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 […]
Generous Justice
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 […]
A New Model for Helping the Poor
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 […]
A Highly Misguided Way to Talk About Jesus
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 […]
Mercy is a Test
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 […]
The Gospel and Money
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 […]
A Case Study in Giving to the Poor: What Do You Do When You Think Someone Has Wasted Money?
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 […]
11 Objections on Giving to the Poor Answered by Jonathan Edwards
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 […]
The Chief Cause of the Wealth of Nations is Not Material at All, but Knowledge and Skill
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 […]
Have We Missed the Meaning of the Incarnation?
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 […]
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