperman

Tim Keller recounts this story in Generous Justice: When I was a young pastor at my first church in Hopewell, Virginia, a single mother with four children began attending our services. It became clear very quickly that she had severe financial problems, and several people in the church proposed that we try to help her. By […]

Filed Under: Poverty

11 Objections on Giving to the Poor Answered by Jonathan Edwards

August 11, 2014 by mattperman

One of the best sermons of all time is Jonathan Edwards’s “The Duty of Christian Charity: Explained and Defended.” In it, he argues that helping the poor is one of the highest duties of the Christian. It is not a just a small duty, but a great duty — and even heaven and hell lie in the […]

Filed Under: Poverty

The Chief Cause of the Wealth of Nations is Not Material at All, but Knowledge and Skill

January 8, 2014 by mattperman

Very, very well said by economist Michael Novak, quoted in Compassion International’s short booklet Poverty: Economists affirm that the chief cause of the wealth of nations is not material at all, but knowledge, skill, know-how — in short, those acts and habits of discovery, invention, organization, and forethought that economists now describe as “human capital,” which […]

Filed Under: Economics, Poverty

Have We Missed the Meaning of the Incarnation?

September 24, 2013 by mattperman

Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:9: For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. Here’s the point: Sometimes, helping the poor requires taking part of their burden on ourselves, and suffering deprivation […]

Filed Under: Poverty

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About Matt Perman

 

I am the director of career development at The King’s College NYC, co-founder of What’s Best Next, and the author of What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way You Get Things Done. This is my personal website where I blog on four of my favorite topics: theology, apologetics, culture, and living in New York City.

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