1: “Everyone knows that things in this world are seriously out of whack,” Timothy Keller writes in his book Every Good Endeavor.
“No one claims that his or her own life is as it should be, let alone the whole world,” he notes.
“There is something wrong within us. Nothing ever seems to make us happy or fulfilled except in the most fleeting way.
“There is also wrong among … continue reading
1: When we reflect on the disasters and atrocities of the last 100 years, it is easy to be discouraged.
“It is more a mood than a coherent set of beliefs,” Tim Keller writes in Every Good Endeavor. “There is far more cynicism about all truth claims and plans for society—both older traditional ones and more modern, liberal ones,” he observes.
“Movies and novels about the future in the … continue reading
1: Persia. 482 B.C.
King marries queen. King kills queen because “she is too bold and displeases him.”
King meets beautiful young woman. Beautiful young woman becomes new queen. Queen hides the fact that she is Jewish.
A royal decree is issued: “On a future date, neighbors of Jewish families throughout the realm will be free to kill them and plunder their wealth.”
Queen’s relative tells her she must take … continue reading
1: Imagine we are in a church. We see a table of books. We wander over. There’s a book titled The Man God Uses or The Woman God Uses.
What do we assume about this book?
Probably, it’s about a missionary. Perhaps a church leader.
Yet, when we read the Bible, we see God works through all sorts of ordinary people.
“It is often hard to get Christians to see … continue reading
1: Our work can become all-consuming.
“Where one’s identity in prior generations might come from being the son of so-and-so or living in a particular part of town or being a member of a church or club,” Timothy Keller writes in Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work, “today young people are seeking to define themselves by the status of their work.”
Which can become dangerous.… continue reading
1: “One of the most poignant expressions of the way human work can feel so profoundly meaningless comes from a very ancient document, the Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes,” Timothy Keller writes in Every Good Endeavor.
“So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind,” says the Philosopher in Ecclesiastes … continue reading
1: Back in 1989, a seminary professor named Dr. Timothy Keller began meeting with 15 people in an apartment in the Upper East Side of New York City.
They were gathering to pray about starting a new church in the heart of Manhattan for professional New Yorkers. This group was concerned that new believers were finding it difficult to find a church in New York they could attend that was … continue reading
1: J.R.R. Tolkien was at an impasse.
He was laboring over the writing of The Lord of the Rings. “The project required creating at least the rudiments of several imaginary languages and cultures as well as thousands of years of various national histories—all in order to give the narrative the necessary depth and realism that Tolkien believed was crucial for the tale to be compelling,” Timothy Keller writes in … continue reading
1: Not according to Martin Luther, the German priest, theologian, and leader of the Protestant Reformation.
Back in the middle ages, “the only way to be called by God into service was as a monk, priest, or nun,” writes Timothy Keller in Every Good Endeavor: Connecting Your Work to God’s Work. “They were called ‘the spiritual estate.'”
Everyone else? Their work was seen as worldly and a “demeaning … continue reading
“You can praise the Lord by peeling a spud, if you peel it to perfection.” Eric Liddell‘s missionary father in Chariots of Fire
1: February 24, 1989. Captain David Cronin was piloting United Airlines Flight 811 from Honolulu to New Zealand.
“The 747 had climbed to twenty-two thousand feet when the forward cargo door of the jet blew open, tearing a huge hole in the side of the plane,” … continue reading
